Is there any room for an Isuzu?

[unimog_jason]

Hello Everyone,

While poking around on Ebay a couple weeks ago I came across a guy selling used refer engines, he had a Kubota and an Isuzu.  They had been replaced due to the CARB requirements and seemed to be in ok shape so I took a gamble.  I bid on the Kubota first since it was already on a frame with a rad and air filter but someone wanted it more them me.  In the end I made a deal on the Isuzu and had it shipped home.

The engine had been stripped of the extra bits but luckily the fuel system is identical to a Bosch system so I robbed parts from my Mercedes diesel spare parts pile and got a fuel filter plumbed in and primed.

I was also able to take a spare Mercedes rad and some extra hoses I had laying around and plumb up a basic cooling system as well. 

When I hooked up the battery and gave her a crank it quickly started up and purred away.

Next on my list is to buy some motor mounts and gauges from a Thermo King parts place I found and fab up a frame to hold everything.  After that I'm thinking I'll pick up a 12 wire 24kw head and bolt them together. 

Some pictures and a video of my little baby:

[unimog_jason]

Couple more pictures:

[rl71459]

Hi Jason

Looks like a dandy! I have a C-201 coupled to an ST-12 gen head... Works great!

The C-201 is indirect injected. I was told the D-201 is direct injected and more fuel efficient.

Good Luck with your project

Rob

[unimog_jason]

Thanks Rob.

If you have any pictures of how you coupled yours together I'd like to see it.  I am looking for a cheap 6 pins compressor coupling plate to see if it can be modified to work with a 2 bearing ST head.

Here's a picture of my flywheel.

[mobile_bob]

yes there is always room for isuzu's, how many do you want?



maybe we can get the isuzu into one of the sections?

bob g

[vdubnut62]

No, No, No!  This will never do!  It just sits there, it doesn't hop all over the place, or produce huge clouds of steam or have (gulp) exposed pushrods.
Or huge flywheels!  
Just doing what I do best, impersonating a smartass , of course there's room for Isuzu! I think Mobilebob prob'ly has a dozen or so......
This bunch ain't prejudiced.
Ron

[rl71459]

Hi Jason

I dont have any pictures of mine to post.. I would like to take credit for coupling them together but the previous owner had it done. I can tell you how they did it. The engine is equipted with a SAE bellhousing from the original ThermoKing application. Someone fabricated an angle bracket with gussets that bolts to the bellhousing... The bracket (not pretty) is designed long enough for the ST-12 to be bolted to it. They bored the original 6 pin coupling to fit the ST-12 head. 

They also built a box tubing frame that the whole thing is mounted in that has casters welded to it for ease of moving around the garage. I bought the hole thing on E-Bay when I wanted to experiment with
alternative fuels. I usually run it on waste oil (industrial type) it works great.

The system was set up for a Large motor home that had its own central cooling loop so it did not have
a radiator or fan... So I found a Brand New one on E-bay for a Honda Civic that I paid $20.00 bucks for
and cobbled up an electric fan (Also an E-Bay item) The system works great! it seams that the Radiator is well suited for the job as well as being quite compact. I have used it in very hot conditions and never had a cooling problem.

Rob

[unimog_jason]

Thanks for the details Rob.

My hope is to use the TK coupler as well and have it bored and keyed to match the ST shaft, my biggest concern is if the coupler has enough meat to be bored out enough to fit a shaft for a 24kw head.

I remembered last night that rcavictim has one of those couplers at his place from a Mercedes TK engine and I'm hoping it has the same pin dimensions as my Isuzu.  If it does fit it will save me buying one without knowing it it will do the job or not thus potentially saving $100-140 in the process.

Jason

[unimog_jason]

Finally had some time to get back to the engine and I've made some progress so here's my update.

There doesn't seem to be much out on the Internet when it come to technical details for the D201 so I'll document my findings here so that other people might avoid some of my pit falls.

Firstly, for spare engine parts I've been using this company:

www.thermoenginesupply.com

Online catalog with most of the pieces you'll ever need and Jose is a great guy who went the extra distance to find the right parts for me. 

These engine came in two versions it seems, an early model and a late model.  For the most part everything is the same between the engine but the rear crank seal are different.  If you have a rubber seal it's an early model, if it's steel it's later.

When these engines first rolled off the assembly line they had a full flow filter system.  Later in the engines life cycle Thermo King offered a bypass upgrade and call it EMI (Extended Maintenance Interval).  If you look at the attached pictures you'll see below the filter threads a small hole for the bypass filter.  If your engine has this you'll need a special filter, Baldwin B128 is compatible.

If you're going to remove the oil pan from the engine remove all the bolts the connect the pan to the block, do not try to split the pan in half as there are 3 bolts inside that you can't get access to.

I was hoping to flip the exhaust manifold around to get the exhaust to exit the rear but after I broke 4 studs I discovered that you can't flip it and a manifold from a C201 is not an option either.  As far as I have found there are no other option other then living with the forward discharge manifold.

I opted to reseal most of the bottom end of my engine since the person who worked on it last loved gasket maker and didn't have a problem with spreading it everywhere.  I suspect they didn't replace some of the gaskets so they opted to make a big mess rather then just doing it right in the first place.  While I was tearing the engine down I noticed water had collected in the pockets between the block and flywheel housing adapter plate.  There was no gasket of any sort here so I decided to put a skim coat of gasket maker on the perimeter to help seal things up.  You can see in the last picture where rust water had pooled and stained the aluminum.  I did find some trace amounts of water in the bottom of the oil pan and I suspect this is where it came from.

A word of warning when it come time to put everything back together, make sure you put the flywheel housing adapter on first followed by the pan.  If you try to do it the other way around you'll either end up ruining you new gasket or pulling the pan off again and doing everything over again.  Needless to say I got the pan off and back on in record time the second time around.

[unimog_jason]

Couple other pictures of the engine I took while I had it opened up.

The dowel pin that is stuck in the block is a bit of a pain.  The flywheel housing and adapter plate are very snug on this pin and it will take some effort to get them off.

The last picture is of the gasket that goes between the adapter plate and the oil pan.  If you try to put the pan on first you'll end up cutting this gasket up and it's not a part you can buy by itself, you'll have to buy an entire gasket set to replace it.  I'm very glad I stopped when I did and pulled the pan back off.

Jason