Your last generator Maintenance Run

[grsthegreat]

I tend to push my mixture for anti freezes;
I use 60% anti freeze to 40% distilled water, I do buy some of the premixed occasionally just to be sure and have some ready to go.
When I use it I try and follow up with some straight concentrate to bump up the mixture.

i found out the hard way that increasing antifreeze above 50% will cause solution to freeze easier.

 

[LouNY]

i found out the hard way that increasing antifreeze above 50% will cause solution to freeze easier.

I would have to go check on the jugs, but I believe that around 60% to 70% gives the coldest freeze protection.

added; from the Shell Rotella ELC coolant spec sheet
with 40% coolant and 60% water the freezing point is -24.4C or -12F with a boiling point of 106.7C or 224F with a 15# pressure cap,
with 50% coolant and 50% water the freezing point is -37.0C or -35F with a boiling point of 129.0C or 264F with a 15# pressure cap,
with 60% coolant and 40% water the freezing point is -52.0C or -61F with a boiling point of 132.0C or 270F with a 15# pressure cap,

I have seen pure or high concentrations get slushy.

 

[Fallon]

i found out the hard way that increasing antifreeze above 50% will cause solution to freeze easier.

I dont remember the percentage offhand, but ya, pure antifreeze freezes at a surprisingly high tempature compared to the proper 50/50 mix. Pure antifreeze also cools a lot worse than water or the proper 50/50 mix.

I'm lazy & dont have a convenient source for distilled water. So I go with the premix stuff these days.

Especially on modern diesel trucks cooling system neglect breaks lots of stuff quick. The 6.7 PowerStrokes have 2 separate cooling systems on them.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I drove right by the TSC store and since I wasn't in the market for some JD slippers or a Browning T-Shirt, I didn't even think of buying coolant there.

I spoke with Prestone, asking if the concentrated coolant labelled suitable for ALL cars and light trucks, but not saying a word about "DIESEL" was in fact suitable for a small diesel. He said yes, but HD is another matter. He says there can be cavitation issues and the HD Diesel Coolant addresses that. Hard to say, where light duty ends and HD begins though.

 

[LouNY]

Well to get back to generators, checked gear box oil greased the pto shaft ujoints and pulled the pto shaft apart and cleaned it and applied some light lubricate to it along with a tiny bit of grease. Last week it was stuck with heavy grease couldn't even hardly telescope it in and out to hook it up, slides nicely now.
Tractor back on the rear blade for now we will see how the power fares with the sloppy weather coming in for the next few days.

 

[Katahdin]

He says there can be cavitation issues and the HD Diesel Coolant addresses that. Hard to say, where light duty ends and HD begins though.

Cavitation issues are limited to wet sleeve engines. Dry and no-sleeve engines do not need the additives wet sleeve engines do.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Thanks for that. Would have made things simple if he could have told me that. Still a little mysterious that for a coolant that can be used in a small diesel, that word doesn't appear on the bottle once.

 

[3930dave]

Most modern ELC HD diesel coolants address cavitation directly, so don't need SCA additive like olde school coolant did. Read the fine print, if in doubt....

AFAIK, no foul using modern HD coolant on diesel engines that are dry-sleeved. Search for cavitation-corrosion pictures if you've never seen them before..... getting this wrong is expensive.

When I was digging for info on cavitation corrosion, I saw one reference to rare, but recognized cases of cavitation corrosion in gasoline motors.

Living up Nord, I'm glad that there are synthetic and Arctic formulations of grease available....

Rgds, D.

 

[90cummins]

While running a 1.5kw fuel consumption test on my Yanmar L100 a couple weeks ago I recorded some temperatures with my IR Gun.
Powerhouse internal temp 90 degrees
Exhaust outlet 390 degrees
Muffler outlet 370 degrees
Cam boss on engine 158 degrees
Oil sump 132 degrees
Generator housing 163 degrees
Does anyone have info on max/minimum engine temps.
This was relatively short duration run at light load so I’m sure the temps would be higher.
I can control the air flow thru the building to maintain suitable temperatures.
I’m concerned with maintaining temps during winter operation not so much during the summer.
Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks 90cummins

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

A couple points that you may have already figured out for yourself but I’ll mention them anyway.

IR guns will read reflections of heat from other sources, picture the reflection when you scan a surface and you’ll see what I mean.

You’re reading surface temperatures which can be considerably lower than the other side of the surface when there is airflow across it.

That said, your temperatures all seem to be in a normal range except the alternator housing, it’s a temperature I’d expect running at full load while the rest of the values look like a lightly loaded unit. Are you getting a bounce on that reading? I deal in larger units but alternators have a set temperature rise - air out is 40C higher than inlet for example at 100% rated amps. There isn’t really a spec for the temperature of the barrel but hot spots can indicate a pending failure.

As for min and max, you’d want to keep your oil up above 130 to keep the moisture out and keep varnishes from forming and under about 230 with ideal being about 180. There’s no minimum for exhaust except for the purposes of purging condensation from the exhaust system - you want to ensure the entire exhaust is hot enough to steam off any water. The exhaust stream could be up over 1000 degrees without concern and surface readings are usually a couple hundred degrees lower.

The other big one to watch is inlet temperature. For a non turbo engine you should be fine up to about 140 before you’d need to derate but you’d want to keep under 120’on a turbocharged engine. As the inlet temperature rises so does the cylinder and exhaust temperatures and it is compounded with boost from a turbo.