Removing Plug to Install a Block Heater - Need some ideas

[Trillium Farm]

All this work makes me glad I installed a heater in the radiator hose. Much simpler.

I think that these heaters are faster & more effective, but they do cost more for the good ones. Yet for me they are the only ones.

 

[careyo63]

I have a thermo and "Had" to use it A handful of times in just over 10yrs. I've owned it. And it stays outside. I agree about the underlying problem. Heaters are Temporary patches esp. with Cold weather and Diesel. Most of the time that problem is going to get worse, Harder to get around. Then having to wait for them to warm up Power to it Etc. Etc. and then your right back.
My Yanmar was ASIS, Never Refurbished. I don't even have the Plastic Fuel Reservoir. Had to use it occasionally in the winter when it is cold. Or has been the night before so I have a way to get fuel to it and it works fine every time. When or if the time comes I'll go after a underlying problem " Cyl,PSI." for example. For the cost of a heater core is about half what rings and a head gasket is. It's a relatively an easy repair. Then good for another ?yrs. since I haven't had to go there yet. That's for my motor anyways. Bigger motor more Cylinders. Bigger Heater. More power.
If you do live were the Temps. are extremely cold which I'm Org. from. Then sure You have to heat it. I've seen truck stops with a lot of trucks parked and full that time of Yr. with everyone of them running................ My grandfathers back in the day kept light bulbs under the hoods for heat... As kids Boy did with think grandpaw was :confused2::laughing:

 

[Jtullis13]

I was not inferring he needed the block heater, just pointing out most old Yanmars do not have glow plugs. The thermostart system lights a fire in the intake warming the intake air. My experiences with it have proven it to be well designed. However, coldest temperatures I probably cranked off were only in the mid twentys.

What is the lowest temperature some of you folks from up North crank off at?

Right now we are having a mild winter, but we usually get down below zero for a period of time and a good month or two we will hang in the single digits too. I agree as before there might be something else causing it to start harder than before. But for where I live when it gets that cold its hard to start even if the tractor is working properly, unless it is warmed by another source of heat.

 

[rScotty]

Right now we are having a mild winter, but we usually get down below zero for a period of time and a good month or two we will hang in the single digits too. I agree as before there might be something else causing it to start harder than before. But for where I live when it gets that cold its hard to start even if the tractor is working properly, unless it is warmed by another source of heat.

Back in the day....when YM series yanmars were newish we had several on our place. They always sat outside with a tarp over them. Occasionally there would be a need to start one on a cold morning without giving it any time on the block heater. We never did anything special to get them to start. They always started just fine by using the factory thermostart - even well below zero. I do remember that sometimes I had to cycle them several times with the thermostart before the burning fumes from the thermostart were sucked into the engine at just the right moment to start the motor.

BTW, here's the trick that worked for us with Yanmar's thermostart. It's a matter of practice and timing.
It all depends on the "pop". Usually you can hear the little muffled "pop" when the thermostart ignites the fumes in the intake maniford. If there's no pop, I'd check that it is working. After the "pop" I give it a fraction of a second to burn - sometimes you can also hear the crackle as it is burning...., and then hit the starter. With any luck, the still-burning charge is sucked right past the intake valve and into the cylinder right along with the lighter hydrocarbons that are created by the heat of the burn. Get it right and she fires right up on your home-made starter fluid.

To my mind the thermostart is a whole different animal from things (heaters in the block,radiator hose, or oil pan) that pre-heat the engine. At least 3 hours of pre-heating is what we still prefer to use - but the reason isn't for starting, it is because I believe most engine wear happens in a cold engine. That's why I pre-heat them when I can.....it's to reduce wear. Sure, it's nice that a warm one starts easier, but that's just a side benefit.

Frankly it it has to be warm to start at all I'd be disappointed enough to look for a reason.

About the only special attention we gave to the tractors for winter was to make sure that the battery was well-charged, and we cleaned the cables. Checked the thermostart for a pop, and we also ran a modern multi-viscosity oil in every system. As Yanmar recommends, we made sure that we had changed from the summer #2 to winter #1 diesel fuel well before cold weather. Oh, and in winter we often ran with a cardboard over the bottom half of the radiator.

That's it. Good Luck,
rScotty

 

[bedrock61]

For what its worth, and want to save you guys some grief, is the plug I removed from the engine block to install the block heater is NOT robust..its hollow and not solid...so too much force and it will break off...As I mentioned before, I got lucky.

 

[rScotty]

For what its worth, and want to save you guys some grief, is the plug I removed from the engine block to install the block heater is NOT robust..its hollow and not solid...so too much force and it will break off...As I mentioned before, I got lucky.

Here's a picture of my YM165D like yours but with the plug removed and the block heater mounted. The original plug was hollowed out for about half of it's length, but solid on the part where you put the wrench on it. Don't remove the "freeze plug" to the right of it.

