Purchased a Changfa R165 watercooled diesel engine, question about flywheel play

[buickanddeere]

Wasn't counting a whole lot of thermosyphon to provide coolant flow. It's just basic engineering to design a system where water can "run downhill on it's own" rather than depend on being pumped uphill.

[glort]

please don't take offense to my comments, i mean no ill will toward anyone and especially none against differing design
philosophies.

None EVER Taken!

I like having differing POV brought up. Makes you aware of the other ways to skin a cat, makes you think through the pros and cons of your present way of thinking and you always learn something new.
I have no problem with pressure systems either and i think the points you made especially with CHP are more than valid.
As always, it's a matter of horses for courses and I think the more strings one has to ones Bow the better.  Adapt and apply the technology that suits your particular application or need best.  As I said, I have only done the thermo siphon thing on my lister, every other setup I have done is the normal radiator/ fan waterpump deal.  I probably did the Thermo thing through curiosity more than anything.  I was well aware heat rose but I had no idea hot water rose THAT well!

Besides the Roid I'd like to set up the Mercedes Diesel engine I pulled from my beloved " Helga" W123 some years ago now with the idea of sizeable generator in mind.  I'll set that up as co gen and I'll certainly be going the pressurized route on that one.

having seen Jack Belk's operation of a 6hp listeroid at magic hotsprings some ten years ago, (many remember him as "magicjack"  he did very very well with thermosiphon, as has George B of utterpower fame, and many others in canada and all over the world are evidence of just how effective and useful this design philosophy really is.

I have read of this place and the mans adventures and efforts with it. Must have been something in its day as bad as its energy efficiency was.

t is out of a nissan sentra vintage '87.... so it was 30 years old when i got the wrecked car and pulled the radiator, fan, temp switches and other goodies... my bet is that fan motor would run in cogen operation for another 30 years because it is sitting out in cool air and not under the hood and between the radiator and engine of a car.

My experience and belief exactly. I Run these fans 24/7 for months at a time and several  times over now and still not a hint of a problem. As you say, they are not sitting in an enclosed space the way we use them being subject to summer heat soak temps when the engine is switched off or having scorching heat blowing through them all the time. In a vehicle, they are turning the great majority of the time even if not powered up because they start windmilling as soon as the car hits any suburban road speed let alone highway cruising. This would have to put wear on the brushes and bearings but still they survive such long lives.

people in my opinion get far too worried about component failure,

So you have Dabbled in the veg oil game have you mate? :0)
I could never get over the mindset of people with that.  The expense, complication and really, stupidity they went on with did my head in.  They were trying to make what they did failure proof forgetting the rest of the vehicle wasn't built like that and and endless myriad of OEM systems and components could bring their obsession to a very pointless end.

Seemed everyone wanted to go to a LOT of trouble to build in 2 fuel systems. Thought being that if one failed, you still had one to get home on. Over the years I would ask, who ever had the fuel system fail and if it did, was the other side still working?  Very few failures ( other than a blocked filter which could have been change by the road and my 12yo did it many times for me) and the ones I did get feed back on were in a shared component, like the change over valve they installed, so the 2nd system was in fact useless.

The obsession so many people had actually made the vehicles far more prone to failure. Every bit of hose, every fitting, filter, hose clamp, valve etc was in fact another potential failure point. Only took a bit of hose to come loose and let air in the system and the car came to a stop. Don't know how many reports of that I read but still I could never tell people the closer to stock the better. Of course mine being that way, I was told how it wouldn't work or would fail.... even notably by 2 different people who did have their over complicated systems fail and I got them going by bypassing 90% of the rubbish they had put in.... which they promptly re-connected as soon as they found the particular failure point that brought them undone and added some more fallback complication and failure points to the setup.

The thing that REALLY got me was the inordinate efforts to fix problems that were completely imaginary.
Every time they would be mentioned, I'd ask, " Who here has first hand knowledge of this actually occurring? Not something your read or the guy next doors workmates cousins sisters husbands best friend, but you have had or personally in the flesh seen.
Not one single person ever came forward but it never once deterred people for going to great lengths, expense and complication trying to solve this Imagined and well spoken of problem that in several years I could NEVER find one person to put their hand up and say yeah it happened to me or I saw and worked on my mates car that had that.

