OBS 7.3 powerstroke glow plug relay on with engine running?

[scotts90ranger]

My '97 F350 is somewhat neglected, there's an idler pulley or two that are toast and I opened the hood on a cold start on Tuesday to investigate a new growling noise (as opposed to the normal squeak) that went away as soon as I opened the hood... Anyway, I looked around and noticed a little smoke coming from the glow plug relay main power contacts while it was running which I thought was weird... shut it down and unplugged the control wires (didn't know which did what so undid both small wires) and taped up. I did a little looking online and now I'm thinking this could be normal and maybe within a minute or two it would have turned the relay off... Thoughts?

 

[adsm08]

IIRC one the 7.3L the glow plugs are only on when the light is on.

On the later engines, the 6.0, 6.4, and 6.7 I know the computer will keep the glow plugs on after the engine is running for a little bit. I also know that if you jump start a 6.0 and disconnect your jumper cables before the glow plugs shut off you stall the engine.

 

[scotts90ranger]

It was 40* the other day and I needed the thing to run, needed glow plugs... I hooked the relay back up and good to go. I imagine the heat on the posts and smoke is from a bad part ($20 Amazon special I believe...), I'll keep running it until something comes up, but for now it's working...