 

[Jtullis13]

Back in the day....when YM series yanmars were newish we had several on our place. They always sat outside with a tarp over them. Occasionally there would be a need to start one on a cold morning without giving it any time on the block heater. We never did anything special to get them to start. They always started just fine by using the factory thermostart - even well below zero. I do remember that sometimes I had to cycle them several times with the thermostart before the burning fumes from the thermostart were sucked into the engine at just the right moment to start the motor.

BTW, here's the trick that worked for us with Yanmar's thermostart. It's a matter of practice and timing.
It all depends on the "pop". Usually you can hear the little muffled "pop" when the thermostart ignites the fumes in the intake maniford. If there's no pop, I'd check that it is working. After the "pop" I give it a fraction of a second to burn - sometimes you can also hear the crackle as it is burning...., and then hit the starter. With any luck, the still-burning charge is sucked right past the intake valve and into the cylinder right along with the lighter hydrocarbons that are created by the heat of the burn. Get it right and she fires right up on your home-made starter fluid.

To my mind the thermostart is a whole different animal from things (heaters in the block,radiator hose, or oil pan) that pre-heat the engine. At least 3 hours of pre-heating is what we still prefer to use - but the reason isn't for starting, it is because I believe most engine wear happens in a cold engine. That's why I pre-heat them when I can.....it's to reduce wear. Sure, it's nice that a warm one starts easier, but that's just a side benefit.

Frankly it it has to be warm to start at all I'd be disappointed enough to look for a reason.

About the only special attention we gave to the tractors for winter was to make sure that the battery was well-charged, and we cleaned the cables. Checked the thermostart for a pop, and we also ran a modern multi-viscosity oil in every system. As Yanmar recommends, we made sure that we had changed from the summer #2 to winter #1 diesel fuel well before cold weather. Oh, and in winter we often ran with a cardboard over the bottom half of the radiator.

That's it. Good Luck,
rScotty

I agree with the reduction in wear of warmed engine compared to a really cold engine, another reason why I like to warm mine as well for that same reason.

 

[Jtullis13]

For what its worth, and want to save you guys some grief, is the plug I removed from the engine block to install the block heater is NOT robust..its hollow and not solid...so too much force and it will break off...As I mentioned before, I got lucky.

My plug on my 155d was a pure solid plug. Maybe they installed some hollow and some solid ones? :confused3:

 

[clemsonfor]

Having read only the first few replies I'll wade in on a different tack (sailing analogy, but sailors don't like having to "wade in").

I had cold starting issues a few years after I bought my tractor, it was GREAT at first but seemed to get a bit worse every two or three years.
I went the lower hose heater route, which helped - a bit.
I went the block heater route, which (with the lower hose heater and a splitter extension cord) helped a LOT - - but I was burning up something like 1500 watts for at least a couple of hours and all too often the need to use the tractor would pass before the block would be warm enough to start anyway.

EVENTUALLY a situation arose where I would have to haul the tractor to help with a project and leave it overnight with NO chance of an electrical outlet within 500 ft.
SO, it was time to figure out what was REALLY wrong with this tractor that cold started so WELL when new.

OK, I've already made this short story into a long one.
I removed all the glow plugs and metered them, 3 were open circuit, one read 38 ohms.
I paid $83.xx for all 4, with shipping - about 1/2 of dealer price.
Probably an hour to get them out and meter them, 3/4 hour to put everything back together.
In retrospect they probably went bad one by one, when the first one went it was so subtle that I probably attributed the difficult starting to the sudden cold spell.

NOTES:
Glow plugs are industry standard items and spec'd by thread, length, wattage, connector type, not_much_else.
So there are interchange tables much like there are for oil, fuel, air filters, spark plugs, etc.
You don't NEED dealer parts for these.
It isn't a HARD job, in fact it is easier than installing a block or lower radiator hose heater.


BTW, that square drive plug IS 1/2 inch, there is NO "Metric" version, it has been a world wide standard for MANY decades - if you are "rounding" it you either have a poor approach angle, a poor 1/2 inch drive, or a lot of crud in there that isn't letting it all the way in.

These tractors do not have glow plugs!

They have a device that serves a similar purpose but way more basic and a little different. It has a heating element in the intake throat and it heats up when activated and then fuel drips on it to kind of smolder or combust, then you start the engine and it sucks this heated air/fuel/burning fuel mixture into the engine to aid in starting. So your element could be burned out or your cup could be out of fuel, but its not like a typical tractor with glow plugs.

 

[clemsonfor]

These tractors do not have glow plugs!

They have a device that serves a similar purpose but way more basic and a little different. It has a heating element in the intake throat and it heats up when activated and then fuel drips on it to kind of smolder or combust, then you start the engine and it sucks this heated air/fuel/burning fuel mixture into the engine to aid in starting. So your element could be burned out or your cup could be out of fuel, but its not like a typical tractor with glow plugs.

After i read down farther i see i am not the first one to point this out...not even the second!:laughing: