Use of ether for starting

[schmism]

Yeah deere sells there own ether cans. Good stuff. Never had any issues with starting fluid.... Not sure what all the fuss is about.

From working on CAT motorgraders, i can tell you there are cans of ether installed on them from the factory for cold starting.

[deepNdirt]

From working on CAT motorgraders, i can tell you there are cans of ether installed on them from the factory for cold starting.

Sure but the industrial built equipment will have pistons the size of coffee cans and made of much thicker materials and can take the use of speacially formulated ether needed to help to get it started, I thought we were generally speaking of standard farm equipment under 50 hp machines, with the use of ether bought from a auto parts store,
I can remember some of the old aircrafts engines of the 30's requiring a loaded black powder shell casing as a backup starting method had to be inserted in a chamber to get the engine fired over,

[EE_Bota]

My 1981 John deere 2240 has a factory port on the dash to screw in an ether can to give it a shot to aid in cold starting. Never had to use it, but it is there...

I used an 1155 M-F that had a built in ether system.

[crashz]

My father had and still has some equipment with ether starting devices. With that said, we fired everything off with ether in the winter with the exception of anything with glow plugs or grid heaters. When the glow plugs burnt out, ether was used.

We never had any issues. But I've never seen anyone blast more than 1/2 - 1 second of starting fluid into an air cleaner. 3 seconds would launch a piston!

I'd say inexperience with ether is the engine killer.

[Gary Fowler]

My father had and still has some equipment with ether starting devices. With that said, we fired everything off with ether in the winter with the exception of anything with glow plugs or grid heaters. When the glow plugs burnt out, ether was used.

We never had any issues. But I've never seen anyone blast more than 1/2 - 1 second of starting fluid into an air cleaner. 3 seconds would launch a piston!

I'd say inexperience with ether is the engine killer.

I have to agree here. Many farm tractors had ether systems for starting rather than glow plugs. IIRC our 9000 Ford had one and the operators manual warned not to push the button more than 2 seconds. It usually started without any starting fluid (ether) unless it was bitter cold in Louisiana which means below freezing. Excess of anything is bad, even water can kill you if you drink too much.

[daugen]

Definitely a less is more approach seems to work best here. That's why someone told me to spray the air filter not down the throat to dilute the concentration I suppose.
Perhaps longer acting? Not sure as effective. They ought to build in a dosage controller on the can to not allow more than a second spray. Hardhat required on second use...

I guess the earlier diesels with their large iron blocks could take a fair amount of abuse and keep ticking. Maybe ring and piston design, or lower combustion ratio. I bet some of you know.
So if John deere wanted to make sure your tractor worked in January in Minnesota, it made sure to provide an ether port. Because it worked without apparently significantly reducing engine life.
Or maybe it did...certainly the Southern states would not use ether very much; wonder if there's any data on cold vs. warm climates for tractor diesel longevity.
Was ether like smoking, something denied for so long? Well, I'll always keep a can of starting fluid, usually they get pretty old and rusty from not much use. But quite handy if used sparingly and infrequently.

Ether, it's like crack for your Case...

[MHarryE]

At Allis-Chalmers prior to Deutz buying the place ether was the cold start method. Book said to remove the air cleaner cover to inject straight but on our proto fleet we always injected straight into the air intake, a 2 person job, one cranking and the other person spraying after the engine was cranking. Then came Deutz engines and harder cold starting but also more delicate. The engine came with a thermostatically controlled ether system that automatically sprayed when the temperature was below a certain temp. Fine until your ether can ran out and you didn't have a spare. A few years after I moved to Cat we started switching to Perkins for our little engines (less than 7 liters). I asked our Perkins rep about ether since we were putting a decal on the air cleaner stating no ether. He said it was just because people overdo it. The first Perkins we used (before buying the company) had a starting aid that consisted of a heating coil at the opening of the intake manifold along with a diesel line, solenoid valve, and diesel line. When cranking the cold engine the coil would get very hot, the solenoid would open a valve spraying diesel into the manifold starting a fire that warmed the incoming air. It was a small fire so it didn't burn all of the oxygen and defeat the purpose. You can imagine spraying ether into that - explosion before the ether got close to the combustion chamber. With Tier 3 that changed to glow plugs and cold starts down to -15F but below that we say use an additional starting aid and don't mention ether like it doesn't exist knowing if the engine has to start in really cold weather, ether gets used and unless overused, it will not hurt long term engine life any more than having to endure really cold starts in the first place. Block heaters, oil heaters, heated garages, anything you can do to help.

[Gordon Gould]

Harry, Thanks for that informed and detailed historical account. Very interesting.

[JohninCT]

I use starting fluid on gas engines all the time... weed wacker, push lawnmower, chain saw. If they sit around and won't start after a half dozen or so pulls a little squirt of starting fluid gets them going. Never experienced any knocking, explosions, etc. Maybe I'm just lucky.

[PapaPerk]

My father had and still has some equipment with ether starting devices. With that said, we fired everything off with ether in the winter with the exception of anything with glow plugs or grid heaters. When the glow plugs burnt out, ether was used.

We never had any issues. But I've never seen anyone blast more than 1/2 - 1 second of starting fluid into an air cleaner. 3 seconds would launch a piston!

I'd say inexperience with ether is the engine killer.