Forum for air cooled diesel engines and clones

[90cummins]

It may be (possible) to restart with considerable cranking but I would become familiar with the bleeding process to avoid starter damage.
90cummins

 

[ponytug]

Do the L series Yamahas tolerate running out of diesel without having to bleed the injector? Generator type application, where running until out of fuel is understandable.

Are you trying to empty it for long term storage?
Or just running the generator until dry because the diesel tank wasn't refilled in time?

If it is the former, drain everything by hand. (And if it were me, not unless storage was for years.)

If it is the latter, it isn't a good idea, neither for the electrical portion, nor for the diesel pump and injectors, which both have very tight tolerances and require diesel for lubrication.

Running any diesel engine dry risks wear, aka damage, aka replacement of the pump and injectors. If running out is a risk in your usage, I would get a bigger diesel tank or a timer.

To answer the "bleed the injector" part of your question specifically, not really no. If air gets into the fuel lines, each one must be bled, including the high pressure line to the injector.

All the best,

Peter

 

[tmash]

Do the L series Yamahas tolerate running out of diesel without having to bleed the injector? Generator type application, where running until out of fuel is understandable.

The AVR and the connected equipment can be damaged from hunting/low rpm while running out of fuel in gravity fed system in a generator application, not to mention demagnetization.
There is no suction from the high pressure fuel pump.
As long the feeding hose is above and bent upwards to the fuel tank it should bleed by itself while filling the tank like the original Yanmar with the small ~5L tank on the head. Else you'd have to bleed it by cracking the fuel hose with flowing diesel, I did not need to crack the high pressure tubings.

On another topic, unfortunately, my 192F will hit 1000 hour in the next few weeks due to extended power outages from our subscription provider from recent fuel shortages, I'm also partially stuck here. (we have 2 sources of electricity here, the government supplies it partially.)
It's been running 10+ hours everyday (originally bought for 1-2 hours a day 4 months ago). Managed to get to 1k hours in ~4 months only.
Changing oil at ~90 hours and air filter at 200hr. (the genset controller is set to block start on missed oil change)
Got it on a bargain deal and need electricity until alternatives are considered so I don't mind wearing it out anymore as it wasn't on the plan. (and it's not intended for this application)
Usage: 5 hours at 70% load (water heating) and the rest at 30% load for heat pumps.
Burned ~2 tons of fuel so far, ~0.7L/hr at 30% (more efficient than the 178f ~1L/hr at 2kW) and 1.6L/hr at full.
Will see how far it can go.

Should I replace the injector and the fuel pump at ~1K even while its running 'ok' as the service manual suggests? The speed hasn't changed a bit when idling or fully loaded and no visible smoke, holding a tissue near the exhaust starts getting greyish at ~4kW (80%) after 10 seconds, surge duration at ~5.6kW is around 3 seconds before overfuling hunts the engine (same at 30 hours testing). If it protects the engine from fuel dilution then I'll start ordering from now as the kama/kipor modified parts take time to ship from abroad and until a battery backup system or migration is finally done.
P.s: Fuel costs are pretty high lately I guess it's still cheaper to renew the same genny compared to larger backup set with regards to fuel consumption.

P.s2: To add at ~600 hours, the plastic door locks broke from vibration, all the crimps were loose, the starter solenoid crimp wire which I checked on when the engine was new and was very tight is completely loose, probably from the loose thick wiring and vibration, replaced and ziptied all wires to the engine. No exhaust leak from the internal flexible tubing so far and I installed a Racor water seperator/10micron fuel filter from the beginning.

Edit April:
Exhaust mufflers are leaking from the folded edges (not welded as it's a thin sheet metal box), flexible exhaust is starting to leak, jinxed it! Time to deshell the genset and use a regular L100 muffler.

 

[ponytug]

I am sure parts are challenging to obtain, but I would replace them if I could. Not replacing them risks slow fuel injection deterioration, resulting in carbon fouling and increased fuel usage.

You are well on the way to being the high hours owner here!

Have you thought about using the waste heat from the generator to preheat your water? Combined heat and power (cogeneration, or cogen) in the US often uses heating oil to run a water cooled diesel generator, with the water from the generator being used to provide domestic hot water, and heating. My grandfather did something similar with a radiator as the heat exchanger.

All the best,

Peter

 

[tmash]

I am sure parts are challenging to obtain, but I would replace them if I could. Not replacing them risks slow fuel injection deterioration, resulting in carbon fouling and increased fuel usage.

You are well on the way to being the high hours owner here!

