I’m glad to see it’s running well, Bill. I wonder what was done to stop the smoking. I knew it had to be something simple. It never smoked until I ran it out of fuel. I’m glad you are finding it useful. I had it 15 years and only started it about once a month. I never used it for power even once. Good Luck
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Just new fuel and loaded it down. I sure it can keep this up through the winter. I will get a backup 5K gas up and running just in case.
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Zeesh . . . you guys really trying to stretch my old brain to keep it alive and working, eh?
O.K Bill this is a 2-3-4 cylinder diesel engine.
MikeyB you said only white smoke after once running out of diesel fuel. Sigh. Lots of experiences with that on the three cylinder John Deere Yanmar tractor. If even one of the cylinder injector lines has any bit of air left inside that injector will open/inject Late and with an inadequate quantity of fuel in a poor spray pattern to give full heat/power in that cylinder. Why the white incompletely combusted diesel fuel smoke.
BillS, they bled out your injector lines too to restore to full power.
Best you get an manual download and set up with the line wrenches to be able to do this, needs-must.
Yep. Yep. Injector pump/governor linkages go-stiff sitting unused and bind. Need spray cleaning and all-temp re-lubrication.
In-use ALL cable controls will wear and stretch; need resetting for range. Replacing out for binding grooved binding wear. (bicycle tech)
Welcome now with this generator set; and your dump bed truck; to the wonderful wacky world of diesel engine ownership. Just think of the diesel smell as the smell of money! A diesel service mech’s joke.
Your goal it to try and spend out the least in repairs! ONLY your new field of study, understanding and dirty hands can do this.
Steve Unruh
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Steve just gave you some excellent advice. Bleeding the injectors is a very important ability. To add to what Steve said, there is a bleeder on the bottom of most water separators. Crack that open often to keep water out of your diesel. In your weather you can get quite a lot of condensate in your tank. And finally, DO NOT run out of diesel. Some engines aren’t to hard to get started again but some are are a real PITA. TomC
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You can get away from that diesel smell by running french fry grease. Dunno if it’s an imporvement.
Since you are new to diesel quirks, I should mention a quirk that I see now and then. If you start finding greenish-black blobs about the consistency of thin silicone adhesive, you have , algae. It’s best to clean the tank and buy an algaecide.
It is a whole new world when it comes to diesel fuel filters. The NEW thing is a filter element inside an inverted transparent bowl. Under normal use, the fuel level is about 1–11/2 inches above the base of the filter housing. As the filter gets more and more plugged up, the at-rest fuel level stays higher in the bowl. When it gets pretty high in the bowl, this indicated that the filter is dirty.
A lot of mechanics think there is a problem when most of the bowl is full of air rather than fuel. This save on un-necessary filter changes.
A good diesel engine will have a water filter like the WIX 24071. The trick to water filters is that they have a sacrificial anode in them to neutralize galvanic corrosion. You don’t change them when the filter gets dirty, you change them when the anode is gone. If you remote-mount a filter, you have to run a copper ground wire to it to make it work. The newer engines with a lot of electrical stuff seem to suffer more from galvanic corroision. The other thing that kills diesel engines is cavitation caused by the water pump. The bubbles eat up the wet-liners. Try to use a coolant that minimises cavitation. The design of water pump impellers is improving.
The older diesel engines will run on straight transmission fluid like Dexron. If you have a good source for drain oil, it would be worth your time to buy a “Simple Centrifuge” to clean up everything you find.
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<img src="/uploads/default/original/3X/6/2/623af562cbcbdf76e89226f766c5827553a0a2ab.jpg" width=“690”
Hi Bill…we must of been bringing our new toys home about the same time. Bought this truck on purple wave auction service. It was a Macon county Missouri (MO DOT) truck. The pump on it runs all the time driven off a short pto off from the crank shaft out to front mounted pump. First dump truck Ive ever had with AC and electric windows. We ought to go in the snow plowing business together…LOL I have removed the plows but left the front attachment points in place just in case. Removed all the side mounts to reduce empty weight.
Gary
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I can’t help but notice that the removable/replaceable scraping edge looks a lot like a big (dull) knife blade out of a chipper/planer. I’m wondering if that could be repurposed somehow…
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That’s a beauty Gary!
It looks like it was taken care of. I’m sure you got a better deal than I. I’ve been very happy with my purchase and working my truck. I’m really happy I paid for the dump option.
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The neighbor asked if I could use his rock screener or he had a buyer for it. I told him I could really use it to fix the road and would like to set it up. It had been sitting there for many years.
I couldn’t set it up for as high as it should be to work more effectively because all I have is a skid steer. But I have all the material I could ever use. Here’s a short video of my youngest Son giving it a try. I need to make some feet for it
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Rock on. Hope MSHA doesn’t show up to save you from yourself (at $1,000 a pop).
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This may not be a big deal to most but it is for me. This is the first reproduction under our watch here. Up to this point, I have purchased chicks and successfully raised them. This chick hatched from a dedicated hen in our coop.
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I’ve been screening and hauling dirt all week to make a level spot for the generator shed. I used some big rocks for a retaining wall. I got it leveled off today and put down styrofoam to give me a r value of 20 below the concrete. I bought 6" wire reinforcement mesh to tie the Pex tubing to. I will place a second layer of mesh spaced with rocks to hold it up to the middle. My question is, is there a trick to hold the form square while putting concrete in? Do I fill the outside of the form with dirt first to achieve this?
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Usually you hammer in 2x2 stakes every 4ft roughly approx 12"deep, level up your rim boards to them tack them in, cut off anything above the rim for easy screeding. Sometime I will backfill if My depth is too much like for a reinforced slab.
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Congrats - I have also just purchased chicks and raised them. But a friend of mine just got his hands on a nice incubator. So, we are going to try it that way.
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I have been wondering about insulating concrete slabs to make a “thermal mass.”
I wonder how long that stuff retains its insulation value?
I hear people complain about plastic lasting in landfills for millions of years, so maybe for a long time?
I was thinking of using biochar, since I know it really is supposed to last a long time.
Also, why all the effort to insulate the generator shed?
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Looking at the picture now my answer won’t work. In your case I would recommend 1/2" rebar instead on 2x2’s fastened with two nails bent over . My understanding is sm insulation is rated at 100 years if covered in soil and not exposed to light… that’s what they told us in trade school…
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Kyle, we had a mild winter last year and hit -25 a few times and a lot of below zero days. My batteries had ice forming in them. At that time until April, I had half the capacity of my batteries. My attempt here will be to install PEX at the bottom of my forms, 12" apart and use the diesel generator coolant to circulate through and warm up my concrete. I am building with 2"x6" walls to hold as much heat for as long as possible during our long winter.
I now understand why warm batteries are good and hot or cold batteries are bad. If the in floor heat doesn’t work well, I have a heat exchanger I can run under the batteries that will be raised off the floor.
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For that 6x6 reinforcing screen, I always lay it in and then as I pour cement I take a hay hook and give it a tug to get it up off the bottom but still part way under. TomC
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I will have 2 layers of 6x6 wire screen. The bottom layer is what I will zip tie the PEX to.
I do like the hay hook idea. Yes, I do have one.
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