But as always, because I bucked the system and didn't do the same as everyone else because I thought my own circumstances through and did what suited them ( Used another Fuel filter I get for free and kept everything else stock) , -I- was always the one going to blow up my engine and have problems.  You think after 15 years it would have happened. I'm getting sick of waiting for it!  :0)

worry about component longevity?  check your local wrecking yard.... if you see a particular part missing of a specific car type then maybe there is a large demand for that specific part and it has poor reliability?  on the other had if the place is swimming in a particular fan or pump... and they are cheap as dirt, it is likely there is little or no demand which likely equates to a part being very reliable?

SPOT ON!
We don't bother taking fans out any more. Got draws full of coolant sensors and bunches of other things. We throw perfectly good transmissions away because we sell about 2 a year and you can bet that 1 of them is some dope mechanic mistaking the Tranny for a bad CV or Hub.  The other one will be because someone was trying to tow an over weight horse float or caravan at full tilt up every mountain in the middle of a heat wave and didn't have a tranny cooler fitted.  Other than that, we try to only buy manuals now because those gearboxes we sell faster than we can get them and the autos go to the scrap heap.  You keep 3 of every one, how many more you need sitting round.  Alternators are the same. Sell 2 a year. Maybe. last 2 I sold I noticed the engine bays were very clean.  When I asked if they had degreased them I was told yes, just before the alt started playing up. I usually find they put water on the alt when it was running which is what stuffs them up. I have alts sitting out in the rain for years and never bothered them.

Anyway, you are absolutely spot on with what you say Bob.  The most reliable things are what there are plenty of in the wrecking yard because they don't fail so you get no call on them.
people see what we put in the scrap pile and say Why don't you take that off, it's still good. You point to the 20 you have in stock and say I'll sell you one really cheap but you never get any takers.

and i know of no car that has a shutdown system to protect the engine.

And wouldn't that be about the best thing they could put on them instead of all the crap they do!

We do Subaru. 9 out of 10 engines we sell ( or more) are due to:
A: Holeing the radiator or splitting a hose and either not seeing the warning light or temp gauge or seeing them and just wanting to drive another 25Km till they get home, OR
B: Running out of oil because they never check it or just as popular, not tightening the sump plug after an oil change and loosing all the oil and seeing the light come on and.... Just wanted to drive another 25 km till they got home.  And no, women aren't the worst, Older people who should know a damn site better are.

You also would not believe how many people we have sold engines to and they have come back within the 3 month warranty period trying to claim the engine was no good when they did the self same thing again!
You see that little round thing there on the head like a lifesaver? That's a heat tell tale.  Tells us the head got to 130oC. Only way that can happen is if you loose oil or water or both.
And you'd be amazed how many bring the cars back with the signs of the coolant still sprayed all over the engine and engine bay.... or the oil is still dripping from under the car and there's no hole in the sump even thought he thing is locked up tight.
Some people are not only not too bright, their stupidity takes some fathoming!  :0)

We see engines with 4 and 500 K Km on them that are still fine if they are looked after. Had one with a tad over 500k Km and it still had the hone marks in the bores.  Amazing.

hmmm maybe we can develop an app for the smartphone to keep tabs on the engine while we are gone?  Smiley
we get a text message if things are going wrong!  ya that's the ticket!

You might be amazed how easy that could be with something like an arduino. It's not even something that would be considered mildly difficult. The boards and programing are out there. Use a wifi shield and link it up and you are there.  For anyone half knowledgeable about these things, I'd say they'd call it pretty easy.

[Jesse McB]

Thanks for the ideas and comments everyone!  

Im going to stay with my original hose pressurized thermostate cooling system. Im going to buy a small 350ml aluminum overfill bottle on ebay and attach a small clear heater hose to the system so i have a view of the waters level.
Last night before bed I managed to sneak time in and managed to drill out a 37/64 hole and tap a 5/8 NPT thread in the water stop plate for the rad fan sensor. I have a relay kit for the rad fan for allowing the engine to stay at proper temp. I also will be installing another sensor in the water stop plate for the engines temprature gauge. I don't really like the wooden frame i know it will fall apart after so many hours so i will use metal down the road lol

Rite now i just want to see it run but im not doing anything till its finished, no point running a diesel unless its loaded so i will need to get a small mini alternator and mount it to the water stop plate. It will be belted with the flywheel so i can bet alot of power off the engine when its running at lower RPM.  The flywheels pulley will be fully vacant to be used. Heres some pics of alittle progress of the water stop plate

I think it would be easy to install a float switch in a seperate chamber for incase the water level droppes in the radiator the engine will shut down ? I checked  ebay they sell for $1 to $10 for different types...    

