Whats wrong with starting fluid

[Hooked_on_HP]

I was reading a reply on another post and starting fluid got brought up and how bad it is on engines. I didn't want to hijack that thread so I started a new one. It seems some people think useing starting fluid is worse than modifing your ROPS. I will agree you cannot use starting fluid with glow plugs, but if used properly I dont see any harm in it. All of our trucks and equiptment at work come from the factory with a starting fluid system installed. We dont use them verry often but when it is below freezing and somebody forgot to plug in the block heater starting fluid is a blessing.
Bill

 

[JerryG]

The units like are mounted on trucks and tractors use a metered amount of starting fluid. When most people go to use starting fluid, they use way to much and it can be very dangerous to an engine, especially the lands on the pistons.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I was reading a reply on another post and starting fluid got brought up and how bad it is on engines. I didn't want to hijack that thread so I started a new one. It seems some people think useing starting fluid is worse than modifing your ROPS. I will agree you cannot use starting fluid with glow plugs, but if used properly I dont see any harm in it. All of our trucks and equiptment at work come from the factory with a starting fluid system installed. We dont use them verry often but when it is below freezing and somebody forgot to plug in the block heater starting fluid is a blessing.
Bill

Ether (starting fluid) is like fine Scotch Whiskey. A little sip is good every now and then. Half a bottle in one swig is darn near lethal. Moderation is the key.

For obvious reasons, the best scenario is to have an engine that fires right up without any help. Someimes outside forces, like extremely cold weather, prevent that from happening. Just a touch of ether sprayed into the air intake will give an engine just that little boost it needs to light up. Another "outside force" is having a tired, worn out engine. With the engine already in a weakened state, ether is like TNT in the combustion chambers. Give that same tired engine a BIG slug of ether, and you have an oil pan full of fishing weights, formerly known as pistons.

I refuse to use ether. If an engine needs something 10 times as volitile as it's normal fuel to reach ignition, it needs help, maybe in the form of an overhaul. Not harm in the form of violent explosives in the cylinders.

 

[woodchuckie]

The starting fluid will clean off any oil it contacts on your pistons and valves. It seems that it would take a lot to do any damage. I've also heard that choking the carb will have the same effect in cleaning off the lubricating oil.

 

[mjarrels]

Perkins diesels don't like it...

mark

 

[sandman2234]

Moderation my dear man, moderation...
David from jax

 

[Woodbeef]

A one second shot will help..........much longer could be dangerous.

 

[Volfandt]

Its bad bad bad
It strips away the protective oil coating on the piston and cylinder walls. Over time this will wear the rings and cylinder wall down past optimum clearances, lessoning compression and causing excessive oil usage.

Some of the old GSE gear I used to work on back in the day, with Detroit diesels, had an ether injector system that used those small metal capsules just like you find on CO2 pellet guns. It was only supposed to be used in sub-zero temps but folks got to useing them for all 1st starts of the day. Especially on the hydraulic start AC/DC generators and test stands. Their pressure tanks would bleed down over night and barely eave enough pressure to crank the engines so we'd want to get a start 1st time or we'd have to hand pump up the pressure again and again which was not good....
Anyways, with prolonged use of that ether those engines got to where they wouldn't start without it. Their internals were very noisey also.

I never use it on my personal equipment!

I've had some hard to start gasoline engines over yrs, with my 48 TE20 being the hardest to start once it got cold out.
What I'd do is to inject a small amount of gas into the carb with one of those turkey spice injectors and this would usually get that old engine started with a slow turning 6v starter.

Glow plugs should be all you need to get a properly maintained diesel going.

Volfandt

 

[Charolais]

I have an old friend that owned,operated and worked on dozers. We were talking one day about the use of starting fluid(Ether) and diesel engines. He told me that over the years he had learned a way to use Ether that didn't harm the engine. He said use a clean piece of cloth, spray the Ether on the cloth and hold it over the intake of the air filter while turning the engine. I've tried it and it works but on most engines you will need one person to turn the engine over while the other holds the cloth over the air intake. But it does work.

Yes you all are correct on the Perkins engine. You can use Ether on a Perkins for one winter in daily starting and it'll get to the place you have to use it at 45 deg. to get it started for the rest of the engine life. I know because my Dad did that on a 135 MF.

