[QUOTE=captjacksparrow;181010]I second the WD-40 suggestion. It’s just as volatile as the ether, plus you’re putting a little lightweight lube right where you need it on otherwise-dry metal parts to protect them and help get it all moving. I’ve used it successfully many times.[/QUOTE]
Diesels are simple. Make sure the jacket water is warm. Compression plus clean air plus clean fuel makes boom. Assuming no one has screwed with the timing and you have all the above it should go. Dirty secret. Gasoline on a rag in the intake makes boom and if the clean diesel is making it thru the injectors, mixing with the clean air on it’ll run. Only a whiff from the rag NO straight gasoline or we’ll read about you on the internet. Once it gets up and running, put a load on it which should help shake the cob webs out.
I’ve occasionally worked miracles directing a heat gun into the air intake. If you have one it your shop it’s worth a try too since it’s so easy. 1200F air into the intake can be rather helpful.
[QUOTE=c.captain;181002]it does have compression but perhaps not enough? This could be it but don’t have a compression tester yet…will need to get one[/QUOTE]
Hi,
The photo appears to show the genset is an old standby unit. Those things usually have a “hotstart” coolant heater fitted in the jacket water loop. It is powered off a relay in the control box and requires external 120V. Does yours have one? If it does, use it for a few hours to heat the block.
I used to use WD40 years ago but it seems that for the past 10 years or so it no longer works as a starting fluid because they changed the propellant to CO2 instead of the butane or whatever gas they used to use. I suppose if you flood the intake with enough of the oil that makes up WD40 it might help but it is no longer a starting fluid.
Hold off buying a compression tester until you have a couple of hours running time on the engine under load. If it starts easily then, it has enough compression. Who cares what the numbers are. The engine has probably sat unused for several years, right? Several valves were open and moisture reached a couple of cylinders through the inlet and exhaust. That creates a film of surface rust on the cylinders and rings and can have siezed several so they don’t seal. That lowers compression which makes combustion difficult but the cylinders and rings will clean themselves once you get it running and the white smoke will go away after a few minutes and should not reoccur on subsequent starts.
Right now, heating the block, using strong starting batteries, and a shot of starting fluid while cranking or a propane torch flame directed into the turbo inlet will almost certainly get you going. Resist the urge to start taking things apart or doing stuff that someone’s father or some guy at a bar said worked for a friend of his.
steamer my friend…by jove you are right! There is a plug in block heater in the other side of the engine which I have not used yet. Tomorrow I’ll plug her it and let her heat up for a day before trying to start her next on Tuesday.
could this just be diesel too cold to go? here is the otherside of the engine…at the very bottom is a pump I think to circ the heated coolant
[QUOTE=c.captain;181032]steamer my friend…by jove you are right! There is a plug in block heater in the other side of the engine which I have not used yet. Tomorrow I’ll plug her it and let her heat up for a day before trying to start her next on Tuesday.
could this just be diesel too cold to go?[/QUOTE]
I hadn’t thought of it that way till I read Steamers’ post but compression = heat. To some degree a lack of compression can be compensated for by adding heat from other sources. Maybe at least enough to get it started.
I would think that Once you get it started and beat the piss out of it for a while, in theory it should start easier in the future? Assuming all that’s wrong is some cobwebs from sitting a long time. Italian tuneup.
Look for a air flapper valve on the intake that may be shut.
also: tell us why you got a engine with 111 hrs. on it? how much? where? etc…(mechanical forensics!)
the new start fluid has top end lube and my detroits take a lot to get going… if you’re at 50 Deg. F. I’d think the only thing critical is a fuel supply and a good shot of the shit! //a quik look at the timing and fuel press would do a lot for you but i wonder why a 111 hr. engine is on the market?
