Air Cooled Diesel Engine

[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.