Thread: Dangers of aerostart

that being the case spend the 20 minutes to sort the glow plugs and then thin the diesel down a little with a cupful of petrol. That way it wont be hard to start and can be seen as a "good starter".

Ether start systems are available on most large diesel engines ie truck & machinery for really cold climates.
Cat, Detroit, Cummins, Mercedes Benz I know have them and I believe Scania and Volvo also.
Haven't had a good look the setups but might have a geckos and put up some info from my Daimler technical website.

Cheers

Andrew

Originally Posted by LOVEMYRANGIE

Ether start systems are available on most large diesel engines ie truck & machinery for really cold climates.
Cat, Detroit, Cummins, Mercedes Benz I know have them and I believe Scania and Volvo also.
Haven't had a good look the setups but might have a geckos and put up some info from my Daimler technical website.

Cheers

Andrew

I have no experience with the newer Detroit four strokes, but the two strokes only ever needed starting aids in arctic conditions or when very, very, badly worn.

When I was an engineer on a P&O cruise ship, I saw a deck cadet try to start a 3cyl Armstrong Siddley diesel, but he put the aerostart in first. Afterwards we removed all the minor parts (fuel lift pump etc) for later use and the rest was scrap. He spent the next 4 weeks cutting 30, 1 inch thick blanks from a 6 inch bar, with a hacksaw. That was after the Chief Engineer told him how good he was.

Instead of Ether based sprays I've soaked a rag in Petrol and stretched it across the air intake hose. Not elegant, definitely dangerous but it worked on a frozen Diesel in the Alps.

I often saw old pre-chamber engines started when cold with the aid of a blowtorch, or a burning diesel soaked bundle of rags on a stick held over the air intake.

Worse yet were the hot bulb engines like the Lanz Bulldog. Cockies often lit fires under them to warm them up on a winter's morning. We had a yard crane built on a Bulldog and used the workshop oxy set to start it. If we knew we were going to use it again that day, we often turned it down to low idle and let it chug away rather than go through the starting drama again.

Originally Posted by B92 8NW

Thanks Dave. It's an inline Bosch PE pump. Supposedly these are a ***** to bleed but there seems to be a good squirt from the injector pipe unions. The oil in it is like grease and certainly wouldnt be helping the cranking speed but I'm trying to get it started (and warmed) to give it an oil change anyway.

I drained the oil yesterday - three hours sitting there without the sump plug in and about 6L came out. It is so thick you can stand a screwdriver up in it. I'd never have got it cranking fast enough with that crap in it.

I'm thinking about hitting it with some CEM Flush but at 44 bucks a hit (smallest bottle is nearly $90) it'd really want to work.

add a little kero to some 10/30ish wt engine oil run it till the oil no longer smells like kero then drain the oil.

ATF also works wonders as a flushing agent but is more costly than kero.