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

[Jesse McB]

This is the last photo im taking of the engine before i paint it! It will be a nice red enamel! 

[mobile_bob]

nice work!  my vote would be a clearcoat!

be a  shame to cover all your work with any color!

second choice would be shooting it with "plasticote" "cast iron" paint.  it is an engine paint that looks just like
fresh cast iron and in my opinion about the coolest color since "candy apple red"   



bob g

[Jesse McB]

I am going to leave some spots unpainted such as the bolts parts of the injector and injector pump. Also im debating leaving the outside rim of the flywheel unpainted. I do know what you thinking bob it looks really cool! When i first got it it was covered in dirt grease dust and the paint job was chipped and scratch very bad! The person i bought this from did not package the engine properly and when it arrived the box it was in literally turned to a bag the ups guy rolled it outta the truck ??  

[veggie]

+1 what Bob said.
I really like to polished cast iron look.
Nice work so far.

Veggie

[playdiesel]

Looken good! that one should last a longtime.

I find it interesting that since you placed your parts order we suddenly have those exact same parts available on Ebay, LOL. Seller name is   royparts2016 . Guess they figured if you needed them others must also??

[Jesse McB]

+1 what Bob said.
I really like to polished cast iron look.
Nice work so far.

Veggie

im really thinking about if i should clear coat it it looks really cool!, por 15 has a clear coat for straight cast iron. I got some time to think about it i will be busy working for next few weeks  When paydays comes ill buy some paint or clearcoat whatever i decide by then. And buy a torque wrench to assmble it properly. 

[Jesse McB]

Looken good! that one should last a longtime.

I find it interesting that since you placed your parts order we suddenly have those exact same parts available on Ebay, LOL. Seller name is   royparts2016 . Guess they figured if you needed them others must also??

it will last a while i did so much work into this engine its crazy! I have to mention that i actually found the ebay sellers parts provder and buy off them directly for only a few dollers a part! I got my parts about a 1/4 for the price of the ebay seller. The website yoycart.com is were i purchased my parts from, its hard to find whatever your looking for sometimes because there so much to browse through, but they do have what you need. I was freaked trying the website first time but everything arrive inorder and perfectly intacted!  

[Jesse McB]

I have a new idea for the use of the little diesel engine, instead of restricting its use to just an alternator, i will make a universal engine mount for the engine so i can attach various machines to the engine, auch as an alternator hookup, ac generator hookup, wood splitter, water pump and so on just like a tractor and its PTO hookup! It be a waste to have it be used for one purpose.  My property in novascoita is all wooded and undeveloped, lots of work to be done on it!  Just pure woods and brook running down my property side  So today i did some work at a dary farm, i know the owners well very good people, i found a scrapped 1/2HP induction motor i will try to rebuild it  the bearings are seized. It be a good generator for AC power, should get about 800 watts from this motor its rated 7.4 amps at 120 VAC. Also i found a piece of steel thats  3/8" thick, i will cut a section out with a grinder for the water stop plate to attach a water thermostate too, and tap in two 3/8" holes for npt sensors for the radiator fan and hot water temperature gauge.

[veggie]

Jesse, I build my universal mounts using Unistrut framing.
Up here in Canada it's available at places like Eecol electric, Westburn Electric, and I saw some at Lowes.
You will need unistrut spring nuts and some of the available unistrut fittings to assemble a base easily and quickly that is fully adjustable.
This allows me to slide the engine to any point on the base.
Cross members to support an alternator or generator can be bolted on with any spacing you choose.
The base in the example below is a bit short because I only needed to mount the engine. But on other bases, I made it longer so that
I could mount a generator with any bolt spacing that came along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bIQhtTwkDk

cheers,
Veggie

[Jesse McB]

Hey thanks Veggie that Unistruct seems like a good way to frame a engine mount. If i cant get a hold of the material, i will build something similar with some metal scrap and bolt something up! The thought of using a wooden frame freaks me out it be way to heavy and bulky. It did that with my R170 and it wasnt fun!   I will defiantly want wheels for it as my engine is 20 pounds more then what it should be!? It should weight 70 pounds but it weighs  90 pounds for some reason? Anyways thanks for the idea!! btw i recieved another parts package for my engine from the website, everything arrived perfect! So the webstore is legit! 

[Jesse McB]

Updates coming soon!  I will be ordering a 450 right side radiator from a dirtbike. Its a radiator the size of a video casset so perfect size for the little diesel! I already purchased a thermostate and all the hoses and tubes for the cooling system. Im going to buy a hot water pump from china rated to last 10,000 hours for only $20. Im making a custom sensor that will shut the engine down if the water all of a sudden dumps from the system such as a leak or hose comes loose. And im thinking using the flywheel as a pully to turn a mini chevy alternator mounted  to the top of the engine on custom mounts to run the water pump, fuel pump, radiator fan and electric oil pump. This way ill have the engine able to run stuff such as a Gen head, machinery, or DC generater without having to worry about switch things around. I may even come up with a electric start for the engine, maybe mount a freewheel sprocket to an small geared PM motor and attatch it to the crank start? Just a thought lol 

[glort]

i found a scrapped 1/2HP induction motor i will try to rebuild it  the bearings are seized. It be a good generator for AC power, should get about 800 watts from this motor its rated 7.4 amps at 120 VAC.

