Clove
New member
I had a very scary incident yesterday and now that I've finished "instantly aging" by a few years I've realized it's very possibly my own fault.
I was changing the oil and filter on my 3510i (something I've done several times before). Upon completion I started up the tractor and let it idle for a few minutes to check for leaks. Everything appeared fine, so I slowly throttled up to around pto speed (2500) and all of a sudden the engine just kept going. Smoke filled the garage quickly and I couldn't get the tractor to idle down or the engine to stop. I checked the throttle linkage thinking perhaps it was stuck or seized, but it appeared fine. It had a life of its own and I ran like **** over to the house to call 911 knowing full well that at the very least I was about to have a major fire on my hands. A side note here to anybody who might be thinking of getting a MagicJack Internet phone...DON'T! Right when you need it most it will likely fail. In my case I could hear the 911 operator, but they couldn't hear me! They told me to hang up and they'd call me back and that worked on their second attempt. By that point the tractor had stopped and the smoke was slowly clearing out if the garage. I've called the local dealer and have made arrangements
to have him look over the tractor and see where things are at. Hoping like heck that it's still useable.
So now that I've been able to sleep on it and replay the incident in my head many times, here's why I think I might be at fault:
After going to the dealer earlier in the day to pick up a new oil filter and two large jugs of oil (4L each) I got home and started to work:
1) I completely drained the oil into the oil pan (which already had some oil in it from a previous atv oil change) and removed the existing oil filter.
2) I installed the new oil filter and reinstalled the drain plug.
3) I had a previous jug of oil that still had about 1 to 1.5L in it and I decided to use this first since it would give me an empty container into which I could pour out the old oil from the oil pan.
4) I found another empty container in the garage and decided to pour out the old oil from the pan so that I could take it safely to the local hazardous waste depot.
5) I resumed filling the tractor with new oil. Tractor needs 6.1L of oil, so given I bought two 4L jugs that means 1 full jug and half of the other.
6) Checked the dipstick, and showed full, maybe even a bit beyond (I find that new oil hard to see against the dipstick).
7) Put the filler cap back on and cleaned up any small oil drips.
8) And the story as foretold begins.
So you've likely caught where I screwed up. Rather than staying focused on finishing the oil change first, I decided that I was going to empty the oil pan mid way thru. In my mind I was always going to add one and half jugs of new oil, like I've always done before, but because I looked to use some existing oil to empty that container for disposal use I tinkered with my methodology. I simply forgot that I had already added oil before getting back into things. So I have no doubt that I overfilled the crankcase with oil and this lead to what is known as a runaway diesel engine. I had no idea what this was, but good old Google was quick to show me many images, videos and articles about this exact phenomenon.
So now a question to anybody who might know more about this than I do: The tractor stopped this runaway after about 45 to 60 seconds on its own. I'm hoping it's not because the engine is shot. I'm hoping/guessing that maybe it stopped because it burned the extra oil off and once the oil level returned to a more normal capacity it was no longer able to pull that excess oil as a source of fuel. Is this possible? If so, given it stopped doing this rather quickly, is there a likelihood that the engine is ok?
I've drained all the oil again, and quantity wise I'd say there's about 6.5 to 7 L that came out. If anybody has experienced this, would you try to add oil again and restart the tractor? I'm a bit worried that I could cause more damage to the engine if there's something else at play here, but I also feel very sure that the issue was excessive oil in the engine. In any event, any thoughts/advice would be appreciated, and of course one of the main reasons for sharing this story is to help others avoid a potentially scary and dangerous situation (and also to avoid buying a MajicJack! :thumbdown: )
Cheers,
Chris
I was changing the oil and filter on my 3510i (something I've done several times before). Upon completion I started up the tractor and let it idle for a few minutes to check for leaks. Everything appeared fine, so I slowly throttled up to around pto speed (2500) and all of a sudden the engine just kept going. Smoke filled the garage quickly and I couldn't get the tractor to idle down or the engine to stop. I checked the throttle linkage thinking perhaps it was stuck or seized, but it appeared fine. It had a life of its own and I ran like **** over to the house to call 911 knowing full well that at the very least I was about to have a major fire on my hands. A side note here to anybody who might be thinking of getting a MagicJack Internet phone...DON'T! Right when you need it most it will likely fail. In my case I could hear the 911 operator, but they couldn't hear me! They told me to hang up and they'd call me back and that worked on their second attempt. By that point the tractor had stopped and the smoke was slowly clearing out if the garage. I've called the local dealer and have made arrangements
to have him look over the tractor and see where things are at. Hoping like heck that it's still useable.
So now that I've been able to sleep on it and replay the incident in my head many times, here's why I think I might be at fault:
After going to the dealer earlier in the day to pick up a new oil filter and two large jugs of oil (4L each) I got home and started to work:
1) I completely drained the oil into the oil pan (which already had some oil in it from a previous atv oil change) and removed the existing oil filter.
2) I installed the new oil filter and reinstalled the drain plug.
3) I had a previous jug of oil that still had about 1 to 1.5L in it and I decided to use this first since it would give me an empty container into which I could pour out the old oil from the oil pan.
4) I found another empty container in the garage and decided to pour out the old oil from the pan so that I could take it safely to the local hazardous waste depot.
5) I resumed filling the tractor with new oil. Tractor needs 6.1L of oil, so given I bought two 4L jugs that means 1 full jug and half of the other.
6) Checked the dipstick, and showed full, maybe even a bit beyond (I find that new oil hard to see against the dipstick).
7) Put the filler cap back on and cleaned up any small oil drips.
8) And the story as foretold begins.
So you've likely caught where I screwed up. Rather than staying focused on finishing the oil change first, I decided that I was going to empty the oil pan mid way thru. In my mind I was always going to add one and half jugs of new oil, like I've always done before, but because I looked to use some existing oil to empty that container for disposal use I tinkered with my methodology. I simply forgot that I had already added oil before getting back into things. So I have no doubt that I overfilled the crankcase with oil and this lead to what is known as a runaway diesel engine. I had no idea what this was, but good old Google was quick to show me many images, videos and articles about this exact phenomenon.
So now a question to anybody who might know more about this than I do: The tractor stopped this runaway after about 45 to 60 seconds on its own. I'm hoping it's not because the engine is shot. I'm hoping/guessing that maybe it stopped because it burned the extra oil off and once the oil level returned to a more normal capacity it was no longer able to pull that excess oil as a source of fuel. Is this possible? If so, given it stopped doing this rather quickly, is there a likelihood that the engine is ok?
I've drained all the oil again, and quantity wise I'd say there's about 6.5 to 7 L that came out. If anybody has experienced this, would you try to add oil again and restart the tractor? I'm a bit worried that I could cause more damage to the engine if there's something else at play here, but I also feel very sure that the issue was excessive oil in the engine. In any event, any thoughts/advice would be appreciated, and of course one of the main reasons for sharing this story is to help others avoid a potentially scary and dangerous situation (and also to avoid buying a MajicJack! :thumbdown: )
Cheers,
Chris
