Commissioning Run ! finally.

[mike90045]

After several years of intermittent presence at my house site, and then this last week, loosing nearly all my tank water storage (12,000 gallons) to a broken underground pipe when mud flow broke it, AND the death of my Iota backup charger that I've been running off my little inverter genset (Iota is doing me a solid, and sending a replacement part)  I finally got enough tape on the flywheel to keep the belt tracking right (crown pulley website - http://woodgears.ca/bandsaw/crowned_pulleys.html ), replaced a BAD circuit breaker on one leg of my 240V panel (XW inverter was only seeing 62V, not 240V) and just a tiny bit of governor adjustment, and I got the system running and charging off the ST head (with it's new bearings). 

But, when it was spinning down, I now hear a groaning creak in the injector pump area, not related to it pumping.  I can feel it on the intake tappet (both tappets spin nicely).  That area inside the crankcase, is obscured by the governor.  Anyone have ideas or suggestions of what to do or look at in there ?   Run it, and see what breaks ? (NO!) 
Several minutes after shutdown, when I pulled the crankcase cover, the entire crankcase cavity was full of fog, oil mist or blowby.  Is that normal?

Today's cold start, in frosty weather, it fired after pulling it through the 3rd compression stroke, I was running out of steam, and would not have lasted for a 4th.

But the creak / groan in the pump area, concerns me.  Any ideas ?

[veggie]

Mike,

You still have 2 problems.

1] The strange noise from the IP area:
I don't have a suggestion for that.


2] The fact that your belt won't stay on the pulley:
It is quite unusual to have this problem if you are running a serpentine belt to a ribbed pulley on the ST head.
There should be no lateral movement of the belt while running on the flywheel face.
If the shafts are parallel and the tension is sufficient, this issue should not take place.
I suggest that you still have some misalignment. The shaft of the ST head is not parallel to the Listeroid crankshaft.

veggie

[BruceM]

Hi Mike, Sorry to read about your mud slide damage. Nasty setback. It seems like these "trials" always come in threes. Hopefully you'll have some smooth sailing for a while.

Crowning the flywheel is an interesting fix, glad it's working.  I had no trouble at all with tracking for my Utterpower ribbed belt pulley and plain flywheel. Better lucky than smart. Smiley

If the groaning creak happens when hand cranking with the rack closer up and valve lifter in place, I think I'd remove the IP.  If if goes away, and doesn't come back when manually loading the cam where the IP would, then I'd sure think about getting a spare IP.  The roller on the IP are also a common problem- out of round, bad tolerances, etc., so that would be one place to be looking if you take it off and the groaning creak stops.  Groaning creak is a normal low speed IP/ injector noise, but you said it's not related to pumping...  so I assume it's happening even with the rack closed on shutdown, and isn't injector noise.

I highly recommend a glow plug- it makes winter starting SO MUCH easier.  I have an air starter, but if I want to start by hand in the winter, even with the glow plug,  I take off the belts for the generator and air compressor. The extra drag in very cold weather is just too much for me.  After it's run for 5 minutes or so, the I can strap it up and crank it just fine.  I  prefer starting with the rubber friction starter.  If I had to go through a winter on hand starts, I'd definitely spring for some synthetic 5W-30 or 5W-40 oil.  I tried it one winter and it helps a lot with sub zero F cranking friction.

Best Wishes,
Bruce

[mike90045]

... 
  2] The fact that your belt won't stay on the pulley:
It is quite unusual to have this problem if you are running a serpentine belt to a ribbed pulley on the ST head.
There should be no lateral movement of the belt while running on the flywheel face.
If the shafts are parallel and the tension is sufficient, this issue should not take place. ...

Yeah, it troubles me, and since I have a flywheel with groves that match the belt, along with the ribbed ST pulley, it's
really strange.   With a straight edge and a ruler, things look to be within a 1/16" of being aligned.   The belt ribs are impressing the electrical tape into the flywheel grooves, so maybe my tension was not tight enough before, and there is a chance the flywheel may be a bit out of round = tight slack tight slack.....   I can see a fair amount of belt bounce, and if it gets a whiff of air trapped under it, maybe that makes it slide off.

I guess I'll pull the IP, and give it a look over, and see if the cam under it is OK and the roller is ok.  I've lost my Utterpower CD in the move, and George has turned his website into a blog, and I'm having a heck of a time finding things there, does he have a section on the IP & cam ?   