[Jesse McB]

Anyone think mounting the radiator to the engine is a bad idea?    I have a few ideas to mount it but I think the vibrations could kill it lol! ive seen engines with radiators mounted, even my 4.5 hp Kubota diesel has a engine mounted rad. Im just up for ideas, i most likely will be sticking to my orginal plan and have it mounted separately off the engine. Im planning on raising the radiator up higher so air can be purged out when needed.

[mobile_bob]

remote mount or isolation mount, anything to protect it from the engines destructive vibration would be the way i would go.

bob g

[AdeV]

Korean cars are looked at the same way. Nope, they were crap when they came out and they could not have possibly learnt anything in all these years and improved them, they are still crap....despite the fact they offer the longest warranties and owners that have had them 10 years say they haven't had an ounce of trouble and would buy another one without thinking twice.

I buy only old British cars (Jaguar mainly), but that's because I'm a bloody-minded idiot who loves being stranded at the side of random roads 

(In fairness, my 2001 Jag XJR has been almost entirely reliable, and has never actually got me stuck anywhere, although a couple of times I've wondered if it'd make it.... When it does work, which is most of the time, it goes like stink, I love it).

[Jesse McB]

I changed the cooling system, what you see it it slapped together i will have to make sure its nice and straight and more ridged to hold the radiator nice and stiff. Im also going to carriage bolt the engines wooden mount together so its able to last.    Heres a few pics.

[Jesse McB]

Heres a few pics of the water plate and thermostate

[mobile_bob]

does the tstat housing use a gasket or does it seal with a rubber perimeter seal around the tstat itself?

if the latter you will likely need to seal the bolts as they will leak unless you weld the heads under the plate.
or figure another way to seal the bolts

bob g

[Jesse McB]

Hi Bob, i should of mentioned that i did thought of the bolts. I used a type of bolt that has a flat bottom with some thread tape and gasket material washers i made. Im sure it will work great!!  

[Jesse McB]

And yes the thermostate has a seal ring!

[Jesse McB]

Heres a few pics of the cooling system with the hose clamps,. Still lots of trail and error ! So far i have a few more ideas!  

[glort]

My worthless suggestion would be to brace that radiator support Diagonaly from the top back down to the engine bolts seceuring to the board.

I think the way you have shown it in the pics will set up harmonics and the thing will vibrate then flap bauout and be noisy and work loose.  I think some Diagonal bracing would be worthwhile.
It looks great though, worlds best prepared and over engineered 165. Going to be too good to use it for taking around on practical jobs when you are done. Perfect for hooking up to an alternator and putting a chair and coffee table nearby and just sit back and watch and admire it run.   :0)

[Jesse McB]

Yes glort thats right! I want to see it run its been over half a year ago since i purchased it!  Yes i had it in mind the metal frame will litterly fall apart if i dont bolt it all together and add some cross bracing. lm at the stage were before its all put together i can make everything more compact first.  im going to move the radiator about an inch closer to the engine and drop it down another half inch. With it being summer out having all these nice days,  i dont like being in my basement working on the engine till its late and dark outside, so an hour before bed is all i put into it every few days. I dont have much left to do now it just needs an alternator attatched, the piston reistalled, paintjob, all nuts and bolts torqued tight with torque wrench, and thats about it!  Building this engine was really slow but its coming along lol. The total cost for materials and spare parts exceeded the price of the engine for sure!! I think almost a $1000 got invested        .

 I did alot of online studying with the S195 diesels and the R165 for comparison,  ive never actully had any changfa diesel sized over the R170   , I just assuming but maybe someone would know better, I think all the materials used to manufacture these Big and small changfa type engines are the same. The fuel injector on my R165 will work on some S195  diesels so they can be universal. The cylinder camshaft crankshaft piston, rings, cylinder head, valves, valve guides, gears bearings and so on,  they are must be made with the same metals. So what im going by here is i believe if the S195 can last for over 10,000 or maybe 25,000 hours run time why cant my little changfa run for at least 5,000 to 10,000 Hours before needing an over haul?  I have many spare parts! I will be including a forced oil pump and oil filter later on.  

I will be updating the engine mount after a few test runs, I have an idea of using 2 small bike tires to make it more portable. But for some reason in my head I picture it hopping around the place so time will tell when I have it running to know!  

[Jesse McB]

  New updates will be coming soon!! New alternator, completed pressurized water cooling system, engine enamel paint, exhuast and air intake system and much more!