I have been playing with induction motors as generators and I have just about given up on them much as I do like the things.  You have seen the vids of me running mine off my little Diesel and I could get up to 2.5 KW off it ( even thought that dosen't calculate out but testament to the grunt of these little engines.)  Even without knowing what you are going to do with the generator, I would say don't even bother with a half HP motor.  It's going to be very touchy with loads and it's probably going to be a single phase which does not work as easy as a 3 phase with this nor is as versatile.

The problem is control.  I have found it's just too hard to keep them in the sweet spot for loads unless you are just running something constantly like a Light.
I had an idea of using and arduino to control the capacitance applied to the engine. Should be easy to set some paramaters and have a base capacitance then have the arduino step or vary that as needed to bring things back to the target output.
Unfortunately no where near as easy as I hoped.

Getting an AC voltage divider to sense the output in the first place is difficult to find at the least and not cheap if you can. Making one seems a bit hit and miss as well.  The programing is a bit over my head but probably could manage it eventually.  Then I don't know If I am going to need 2 for each capped phase or could get away with one.
If you only intend to run some lights with the thing, shouldn't be a problem but for any switched loads...... Get a proper gen head would be my advise that you can couple with an AVR and be done with it.
Hard to find stand alone Gen heads here but seem to be plentiful in the US.

I have only seen a couple of Prebuilt Controllers for induction generators and they were exy. they ran on loading the IMAG to a preset max output and then just diverting the power for the working load from a dump load. This way the capacitance could be set to get everything spot on and the power just channeled to where it was needed while maintaining a constant overall load. Probably better for a fixed install than a portable one.

You seem to be open from getting away a bit from the normal simple as possible ideal.  along these lines, you could use an arduino or other prebuilt boards to monitor and control things. As for your fail safe, You could incorporate this and other functions into an arduino very easily and could also use pre built boards available on fleabay for specific uses.
You could set an arduinto to control the electric fan on your radiator to turn it on and off according to engine temp or even step the speed in say 25% increments. For the fail safe, You could have a flow switch and monitor the pumps current draw. If it used less than the amount you dialed in ( under load)  then it could sound an alarm or trigger a solenoid to shut the engine down.  Electric oil pump could be monitored the same way.

There are a heap of thermostat boards on fleabay and another I got the other day for voltage. easy to monitor the voltage or current a pump was using and if it went out of paramater you set, say if the oil or water was low and the pump cavitated and pulled less power as it would do or the voltage on the line increased, it would trigger a relay to shut the engine down.  You could use boards with other things too. engine speed is too high or low and it pulls the pin.

The boards are very Cheap but the descriptions often have no resemblance what so ever to their function.  That's Chinglish for you.  I just tend to look through  the listings now and read the description of function rather than the title.  The boards I bought that monitired Voltage were described as being temprature Voltage control.  Guess you could apply the term "Voltage control" to any board really!  :0)

I use Unistrut on my own induction motor setup now.  By having a pair of North/ south and east/west rails, you can ajust for anything. I have my engine bolted down and move the electric motor where I want it on the unistrut to line up the belts. I sometimes put an alternator or 2 there and I can move them accordingly too.

[Jesse McB]

Thank you glort for sharing your knowledge with the induction motor as a generator i appreciate it! I would rather not use one as you mention its a hassel to use Gen heads are hard to come by in Canada. I have a ST 3kw in my Novascotia cabin i could use lol. Im considering not using this engine for just generator use since i have the little water cooled kubota diesel ill use that instead for my nova scotia power plant  This way i can use the little pixy diesel for anything i wish, i would rather not have it restricted to just a generator i always wanted to make a little doon buggy With one of these diesels lol. Perhaps a heated cab for winter use lol!!

[Jesse McB]

Well my radiator arrived! Ill post a few pics, and i also got kinda overboard and purchased 2 more cylinder sleeves and spare injector pump and fuel injector, reason is the website has every part for cheap prices so ill get what i can in case the websites not avaible a year or so from now!  ill be buying another parts package involving small moving parts such as valves gears pushrods, camshaft. The parts are cheap and easy available so ill buy whatever i want to make the engine last a few overhauls 

[Jesse McB]

Heres a simple diagram i made with my ipad lol, it's the water cooling system for my engine, its gonna be simple and reliable. Pictures commg soon.