Air Cooled Diesel Engine

[Skyco]

I have a couple of small diesel generators with air cooled engines. They smoke much more in cold weather. I think since their temp is unregulated, unlike a liquid cooled engine with a thermostat, they never get warm enough for complete combustion.

 

[Hoosier Hay Man]

I never heard of Oliver using SAME, I know they used UTB that was a Romanian tractor sold as a 1250 Oliver 5040 Allis and 445 Long.
Some of the AGCO were SAME I don't remember the numbers that they were rebadged to.

Oliver 854 - Page 1 [#777401 / 777401]

Here is a link to the Oliver SAME. I think White Motor Company, who owned Oliver at the time, was trying to find a cheap supplier of low HP heavy utilty tractors. Allis did the same thing. I have seen the Romanian built Olivers and Allis Chalmers. This SAME Oliver caught me by surprise.

 

[Sockwell]

Before Onan was bought up by Cummins, they made a series of diesel engines. One of the engines was a single-cylinder, air-cooled diesel used for military field generators. There was, we thought, an almost rediculous maximum sound level specification on the engine. (If you were in a unit that was using the generator, you probably thought the spec. was too liberal.) We used laminated steel for the enclosure. The laminate had to be no thicker than, I believe, 20 gauge. It was two layers of cold-rolled, with a layer of sound dampening material in the middle. We flew it in from Europe.

 

[Soundguy]

did any of the zetor use air cooled's?

soundguy

 

[Kernopelli]

I once previewed a state Dept. of Transportation auction and they had 5 or 6 large lighted portable highway signs that used Lombardini and Deutz air cooled diesel generators. They had between +8000 to +11,000 hrs on them and were still running fine. I know it's different than using them in a tractor and they'll probably have a longer working life but I don't care what the application is, that's pretty dependable.

 

[Redneck in training]

did any of the zetor use air cooled's?

soundguy

As far as I remember Zetor never used air cooled engine.

 

[Redneck in training]

Most air cooled engines don have a fan. They have shrouded axial blower that whines more like starting jet engine or turbocharger.

 

[RobJ]

I worked of Deutz diesels for 6 years. A lot of gen sets, pumps, but we put a few in a box type truck(UPS, Fed-ex type), a non turbo 5 cylinder in there. Still more in some big Poclain hoes. Atlas Copco and IR compressors, Ditch Witch used them in many machines. Even had a guy drive up one day with a V-12 in a White Freightliner! If I recall he said in the hills it would outpull the other guys, but didn't have the engine braking.

You can get an air cooled in a smaller package, smaller package can mean less costs all the way around. Not sure the big deal about the oil sprayers under the pistons. I have seen them on other engines to. Whether sprayed or splashed, oil is used to cool the underside of a piston. On the 912 series (ditch witch size), the fan was belt driven, a cut off switch would kill the motor if the belt broke. The 413 V series had a centrifugal hydraulic drive fan.

The only overheat or melt downs I had were caused by using the engine in the wrong spec. One expensive one I remember was a very large over the road crane(max boom was over 500'). Just shipped it in from Germany to New Orleans. Smoked the motor entering Texas. The fuel pump was designed for intermiting loads while driving around europe. They got on I-10 headed to Houston where it is flat. We replaced the motor after recalibrating the pump.

A couple of yall mention the one cylinders. Funniest one there was I got a service call to the Houston Heights area. Figured it was a construction site. Nope a house, lady answers the door, then points to the sail boat in the back. A hand start single cylinder Deutz to power around if needed. Which isn't as bad as it sounds, to keep the single cylinders running smooth, they (and the 2 cylinder) had a huge flywheel. They always shook like crazy until you got the rpms up. Not that hard to start with a ratching compression release and crank.

As far as overheating, this past summer some neighbors at the weekend place were putting in some water pipe, about a mile of it. Rented this beater ditch witch. I think they ran it 8-10 hours solid. Oh and being a mechanic I noted there there was no side cover on the Deutz to force the air between the pistons. Didn't care, came that way. It's probably still missing that cover today! And still running. Wouldn't that be the same as running with no water?

With the individual cylinders I think it was easier to work on. Parts were lighter and easier to handle, only had to replace a single cylinder if needed, not bore the whole block. Fuel pumps were a nice Bosch. The smallest one with a turbo I saw was the 6 cylinder 913 series. Most were direct injection but the W series had pre-combustion chamers, used mostly in mines, they were down on the power.

As someone mentioned they could not get the epa rating are/were phased out. There are still a lot of them out there running that I see all the time.

 

[Soundguy]

so how did the fuel pump going out whipe out the engine? overfuel / lube thinned out?

soundguy

 

[kenstrac]

did any of the zetor use air cooled's?

soundguy

Not that I know of, had a Czech working for me once ,and he said their were 3 tractor co. in Czechoslovakia and one was air cooled and was the best then Zetor and there was another that I don't remember the name of but was probably a Belarus design that he said was junk.
He referred to Russian products the same as we do Chinese products here.

 

[Redneck in training]

Not that I know of, had a Czech working for me once ,and he said their were 3 tractor co. in Czechoslovakia and one was air cooled and was the best then Zetor and there was another that I don't remember the name of but was probably a Belarus design that he said was junk.
He referred to Russian products the same as we do Chinese products here.

