hard starting power line 6/1

[Crofter]

You can tell by the smell! That "smoke" looks like unburned diesel fumes but the smell of it is very distinctive once you know it. If I have a glow plug go bad on the VW, besides the miss on cranking you can see and smell the puffs in the exhaust. I agree with the engine being too easy to crank against compression; something amiss there unless that guy on the crank is superhuman. I would check the valve timing against specs and then the injection point timing. Late valve timing leads to lower compression and too late injection even with correct valve timing sends a lot of unburned fuel out the exhaust. If late injection combined with late valve timing it makes a real sick puppy. Once running there is enough heat around to improve combustion but output will be down.
Having some air in the system would result in late fuel delivery but this looks too regular and enduring. It is not unknown for Listeroids to be out a tooth or two as delivered! If bleeding it out till you get a good regular "squank" from the injector does not cure the starting, verify the valve and injector timing is correct.

[veggie]

Will these engines run at all is the valve timing is off by one tooth?

Looks more like low compression or fuel system.
Obvious question but....does the engine have a COV and is it screwed in.

veggie

[Crofter]

Mine was off by one tooth but I did not try to start it. It did turn over without valves hitting pistons though. Yes engines will run with valve timing off a bit but some diesels with looser valve to piston clearances will bend valves, others not. The biggest part of the job of checking is getting degrees converted to inches of rim travel of the flywheel.

[Halfcrazy]

I set my spill timing and it was off by a lot according to all the directions I got from People here. but changing it made it worse and I came to the conclusion it appeared my valve timing was different then what I was led to believe after I made all my marks on the flywheel etc. I tried going 1 tooth in the direction i Need and I got piston to valve interference so I put it back. I really do not understand though as this little 6/1 will carry 3500-4000 watts with no smoke it is stronger then all git out?

I feel like I need to disassemble this hunk of steel (or our PUT PUT as my girls call it) and see what she is made of and figure it all out. what I really need is to Come up with marks on the flywheel when everything is supposed to happen like intake valve opens and closes etc and see where she is at.

A couple things come to mind first is improper break in. I did run this engine probably total of an hour to an hour and a half unloaded not all at once but 5 minutes here 10 there. then when I got it hooked up I ran it at 3000 watts steady for like an hour here and there it has never run more than 3 hours at one sitting could I have cylinder issues?

Second thing is the lack of compression issue? I need to check into that is there to much volume in these power line engines causing low compression ratio's? It did have the COV and I replaced that with the Glow Plug from CMD that does nothing for starting in the cold.

Here is the odd part if I run hot water from the wood boiler into it for 10 minutes at 140F it fires first compression stroke every time or if it is over 45-50F it will start first compression stroke. I have Georges CD coming and will study it well and go from there. I really truly love this engine and will get it all ironed out I don't use it much as we live offgrid and have plenty of PV 3kw actually and the 1kw wind turbine. so we maybe put 25 hours on it a year charging batteries I did get her an electric clothes dryer and we now run the lister to run that.

[Crofter]

You have to make sure cam timing is correct before you set spill timing. If the engine output is good once running then that does seem to rule out being much out of time on either cam or injection. Simply low compression would account for it. I see where someone else had a change over plug and glo plug that would have created excess chamber volume.

My 10-1 will hand crank down close to freezing without the glow plug lit but it runs rough and smokes a bit for 20 seconds or a bit more. With the glow plug lit it starts like summer time. I am sure I could not crank it through more than two or three compressions without losing momentum if it didn't fire. The compression is right up there. Piston to head clearance is right on spec. 75 thou. With electric starter and glow plug it starts immediately at - 22 C at least, which is the coldest so far this winter.

Something just ain't right for it to act like that.

[Halfcrazy]

So if i check the piston to head clearance and have 75 thou does CMD's glow plug get me where I want to be compression wise or should I disassemble and actually check volume? I can leave the CMD glow plug on for 2-3 minutes and it makes absolutely no difference and the funny part is once put put starts she runs clean and smooth no matter how cold it never even stumbles once it gets lit

[Crofter]

With electric starter and glow plug it starts immediately at - 22 C at least, which is the coldest so far this winter.

Impressive ! ... I think Thumper would just thumb her nose at me at that temperature.
Did you make your own glow plug or did you use CMD's ?  The CMD glow plugs I have don't seem to do much towards getting thumper started.

I made my own COV plug and use a VW glow plug. I made the chamber volume as close as possible to the original. I absolutely cannot git it over compression by hand crank (without compression release) even if I back it off against compression in the opposite direction and get a running go! Then again I am a creaky 65 year old and I'm down on compression for sure, lol!

I will be pulling it down when weather warms up and I will accurately measure the compressed volume so we can know what actual compression ratio they are running. I am sure the precombustion chamber volume is not all that constant one to the next on the Indians sand cast heads so mine might be on the minimum side. I think theoretically a 10-1 would yield higher net pressures than a 6-1

Link to some pictures of it on Photobucket;   http://s655.photobucket.com/albums/uu276/Tijean_photo/

[Crofter]

Does the glow plug indeed glow? silly question I know! The piston to head volume is one variable affected by the squish clearance but the COV cup volume also can have a big influence on final volume (percentage wise)

According to the JKson manual I have the 6-1 is supposed to be 45 to 50 thou. piston to head and 17 thou valve lash. 8-1 and 10-1 is 75 thou but 8 thou valve lash so I am a bit hesitant to give you proper figures for your Powerline as you dont want to smack your valves especially if cam timing is not 100% certain to add another variable.

