Estima Won't start after reconnecting battery

[mffp51]

Toyota Estima 1996. Engine(3CTE) won't start.
Disconnected the Battery to work on the van (new clutch). Drove it up on vehicle ramps, rear wheels, for 24hrs. All engine behaviour till then perfectly good. Rolled it off and reconnected the Battery. Then would not start even after a lot of cranking. Battery holding up really well. Day1 post new clutch- Trolled all the blogs for hours looking for similar problem but no real joy. Learned lots about the engine and possible things to check for. Crawled under looking for possible electrical connectors/wires damaged or missed during the clutch replace but found all OK. Checked fuel (diesel) at input to fuel filter and output from filter found the hand pump on top of the fuel filter. Pumped up hard ok. Released fuel connector at input to the injector pump and able to pump fuel. Released all injector feeds and cranked the engine. Little weak spurts at each injector in sequence so all looked well. Still would not start. Battery on charge overnight. Checked all fuses pulled the glowplug relay and tested out OK. Noticed the glowplugs did not get supply during cranking but could not find what theshold engine temperature for this to be expected behaviour. Glowplug indicator did not even come on. Lots more cranking but no firing! I was pretty frustrated and disappointed by now. Into the second day of perseverence. Talked to son-in-law mechanic for a few things to try. Fiddled with the spill-valve relay in the internal fuse box but was too hard to actually remove it. 
Disconnected the plug for the spill valve relay and cranked for about 10 secs and kept cranking as I plugged it in and repeated once. During all this I had one cylinder fire just once, oh hope of hope. Just kept cranking. Decided to run the battery flat before throwing in the towel and calling a diesel mechanic. And what do know another cylinder fired once then 3 or 4 seconds later a second one then a plume of white smoke as she burst into life! I do not know which of all the things I did fixed the problem. Guessing a sticky valve or partial air block which I cleared. Maybe my hand pumping flooded the engine?  Any way thank you to all the people who have posted on the blogs with their stories that helped with my ordeal.

Michael, Hamilton New Zealand.

[flash22]

Pull the sender/suction tube from the tank and inspect the filter sock on the suction tube, then drain off and or replace the filter, you tilted the tank the water and sludge have settled at the lowest point

iirc its way too early to have an in tank lift pump

edit. Does the fuel cut solenoid work ?

Does the car have any codes stored ?

[mffp51]

Thanks For suggestions which have all been tried! No codes, fuel all good. Triple checked all circuits/fuses etc and temp thermistor. The weather is warm circa 25deg C. The only thing that gets it to start and then it really starts easily is, if I manually close the  glow plug contactor for 5 secs or more then whip round to the key and she starts straight away! 

Wire from ECU to the glow plug contactor tests out fine. 

[flash22]

So is the relay being triggered ?? Have you tested the relay

have you got the cap off the relay ?

28610-54360

 

what is the location of the relay you are touching

[mffp51]

Sorry I thought i had finished off this topic properly. @flash22 I was on the correct relay tested out fine and yes I had the cap off it . The ECU was not lighting up the glowplug indicator and not activating the rely either. Maybe my compression is down so hard to start? I don't think so as no excessive blow-by evident at the oil filler tube. I have wired a parallel feed to the relay coil from a pushbutton on the console. Fed via an in-line fuse from the accessories(radio) 12v. 

Result: Starts like a dream!