[QUOTE=jimrr;181041]Look for a air flapper valve on the intake that may be shut.
also: tell us why you got a engine with 111 hrs. on it? how much? where? etc…(mechanical forensics!)
the new start fluid has top end lube and my detroits take a lot to get going… if you’re at 50 Deg. F. I’d think the only thing critical is a fuel supply and a good shot of the shit! //a quik look at the timing and fuel press would do a lot for you but i wonder why a 111 hr. engine is on the market?[/QUOTE]
it was the standby genset at a wastewater treatment plant in a small community here in the NW. I got the generator and all the related switchgear with my bid including a large GE Series 7700 motor control center
[QUOTE=c.captain;181032]here is the otherside of the engine…at the very bottom is a pump I think to circ the heated coolant
[/QUOTE]
Not a pump. That’s the immersion heater. The water just circulates by convection if you will. Should be two hose on the heater shell. One from like bottom of radiator and one going to block. Hot water rises out of the immersion heater into the block. Cooler water coming in the heater again. Natural circulation will a little time to heat the block thoroughly. It should/may have safety thermostat under the cover of the heater. If no joy with heat at first after you apply power (feel the side of the heater)then see if there is wee button under the cover to push and reset the thermal overload. Just don’t shock yo’self.
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Make that your science package load center on the new vessel. Otherwise might be some nice bus bars in there worth something.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;181036]I hadn’t thought of it that way till I read Steamers’ post but compression = heat. To some degree a lack of compression can be compensated for by adding heat from other sources. Maybe at least enough to get it started.[/QUOTE]
“To a degree” is correct. Not really “compensating” for poor compression. You need the heat of compression to ignite the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder. Heating the engine is a starting “aid”. It prevents the heat from being lost from the combustion chamber as fast to provide best ignition conditions. Depending how bad your compression issues are it won’t matter how hot the block is. Even a new engine could be hard to start when cold. Used to be a license question in the old days, maybe still is. Something like “what is the only allowable starting aid for an emergency generator?” Answer, jacket water heating.
[QUOTE=KPChief;181050]“To a degree” is correct. Not really “compensating” for poor compression. You need the heat of compression to ignite the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder. Heating the engine is a starting “aid”. It prevents the heat from being lost from the combustion chamber as fast to provide best ignition conditions. Depending how bad your compression issues are it won’t matter how hot the block is. Even a new engine could be hard to start when cold. Used to be a license question in the old days, maybe still is. Something like “what is the only allowable starting aid for an emergency generator?” Answer, jacket water heating.[/QUOTE]
I think you are arguing semantics here.
I’ve never taken the engine side license exam but I have been taking a course in how to buy and sell clapped-out equipment on Uncle Henry’s
Q. How do you sell a worn out diesel-powered piece of equipemnt for the highest possible price?
a. Have the equipment, including the engine, completely overhauled and reconditioned before you sell because it’s wrong to sell a fellow Mainer equipment under false pretenses.
b. Wait till the buyer shows up, then drag out your extension cords, your battery charger, your can of ether and your tool kit, maybe the wheelbarrow with the “good” batteries, plug everything in then chat with the buyer for a half hour while everything warms/charges up giving him time to spot the hydraulic and coolant leaks and then crank that POS for 10 minutes trying to get it started creating vast quantities of smoke, using longer and longer squirts of ether while the whole time explaining that it usually “starts right up”.
c. Find out what time the buyer plans on coming and use every trick in the book to get that thing started so it is fullly warmed up by the time the buyer arrives. That way it starts right up on the first try. Your doing the guy a favor, if he wants to buy and sell out of Uncle Henry’s he needs to learn to check to see if the engine was warmed up before it’s started.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;181058]I’ve never taken the engine side license exam but I have been taking a course in how to buy and sell clapped-out equipment on Uncle Henry’s[/QUOTE]
first you are taking the wrong course. You need to one I offer at C.Captain University where I teach how to find and identify prime equipment at all the various government auction sites and then how to bid competitively. If I wasn’t located in a remote corner of the nation, I could easily do a $150k plus income just on surplus but my problem is that all the best stuff is more than a thousand miles from me and the cost to acquire the equipment sucks up the profits. I am limited to a very narrow band of territory. Lockburne, Ohio is the best single location in the US for ex DoD surplus with many other bases and facilities in a day’s drive in any direction.