Can you slowly pull the piston past compression? In other words is there any leak by of valves or rings. I never tried for an extended time but certainly there is no apparent yield away to the crank in 30 seconds.

[Halfcrazy]

The plug does glow but it is recessed like a 1/2 an inch back inside the plug. These are purchased from CMD this way I feel like there needs to be some projection into the chamber in order for the glow plug to work?

I have never tried to hold steady on the compression and see if it leeks by but it does seem to have tons of it I can only dream of rolling it threw a compression stroke by hand and I am a fairly stout 38 year old. the electric start will roll it through compression strokes but I suspect that is normal.

I think for the immediate future I will continue to give her a breath of ether But as soon as I get Put Put into the garage where she will live I will tear her apart and see what is what.

[Crofter]

Hate to see you having problems. The usually do start well if things are right but weird things do crop up.

I would check out a few things better before I pulled the head off. Possibly some miss match of parts that is giving too much clearance volume. I would have to look at mine to see if a rough squish measurement could be made by removing the injector and use a solft solder feeler to guage it. I dont want to suggest something that has you putting beans in your nose though!

My glow plug projects a good 1/4 inch. I think it might have been xyzer who posted a picture of a COV plug that would have been overall short by around a quarter inch if installed as received. That along with a recessed glow plug would have reduced compression ratio badly. If it starts well warm, then it is not likely air in the injections system issue.

[Halfcrazy]

yes I do believe solder could be put into the injector hole. I did that to find tdc just rolled each way till it touched and marked the flyweel Maybe tommorow I will pull the injector and try then I may also try the COV valve again although it was tending to not stay screwed in and would vibrate partly open making a heck of a racket.

[XYZER]

Speaking of mismatched parts......the short one is the original plug that would start the 6/1 pretty much anytime. The longer ones are CMD glowplug replacements. I machined one to match the original and it did not help the start issue. I will put the original plug back in and see if it will start like it used to....
I put a starter and added the glowplug at the same time....now it is hard to start....

[BruceM]

There sure seems to be a problem with CMD's glow plug design.  It's disappointing when companies sell products that have been inadequately tested.  Utterpower's design works like a champ.

The good power and clean exhaust at load for this engine makes a serious timing issue sure seem unlikely to me.  

I'd check the bump clearance, then look for air leaks in the fuel system.  Most of the 6/1's are set at 45-50 mils.  (0.045)  Check the manual for your engine type.

By the way, a ceramic tipped glow plug and ether DO NOT MIX according to Mercedes. The ether explosion can cause cracking of the tip, and then the ceramic fragment can occasionally really mess up your cylinder.  I have seen this happen on an engine where ether was used lightly and only a few times.  When I pulled the old plugs, 3 of 5 were fractured with missing pieces of ceramic.  

[Crofter]

Speaking of mismatched parts......the short one is the original plug that would start the 6/1 pretty much anytime. The longer ones are CMD glowplug replacements. I machined one to match the original and it did not help the start issue. I will put the original plug back in and see if it will start like it used to....
I put a starter and added the glowplug at the same time....now it is hard to start....

My original plug and the one I made with glow plug in it. You can see that it is the longer protrusion from the gasketed shoulder which is the locating reference. The fuel spray pattern is apparent on the end face. Possibly if the longer one could be screwed into a head designed for the shorter one it would have the injector spraying entirely onto the side of the plug and not misting into the compression space. I had visualized a short unit being installed where a long one should have been and thus reducing compression. The reverse should raise compression but perhaps destroy spray pattern. I looked at the inner end of mine with the head off and kept as smooth a fit as possible to the inside of the pre combustion chamber.

I started mine up yesterday and tried plug glowing and not. No question there is day and night difference in starting ease.

I dont think CMD is at fault but there appears to be some different head configurations that create some rather unworkable combinations. Below is picturess of my plugs (if I my procedure is correct for embedding)
         
http://s655.photobucket.com/albums/uu276/Tijean_photo/?action=view&current=IMG_1159.jpg
side view,
http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu276/Tijean_photo/IMG_1160.jpg?t=1264437426


Edit; Well I see it didn't embed but the hyperlinks should be ok

[Crofter]

The version of glowplug I got from CMD has the glow element recesses into the plug, nothing sticks out. When I asked Phil about this (the web pictures showed a plug like yours) he said that they had problems with the stick out glow plugs burning out which is why they went with the new recessed design.

I dont know the extent of their experiment on that but I do know that some glow plugs must be driven by a control unit that feeds less than full power. They WILL definitely burn out very quickly fed direct 12 V; this from my own experience with an older Mazda.

The glow plugs I use are the VW and seem not a problem but I dont leave them on longer than about 10 seconds after the engine starts. In their designed application in the VW engine they also project but are not as directly in the injector spray as on a listeroid. I will be checking on it as I put some more hours on, but it sure is effective