I've known about the plug next to the exhaust tappet for pre-lube, but did not know the IP side had issues.  I guess I'll get a syringe or something to squirt up into there.  In just 10 minutes run time, the crankcase has not warmed at all, I wonder if I should try to route a water line around it to warm it up (and cool the water).

I do have an electric starter, but what's the fun in that

[mike90045]

Fuel Pump removal and tappet report.

It was easy enough to un-hook the linkage injector fitting, (kept from draining the whole fuel line) and lift the fuel pump off it's tappet.
Ooops.  I didn't know it has it's own little oil sump    (My 6-1 is splash lube only, no oil pump) I've not oiled the tappet.  I lifted it out, and the cam underneath looked ok, and was all oily.  I washed off the tappet. It's follower roller seemed fine, and rolling OK.  There was a bit of chafe marks on the side with the flat, visual only - nothing I could feel with a fingernail. I guess there is a bolt placed on the side of the tappet guide, to keep it from twisting.  I lubed it all liberally with mobile-1 oil, rolled the roller while submerged to make sure it got oil all over inside it. I re-installed it all, filled the little sumps on either side of the tappet, and rolling it by hand, sounded better.  fired right up, and when it was coasting down, sounded 80% better.   I also observed, as it cycles up and down, a puff of air from the crankcase, that blows the oil out of the ring and grove in the tappet.  Makes sense if I'm getting blowby in a new engine that's not run-in yet. I'm loading it down with 2,000 watts load @ 60 hz, and no black smoke. Am I running it too hard for break-in, if I'm getting positive pressure in the crankcase ?  The breather seems fine, the flapper is not painted shut, and compression seems good enough to hand crank to start when it's frosty out.

[mike90045]

flywheel & belt.   Ugh.   looks like the center bore is off a tiny bit, and causes a bit of wobble.  Dang.   Making a "crown" on the flywheel with electrical tape seems to be working, and not creeping, but now I have to try to figure if the bore is drilled bad, or the crank bent.  Engine mounting seems solid, and while it pounds the slab when firing, coasting seems OK, so I think the bore is "centered" but crooked. (or the crank bent on that side) I'm hoping the former, and that the belt and bearings will take it, but am open to opinions.

[veggie]

Mike, is it a wobble (side to side) or is it eccentric (out of round). ?
Even a slight wobble should not throw a belt off. It would simply cause the belt to run a bit left-&-right on the flywheel.
Having a wobble of 1/32" to 1/16" is not uncommon.

Run the engine and then shut it off. Engage the decompression early so that it coasts for a long time.
Slowly move a felt marker towards the outside edge of the flywheel until it just barely touches the side of the rim.
This contact point will indicate any run-out.
It will also give you some idea of the amount of wobble.
That's the "wet finger in the wind" method.  
The proper way is the clamp a dial indicator to the base with the tip positioned where you want to measure. Then slowly rotate the flywheel by hand.  

You can use the same felt marker method to check the eccentricity of the wheel.

A slight side-to-side action should not throw a belt off. How did you check for parallel alignment of the generator ?

veggie

[mike90045]

update:

My hat is off to Tom (and his wife for letting him loose most of the day) for driving over and helping me out.  Not only did he fab up a tensioner mount for the ST5, he drove it out to me, helped me change a bum head gasket, and diagnosed a bad fuel pump that is making a racket.   I'd spent the morning prepping the engine, pulling parts off it to prepare to pull the head.  Tom set me up with an improved cooling system plumbing layout (with drain and restriction valve), welded on the new slide mount, and showed me how the SK bushing on the pulley worked (I never knew what that meant before) and how you could position the pulley anywhere along the shaft.  I never knew the serpentine belt has to be piano wire tight, and never would have gotten it that tight without the jackscrew on the new slide mount.    And I was so hyper, when it was dark, engine running and charging the battery bank, I'd forgotten to offer to buy a case of 12oz beverages, or even pay him for the materials he used and donated to a neophyte diesel head.
So, Thanks a dozen times to Tom for helping me out on a Sunday afternoon, and holding my hand through the process.

Now, to order a spare fuel pump.
(Current pump has a horrific "groan / creak / shudder" sound as it pumps, and a shot of 2-cycle lube oil in the California certified low-sulfur fuel didn't cure it.)