I also saw a Fiat enigine last summer with 3 of the 4 pistions cracked right across the top. The guy that owned it let the engine run out of fuel. He didn't know how to bleed the system and started spraying Ether in the try and keep the engine running in hopes it would pick up the fuel. Turned out to be very expensive in the end. And know it didn't pick up the fuel. I haven't used a shot of Ether in 20 years now and have no plans to do so. I do plan every day in the winter to have the engine already warm from plugging up the engine heater.(I use a timer) I have to feeding cows daily. I also keep a small generator close by to use if the power is out.

Ether can be used but you'd better know what you're doing when you use it.

 

[RoyJackson]

I have used ether many years ago. It was a metered shot on a Ford backhoe. This was in the late 60's, by the way. Out on the construction site I worked at, it wasn't uncommon to see a small fire burning under some of the equipment. This was to heat the oil enough to get those beasts started in the winter. For you folks from Maryland, this site was Columbia City in Howard County.

I wouldn't use it on my 790. For one, many of the newer Deeres use an intake heater rather then glow plugs. I don't think spraying something as volatile as ether across a heating element would be a good idea. I don't know if it would flash back out of the intake, but I'm not going to find out

 

[HGM]

I have an old friend that owned,operated and worked on dozers. We were talking one day about the use of starting fluid(Ether) and diesel engines. He told me that over the years he had learned a way to use Ether that didn't harm the engine. He said use a clean piece of cloth, spray the Ether on the cloth and hold it over the intake of the air filter while turning the engine. I've tried it and it works but on most engines you will need one person to turn the engine over while the other holds the cloth over the air intake. But it does work.

Gasoline on a rag works just as well and is my preference after WD-40..

Yes you all are correct on the Perkins engine. You can use Ether on a Perkins for one winter in daily starting and it'll get to the place you have to use it at 45 deg. to get it started for the rest of the engine life. I know because my Dad did that on a 135 MF.

.

Any diesel can become "addicted" to it.. The problem is the rapid rise in cylinder pressures.. Its way too volitile to be ignited in an engine without causing damage.. A small amount may be ok, but do you want to risk your judgement on the correct amount on your engine??

 

[john_bud]

I refuse to use ether. If an engine needs something 10 times as volitile as it's normal fuel .

Good points, Farm, but either is more like 1000 times more volatile than diesel fuel. Probably even more than that.

Back to the main posters question:
Why is ether "bad"? Think about how a diesel combusts fuel. It compresses it about 17:1, that heats it up, the heat starts the combustion and POW! the piston is on it's way down. What happens with ether? When the compression gets about 4:1 or 5:1, the ether is hot enough to combust and does. The piston is still on it's way up, in fact it's a LONG way from the top. This "pre-combustion" volatilizes the diesel in the combustion chamber, heats the combustion chamber and fuel. The piston keeps going up and compresses, but now it goes above the normal 17:1. (Due to the pre-combustion of the ether). The fuel gets hotter than it would otherwise and normal diesel combustion occurs. All of that, in moderation, is fine and will get that cold finicky engine started.

BUT--- if you put in too much ether, the heat of combustion may start the combustion of the main diesel charge --- while the piston is still going up. Cylinder pressures can exceed thousands of PSI and the ring lands are holding it all back. The con rods are also under tremendous stress far beyond design parameters. The crankshaft, which normally flexes back and forth, is slammed back and can be flexed past it's elastic limit. So, just a small tiny whiff can get you going on a freezing cold day. But too much can break ring lands, bend con rods and break the crankshaft. The line between enough and disaster is not all that wide.

That's for normal operations. If you used the glow plugs and it wouldn't start, then use the can of SF before the glow plugs cool, you will have an explosion in the intake manifold, head, and air cleaner. {oops!}


If cans of starting fluid had metered nozzles that only gave 1/3 of a second worth of a shot, most of the evils of ether would be eliminated. But people are free to squirt as much as they feel like squirting and problems occur.

jb

 

[Soundguy]

Here's an important thing to think about.. diesel burns.. gas and either tend to explode..

Soundguy

 

[kmdigital]

Also, don't ever use ether in a diesel engine with a precombustion chamber. The equipment that comes with the ether injection systems are always direct injection engines. It has something to do with potentially damaging the precombustion chamber due to the sudden explosion and burning of diesel fuel in this chamber, which it isn't supposed to do. This is particularly true because the glow plugs are also located in this chamber.

 

[DavesTractor]

I've seen two Yanmars with bent rods from use of starting fluid. As described above, it appears they were ran out of fuel and instead of bleeding them, starting fluid was used generously. I can't be sure it was the cause, but I believe it was. Oddly enough, the pistons looked OK. On the contrary, we had an old IH diesel with a built in metered starter fluid button. Best to stay away from starter fluid for a modern diesel I believe.