[sdbob]

I'd like to do that. I watch Diesel Creek and how he starts old equipment.

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by sdbob

I'd like to do that. I watch Diesel Creek and how he starts old equipment.

Yeah, that's my problem - I watch too much Diesel Creek.

[Keith Seymore]

Just a couple questions:

1 - Are you married?

2 - How would you get it home?

K

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Just a couple questions:

1 - Are you married?

2 - How would you get it home?

K

Yes.

On a low-boy.

I have plenty of room in the front yard.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by sdbob

I'd like to do that. I watch Diesel Creek and how he starts old equipment.

As Bob says, Matt, on "Diesel Creek", on You Tube, does this routinely, watch some of his videos to get an idea of what he uses for tools, and what he brings with him to do a start up on hibernating equipment.

His mission on his site is to try to save old equipment from going to the scrapyards. I just watched him start up a 6-71 Detriot stationary fire sprinkler pump engine that was in an old steel mill for 50 years last night on his station. The engine had last been serviced in 2016, so it had been idle for 7 years. Most of the stuff he gets running has been setting for decades though.

Also another one that bought an early 60s D8 with a pony motor start on another you Tube channel is "Ambition Strikes", The guy bought a piece of property on a mountain in Northern Idaho, and he needed a big dozer to recut the road from the highway, to the home site. He had more than his share of breakdowns right after he took possession of the D8. He did most of the repair himself, and finished the road cut with his newly aquired, 60 YO dozer.

The good thing about diesel equipment is that even decades old fuel will still run an engine, unlike gasoline that after a year or two won't even light with a torch if dumped on the ground.

From my own eperience with diesels, you need the best batteries you can get, because sustained cranking to bleed injection lines on a on a diesel is really hard on batteries, and starters. When I serviced diesel equipment on jobsites, and changed fuel filters, I always only cranked them for 10-15 seconds at a time, then let them cool down, to keep from burning up starters when purging the fuel systems. Many manufacturers have a feature on the lift pumps (fuel pump) that can be operated manually to purge air, but some do not have that feature, and have to be cranked with the starter to purge the system. Some have electric pumps, but you're not going to have an electric pump on a Cat engine of that age.

On using ether, it's really hard on any engine to run on ether, and if the intake manifold had grid heaters in it, you can blow the intake to shrapnel in a second. Be carefull when using ether, I only use it spareingly, and as a last resort when starting diesels, as well as gas engines. The ether shortcut, can really ruin parts quickly, and your in for some big expense, by trying to save a few minutes of troubleshooting time.

IDI engines tend to drop prechambers out of the heads when using ether, and once the prechamber comes loose it gets compressed between the piston, and cylinder head, rendering the engine junk.

Detroit 2 cycles seem to need ether to start in coldest weather, some even had factory installed ether cold start systems on them, operated from the drivers seat.

In the "Diesel Creek"videos, he is pretty conservative when trying to start old equipment when it comes to using ether. He'd rather it starts without it, but sometimes you need that little bit of pesuassion when starting something that has been dormant for decades.

I hope some of this info is helpful......

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

As Bob says, Matt, on "Diesel Creek", on You Tube, does this routinely, watch some of his videos to get an idea of what he uses for tools, and what he brings with him to do a start up on hibernating equipment.

His mission on his site is to try to save old equipment from going to the scrapyards. I just watched him start up a 6-71 Detriot stationary fire sprinkler pump engine that was in an old steel mill for 50 years last night on his station. The engine had last been serviced in 2016, so it had been idle for 7 years. Most of the stuff he gets running has been setting for decades though.

Also another one that bought an early 60s D8 with a pony motor start on another you Tube channel is "Ambition Strikes", The guy bought a piece of property on a mountain in Northern Idaho, and he needed a big dozer to recut the road from the highway, to the home site. He had more than his share of breakdowns right after he took possession of the D8. He did most of the repair himself, and finished the road cut with his newly aquired, 60 YO dozer.

The good thing about diesel equipment is that even decades old fuel will still run an engine, unlike gasoline that after a year or two won't even light with a torch if dumped on the ground.

From my own eperience with diesels, you need the best batteries you can get, because sustained cranking to bleed injection lines on a on a diesel is really hard on batteries, and starters. When I serviced diesel equipment on jobsites, and changed fuel filters, I always only cranked them for 10-15 seconds at a time, then let them cool down, to keep from burning up starters when purging the fuel systems. Many manufacturers have a feature on the lift pumps (fuel pump) that can be operated manually to purge air, but some do not have that feature, and have to be cranked with the starter to purge the system. Some have electric pumps, but you're not going to have an electric pump on a Cat engine of that age.

On using ether, it's really hard on any engine to run on ether, and if the intake manifold had grid heaters in it, you can blow the intake to shrapnel in a second. Be carefull when using ether, I only use it spareingly, and as a last resort when starting diesels, as well as gas engines. The ether shortcut, can really ruin parts quickly, and your in for some big expense, by trying to save a few minutes of troubleshooting time.

IDI engines tend to drop prechambers out of the heads when using ether, and once the prechamber comes loose it gets compressed between the piston, and cylinder head, rendering the engine junk.

Detroit 2 cycles seem to need ether to start in coldest weather, some even had factory installed ether cold start systems on them, operated from the drivers seat.

In the "Diesel Creek"videos, he is pretty conservative when trying to start old equipment when it comes to using ether. He'd rather it starts without it, but sometimes you need that little bit of pesuassion when starting something that has been dormant for decades.

I hope some of this info is helpful......

Good points on the ether and batteries, but what if the cylinders have water? Trying to figure out how to turn the engine over without bending a rod.

Thanks

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by bulletpruf

Good points on the ether and batteries, but what if the cylinders have water? Trying to figure out how to turn the engine over without bending a rod.

