You wanna talk Detroits? My buddy has two 8V71TI DD's in a 48' Hatteras, 1973. The original engines, never been overhauled. Hourmeters are both broke with over 4000hrs on them. You can still see crosshatching in the cylinder bores with a scope! They need injectors now but they still haul butt! Big ole' scavenging blower and two HUGE Airesearch turbos with big raw water intercoolers each. Really neat. RT

Here's how robust a diesel can be: at work two former spacecraft engineers are testing biodiesel fuels in a new engine hooked up to a hydraulic dyno. I giggle and thank the lord he invented the easy start John Deere every time I walk past that shop.

Amen to that! You're not using Autolite plugs, right? :)

What I might do is put in a cut-off switch so that the controller can cycle as normal, but I can cut power to the relay if the controller holds the plugs on for too long. I also want to put a cut-off switch in for the run solenoid on the injector pump and hide the switch, as an anti-theft measure... :)

RT, way cool :) I haven't had the opportunity to play with a turbo'ed -71 series yet...even the 12V-71's on the boats where I used to work (a tug/launch company) were naturally aspirated (still had the blower, of course, but no turbo)...

We recently had a fella turn a crane (Detroit v8 two stroke engine) over in a sludge pond at work. The only thing you could see was about 1' of the tires sticking up out of the sludge (the guy got out alive) and it is a big crane. The pond was pumped down to allow a bigger crane to lift it out of the pond and it was set upright on the bank. The mechanic removed the injectors to blow out the cylinders, changed the fluids, filled it with diesel and it started right up. It was running when it went over into the pond too. The guy that turned it over into the pond was VERY lucky.

Best one I heard I read in a Caterpillar book. Some bulldozers were left in the jungle after WWII. Many years later engineers went to find them. Put new batteries in them and they fired up! That diesel fuel was under 1600 psi and not a problem. Ernie

Screamin' Jimmys
 

Larry,
It was a liner o-ring causing the leak…that time. It was always something on that damned thing…

Yeah, those old 2-strokes are pretty interesting creatures. I think the thing I find so amazing is the variety of ways they can be configured to operate. For starters, I read in the books that came with that 4-53 that it could be set up to have the flywheel on either end and turn either direction. I’d imagine that any of the inline DDs could be done that way too.

I’ve also seen DD inlines set up to run with the cylinders near horizontal for low overhead applications.

I hated that boat but I always loved cranking that engine. It really sounded like something big was fixin' to happen…it would roll over and over and finally, about the time you thought that you’d toasted the battery, it would reluctantly start firing and run…puffing blue smoke rings out the stack and across the canal.

I wonder how many MILLION of those 4-53s and 6-71s have been built?

Cracker928, those Passat TDI's are a pretty nice car. (96-97)
They aren't terribly expensive, they're close to as big as a 300D and they get almost twice the fuel mileage. Unless you're talking about the new 132 HP Passat TDI that's coming soon. No telling what one of those would cost. You can buy an awful lot of fuel for the difference in a $2500 240D and a $30, 000 Passat.

Diesels sure are wonderful, if I get a new car is it going to be a diesel for sure. Either a W124, VW, or dodge ram 4x4 (one just turned a million miles not very long ago).

Anyway, last winter I had my 83 in front of the pole barn, 6" of snow on the ground and it was iced. So I put the benz in neutral and tried to push it out with my dad's 35hp (gasser) Massey Ferguson, amazingly something broke in the drivetrain (we theorize it was missing a cotter key and put a bad moment on it while pushing and snapped the collar clean off, I could push the benz by hand if need be). So next in the list was the john deere 25hp (gasser) with snow blower, the motor wouldn't turn. :-? So we let that one be, what was last? Case 580C Backhoe (diesel), fired right up with a little ether (sigh, no GPs) and ran like it was a nice summer day. :) I've probably ran that thing almost a thousand hours, it had 5400hrs on it when the gauge quit who knows how long ago. Gotta love diesels....

Can't let this one fade away
 

I really enjoyed reading this thread.

My grandma's Cadillac did the same thing after sitting for nearly three years.

Maybe Diesels aren't so amazing(!) as engines in general are amazing(!)

A few years back I used to run some truck-mounted soils drills. Most were gas powered, 4 cyl Ford Industrial and 6 cyl 3000 cid Ford Intrustrial. You basically ran the engine a little above idle and let the torque do all the work. NOT SO DETROITS--The one rig I had that was powered by a Detroit needed to run WOT to develop its power. Eight hours of listening to that screaming and I was ready to forget diesels forever. Thankfully, I found that not all diesels are like Detroits.

Here's a diesel story I was told:
Many years ago, up north, a mining company ordered a new, big dozer from down south, and it came by ship. Normally, a large load like this is transported from the ship to land by barge, but as the dozer was too heavy for the barge, they weren't sure what to do to get it to the land.
An old mechanic on board the ship has a solution. They attatched long pipes to the intake and exhaust, picked it up with chains or something, started it up, put it in gear, and lowered it into the water with the crane. When it hit bottom (25 ft or so), they let it go, and it chugged it's way up the shore to dry land. Someone jumps on it and shuts it off. I imagine they had to change all the fluids, however the story goes the tractor ran a long time after that.

I've wondered what they would have done it the dozer hit a big rock and wouldn't go any further.... :eek:

rear tires last... 4K miles "She'll Burn them off"
 

cracker928,

You will have to restrict her automotive news access Pronto!

Rumor has Mercedes bringing the E420 C.D.I. (Quad Cam,Twin Turbo,V-8, Direct
Injection Diesel) to North America.

My 220D sat for 18 years
 

Before I got it. I also turned it over by hand. It was a little stiff due to some rust haze in the cylinders as far as I could tell. The most suprizing thing to me was there was still pressure in the injector line I first unhooked to bleed out. So I put some fresh fuel in the tank. Some fresh cheep oil in the crankcase(I planned on running the engine about an hour and changing the oil again). And after about 8 seconds on the glow plugs. And 10 seconds of cranking. She fired up. Even though I didn't bleed the whole system. That old fuel in the lines reeked something awfull coming out the exhaust. But once she got to the fresh fuel,no problems. Love diesels.

a friend
 

used to own a concrete ready mix plant. his drivers on occasion would bring a truck back with a hole in t he crankcase and no oil. he said a jimmy was least likely to go on as if nothing happened, cummins was in the middle and usually a cat you could patch the pan fill the sump and go on as if nothing had happened.

he and the fellow who owns the large excavating co have a lot of interesting machinery stories.

the exc owner tells the story of the dump truk driver who forgot to put the bed down after unloading. he drove many miles that way, picking off power lines as he went along. and eventually had to keep down shifting because of the load of wire he was dragging. when he finally stopped it was because the front wheels were beginning to come off the ground. hmmmmmm he decided something might be wrong.

true story.

tom w