I am not aware of any other tractor company than Zetor after Second World War in the Czech republic. But it is possible that there were some air cooled tractors from prewar time still working there.
Russian tractors and vehicles in general didn't have good reputation there. Many of them were copies of equipment originally produced in the West. They were pain to repair because many of them had only nuts and bolts metric and everything else had imperial dimensions. My father used to be a manager of a repair shop and they had to pay for custom made tools and/or modify the equipment to round metric dimensions.

 

[FlaDon]

I have a couple of small diesel generators with air cooled engines. They smoke much more in cold weather. I think since their temp is unregulated, unlike a liquid cooled engine with a thermostat, they never get warm enough for complete combustion.

So did I. Only kept one which is a Farryman V twin running a 10KW 3 phase unit. Owned a water cooled Kohler which was hard to start cold and a Petter powered 10KW also. Worked on single and multi-cylinder Hatz units which are still available in the US. HATZ Diesel: 2-4M41

 

[Renze]

Because of the higher temperatures, Deutz and Same couldnt meet the emission standards with air cooled anymore.

Liquid filled heads are indeed less noisy on older engines, but in modern injection techniques the difference isnt noticeable.

Air cooled engines are generally lighter in weight, but you cant take as much hp per liter from them, without overheating issues. Water needs less surface to absorb the heat. With air cooled engines, the surface to exchange heat with the air has to be large. With high power per displacement ratios, the head material simply cant dissipate the heat into the cooling ribs where it can be exchanged to the cooling air, which causes local head hotspots that can burn.

The more recent small deutz air cooled diesels arent really air cooled: They cool the heads with engine oil and use a radiator to cool this oil. Quite comparable to water cooled engines. It doesnt have the disadvantages of direct air cooled engines.
However the Deutz engines are built like a jap car engine, they are fine as long as you dont work them hard. work them hard and they blow gaskets.

 

[Renze]

Not that I know of, had a Czech working for me once ,and he said their were 3 tractor co. in Czechoslovakia and one was air cooled and was the best then Zetor and there was another that I don't remember the name of but was probably a Belarus design that he said was junk.
He referred to Russian products the same as we do Chinese products here.

Czech makes were Zetor, Skoda/Liaz (articulated 180hp tractor based on Liaz truck components) and... I cant remember the name.

There was a company called Slavia, that used Zetor shortblocks and put their own air cooled heads on them, for generator drive. Zetor did LPG versions too, for use in Desta forklift trucks.
Another company used cylinder heads of the Crystal range, to put on their slow running long stroke ship engines.

There are some good russian products: the Kirovets articulated tractors were well engineered, though the factory support was poor. the smaller Kharkov articulated tractor was junk.
The whole point was that the Kirovets were developed as an artillery hauler in 1964, and later adapted for farm use. The Kharkov was an agricultural tractor from the start.
The Russians were capable of bomb proof engineering, though the communist central office didnt grant a lot of development resources to non-military projects. A former co-worker of mine worked for an engine rebuild shop before i met him. He said they tried to sell a CAT engine to a riverboat captain, who refused it and insisted on overhauling his Jams Diesel, with over 30.000 hours on it without being touched with a spanner...
Kamaz is a frequent winner of the Dakar rally (ever since Tatra isnt financing a factory team anymore)

 

[RobJ]

so how did the fuel pump going out whipe out the engine? overfuel / lube thinned out?

soundguy

Fuel pump didn't go out. It was set for a intermitting load, IE driving through hills, hard work, then coasting which resulted in heat up, cool down. So the fuel delivery was set high for more power. When it came down south, flatland, it basically ran wide open all the time, like a pump or generator, and burned up some pistons (over heated). We reset the pump to a continous load, no way to overheat the motor. We tested most engines(all of the ones we rebuilt) on a dyno, once you hit the speced horsepower, you might get 1 or 2 more out of it, then the engine would fall flat and lose everything(rpm, hp, etc).

 

[Soundguy]

so.. like i said.. overfuel and burned a piston then?

soundguy

 

[art]

We worked with the Same tractor line when they first came to the country. They were basically a good line!
I wasn't aware of the White that was a crossover in France although it did look like the Sukra cab we were mounting on them at the time in the late seventies.

Things about air cooled engines, they are normally built for a constant power pull. You cannot load them for torque unless you were to put extra fans on for cooling.

 

[D7E]

Czech makes were Zetor, Skoda/Liaz (articulated 180hp tractor based on Liaz truck components) and... I cant remember the name.

There was a company called Slavia, that used Zetor shortblocks and put their own air cooled heads on them, for generator drive. Zetor did LPG versions too, for use in Desta forklift trucks.
Another company used cylinder heads of the Crystal range, to put on their slow running long stroke ship engines.

I remember there being a few URSUS around when i was a boy ...seemed exactly the same as a crystal at a glance....where were ursus made..?

 

[D7E]

We had a Deutz DX once and it was reasonably good but very noisy and overheated easily when forage harvesting on hot days...!

 

[Redneck in training]

I remember there being a few URSUS around when i was a boy ...seemed exactly the same as a crystal at a glance....where were ursus made..?

The were Zetors made in Poland.