Thanks

Lots harder to get water into a diesel than a gas engine, but the injectors can be removed, similar to sparkplugs, but more involved to remove usually.

One other thing is water in the fuel, if it gets past the water seperators, it will wreak hell with the injection pump, and injectors. Be certain the water seperators are purged of water, and maybe have a auxilary fuel source (boat tank, etc.) until you confirm the onboard system is free of water. No telling what is in old tanks in construction equipment after decades of sitting outside.

Mice and squirrels can demolish an electrical system, so be vigilant to look for their damage to wiring. What rodents don't destroy, nature, and weather will. Then you have guys that own tools, that should never be allowed to touch anything mechanical, half assed repairs over decades of use can really pile up on something of that age.

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

Lots harder to get water into a diesel than a gas engine, but the injectors can be removed, similar to sparkplugs, but more involved to remove usually.

One other thing is water in the fuel, if it gets past the water seperators, it will wreak hell with the injection pump, and injectors. Be certain the water seperators are purged of water, and maybe have a auxilary fuel source (boat tank, etc.) until you confirm the onboard system is free of water. No telling what is in old tanks in construction equipment after decades of sitting outside.

Mice and squirrels can demolish an electrical system, so be vigilant to look for their damage to wiring. What rodents don't destroy, nature, and weather will.

I'll have a 5 gallon can of fresh diesel and an electric fuel pump, but not exactly sure how I will plumb that into the system.

Thanks

[sdbob]

I watched him start an old Euclid dump truck chassis with a hydraulic boom. This was close to me in Brownsville Pa. Where they have a lot of old running construction equipment. There are get togethers about twice a year. Been meaning to go just havent. What you need for front yard decoration is a Manitowoc 4100 crane! You could reach of your neighbors easily.!

[sdbob]

I watched him start an old Euclid dump truck chassis with a hydraulic boom. This was close to me in Brownsville Pa. Where they have a lot of old running construction equipment. There are get togethers about twice a year. Been meaning to go just havent. What you need for front yard decoration is a Manitowoc 4100 crane! You could reach all of your neighbors easily.!

[bulletpruf]

Ok, so today was a GREAT day!

Got on the road at 6:15. Picked up sidekick at 6:30. Got to dozer at 8:45. Owner was there waiting for us; he's a really good dude, 5th generation on their 550 acre cattle ranch. His dad bought the D7 10 or so years ago from a neighbor who lived a few miles away. They were going to use it to clear some of the land, and when you have a 550 acre ranch, I think you can justify a D7 to clear land.

Dozer was easy to get to. Didn't need to break out the chainsaw or weed-whacker. Just like you see in the pics.

The owner had 4 big freaking batteries in the back of his truck. I think the smaller ones were 4D's, but they were dead. The larger ones had 11.5 volts each, and look like they've been sitting in a shed for a decade or two.

We got unloaded and got the generator fired up (sidekick has a Honda generator) and got two chargers going on the big batteries.

Then we checked fluids and such - good on antifreeze, good on fuel, good on engine oil, milkshake in the transmission...gonna have to pretend we didn't see that...

Checked for air filter and it had been deleted at some point. Ruh-roh. Mice had made it into the turbo on the cold side, but not a worst case scenario. Just had to clean it out a bit.

Then started on fuel system, and that's where we ran into a problem. Injector rack seems to be immobile. But wasn't able to get it moving and the parts between the rack and the fuel filter are throwing me for a loop. Will have to wait for me to download pics and video, but we didn't want to force the issue, so we buttoned it back up for the time being.

Fuel filters (3) all had fuel in them; they were all full. And tank is gravity feeding the first fuel filter (small wire screen), so we don't have an obstruction between the tank and the first fuel filter. Fuel filters look almost new; we saw old filters laying in box that must have been changed out the last time someone tried to start it.

At that point, we figured we wouldn't be able to start it, but we could at least try to turn it over.

Starter was already wired with a pushbutton and we ohm'ed all the wires and everything checked out, including working pushbutton. We then built some quick 2/0 cables to connect the 12v batteries in series for a 24v system. Used the positive wire that was already in place because it ohm'ed fine and it was in good shape.

I was worried about a stuck rack and WOT/runaway engine if it started, but I really didn't think there was much chance of it lighting off immediately. I also had a thick denim shirt sitting right next to the intake; I could have smothered it if it caught.

Verified all controls were in neutral and then hit the starter. Almost forgot - no real way that I could see to turn it over manually, at least not at the front of the engine. Anyway, the sumbitch spun over quickly! No funny noises, just nice and smooth! I was turning it over with the compression release in the "start" position, so it wasn't building much compression. No smoke, so it wasn't getting any fuel that I could tell. Second time I turned it over, it spun for a second and then I switched the compression release to "run" position and it definitely has compression; really slowed it down.

Seller was there watching and he was certainly happy to see the engine turn over. He did mention that the winch was turning as I was cranking the engine, so that's a problem that we need to address; can't be using battery/starter power to turn the winch. The problem is the two controls for the winch -- one is "bluetooth" (i.e., cable is busted) and the other is frozen in position. Anyone have any ideas on how to disengage a Hyster D7 winch that has MIA and frozen control levers?

Anyway, at this point, we called it a day. Seller was leaving to go out of town for work for a few weeks and sidekick had to be back to for parental duties, so we packed up and headed home. Batteries also weren't happy from having to turn the engine and the winch.

I have pics and video. I'll post pics here when I get a chance, and I'll work on editing the video to put up on the YouTube channel.

Next step - figure out the fuel system, source an air filter, figure out how to disengage the winch, and plan the next trip!

Thanks for all the input!!!

Scott

[242177P]