Have you thought about using the waste heat from the generator to preheat your water? Combined heat and power (cogeneration, or cogen) in the US often uses heating oil to run a water cooled diesel generator, with the water from the generator being used to provide domestic hot water, and heating. My grandfather did something similar with a radiator as the heat exchanger.

All the best,

Peter

Good idea!
In this air cooled genset I'm guessing that I should be scavenging heat from the exhaust? modified intercooler?
I guess it requires a lot of work to convert it to a water cooled engine. (this one has removable cylinder with wrapped around casing for circulation.)
removable type:

non removable 192f:

Thanks.

 

[ponytug]

Well, how much water flow are we talking about and what is the pressure?

I have known people who ran the exhaust through a 55 gallon drum in a pipe, and then used water in the drum to transfer heat to a second coil of water. This is the simplest and least likely to cause a problem with your generator.

If you want higher efficiency, you could wrap some soft metal tubing around the mufflers, or an external exhaust pipe. After that, I would think about using an external radiator to warm water from the waste heat in the air, which I think on your unit exits over the mufflers. You can fill the tubing with sand, and then blow it out when you are done to keep the tubing from collapsing.

I worry always about water around electricity, so if it were me, I would try the barrel with tubing in it first. I also wouldn't have any joins in the tubing inside the enclosure. Any movement of the tubing will harden the tubing over time, and crack, so make sure that the tubing is fastened securely so that it doesn't vibrate.

All the best, Peter

 

[tmash]

Well, how much water flow are we talking about and what is the pressure?

I have known people who ran the exhaust through a 55 gallon drum in a pipe, and then used water in the drum to transfer heat to a second coil of water. This is the simplest and least likely to cause a problem with your generator.

If you want higher efficiency, you could wrap some soft metal tubing around the mufflers, or an external exhaust pipe. After that, I would think about using an external radiator to warm water from the waste heat in the air, which I think on your unit exits over the mufflers. You can fill the tubing with sand, and then blow it out when you are done to keep the tubing from collapsing.

I worry always about water around electricity, so if it were me, I would try the barrel with tubing in it first. I also wouldn't have any joins in the tubing inside the enclosure. Any movement of the tubing will harden the tubing over time, and crack, so make sure that the tubing is fastened securely so that it doesn't vibrate.

All the best, Peter

Thanks that's useful
I'm assuming that at 40% engine efficiency (electrical output) the rest is heat and that would be around ~5kW of heat at full load, in comparison my small 150L electric water heater takes 2kW to heat water from 5c to 65c in 3 hours. I'll be scavenging the heat partially from the exhaust not sure if it's worth it for my setup and for general heating as we use heat pumps (COP of 4+, e.g 1kW HP = 4kW resistance heater) and the genset is far from the house. We don't heat during summers (not that high in altitude).

Edit: It seems like the Japenese manual does not suggest replacing the injector, only testing is needed, I'm assuming spray and pop pressure? No mentioning of fuel pump replacement. I'll order a spare anyways, the chinese manual is badly translated, should be "check" not "change", I've noticed that after I read "change valve clearance" in the paper manual.

 

[ponytug]

If you can check the spray pattern locally, great. If not, I would swap in a spare as the generator seems to be a fairly critical item for you. If your water heater is a long distance away from the generator, I wouldn't bother trying to capture the heat. It is too hard to insulate long pipes.

All the best,

Peter

 

[goeduck]

Are you trying to empty it for long term storage?
Or just running the generator until dry because the diesel tank wasn't refilled in time?

If it is the former, drain everything by hand. (And if it were me, not unless storage was for years.)

If it is the latter, it isn't a good idea, neither for the electrical portion, nor for the diesel pump and injectors, which both have very tight tolerances and require diesel for lubrication.

Running any diesel engine dry risks wear, aka damage, aka replacement of the pump and injectors. If running out is a risk in your usage, I would get a bigger diesel tank or a timer.

To answer the "bleed the injector" part of your question specifically, not really no. If air gets into the fuel lines, each one must be bled, including the high pressure line to the injector.

All the best,

Peter

First, I am not sure why I wrote Yamaha. I have a Yanmar 6 HP air cooled engine on a generator that I sometimes power the house's generator circuits when we have long power outages (freezers, refrigerators, etc.). I have never ran it out of diesel, but I could imagine possibly forgetting to fill the tank and I was curious if it was built to run out of fuel. Doesn't sound like it is. Thanks for the inout.

 

[bmaverick]

A few months ago, I came across these really neat 1 sheet parts manuals for the L-Series engines. These would make a great addition to those with the Yanmar machines or possible a good close clones.

L40 - L48 - L60 models