Saturday, January 29, 2011

Diesels





What I have learned so far about diesel engines is that a twenty year old engine is better by far than a brand new one.

This is due to the fact that the older engine is beefier and and has more meat (mass) than the newer engines. It can be rebuilt ie: cylinder liners replaced. The newer models don't have cylinder liners.

The newer engines run at a higher speed (rpm) than their older cousins. Here is a not so well kept secret; the slower any mechanical system moves, the longer that mechanical system will last.

Think of an old one lung (a single cylinder) diesel, it chugs away at around 800 rpm, compare it to today's engines which run well over a thousand rpm. I can't give an exact figure here as different brands have different speeds. The slower engine has less stress therefore less wear than the faster running engines.

This trend for 'disposable' diesels comes from the desire for lighter engines. The older diesel is heavy, very heavy due to its thick, cast iron chassis, necessary for the high compression pressures required, the slower diesel need a heavy flywheel to allow the engine to continue rotating through three unpowered strokes until it gets to its power stroke. The newer engines have a very small flywheel due to the higher speeds carry the engine through the unpowered strokes.

The most important factor in a diesel is the fuel. The fact that the fuel injector ports are so small the can be clogged by the smallest particle. Clean fuel is paramount.

The first line of defense is your primary filter. This filter should have a glass bowl so you can see if there is water in the fuel, this filter should take the water out of the fuel. The bowl should have a drain cock on it to bleed out the water as per the black and white drawing.
I just previewed this and I don't like where Blogger has put the image. Does anyone know how to get Blogger to put the images where you want them?
I will publish more as I learn more.....Allan






4 comments:

One Fly said...

Good post. I have a number of Kubota diesels and they ran around 2800 or something like that. I'm just about to finish up after many years and hope to be able to say that I never had an engine failure.

Pictures
Go to design and click settings right to the left of it.

Almost all the way to the bottom to global settings and select updated editor.

The rest is easy. Select more than one at a time if you want or just one and when put on your blog click the picture for your options. It so easy now.

Questions get back.

Allan S said...

Thanks man, diesels and world politics AND website. Good to have you around. I am in the process of going through your archives....I even liked you "hate mail" section. Kudos on keeping the ego in check, btw, some of that hate mail could and should be illegal....Allan

One Fly said...

hate mail-Where what who?

you mean the mormon thing - their comments were pretty bad for big timers in the religion thing? I was pretty nasty and pissed 'em just about right. Been thinking it's about time to rile up that hornets nest again.

Comrade Misfit said...

As to the "move the picture" question:

In the editor, select the "Edit HTML" tab. You will then see a box with your post, with the photos shown as chunks of HTML code.

Cut out the code and paste it into the text of your post where you want the picture to appear.