Side mounted fire starter. Red Hot exhaust

[Goose1776]

Wow! That is some picture! I would show it to Terry at Power Trac and see what he says.

I did.
Waiting to hear back

 

[Goose1776]

Make sure you have the right spark plug in it my friend had the same problem and he had the wrong spark plug

It’s brand new, but I’ll check it out

 

[Goose1776]

I suspect a timing issue. But if they told me that was normal I would be getting something else. I also can not imagine any manufacturers that would want the liability associated with that situation.

It’s brand new, so I’m not sure timing would be off, but I’m going to look into everything before using it again
Having not used any air cooled small gas powered engines at night before, I’m not sure how much header, and exhaust glow is normal.
I do know it runs, starts, and sounds fine,
Just looks warm. Lol

 

[airbiscuit]

I suspect a timing issue. But if they told me that was normal I would be getting something else. I also can not imagine any manufacturers that would want the liability associated with that situation.

I had a Bobcat skidsteer with a Ford Industrial gas engine. Unknown to me the vacuum advance hose pulled off and the timing was retarded. It ran fine, but the muffler was red hot and it scared the crap out of me. Reattached the hose and problem solved.

I would never have imagined it would make that much difference.

 

[Jchonline]

It was low light, almost dark
Only reason, it looks more like daylight, is I was under a dusk-dawn light when I took the pic
It still doesn’t seem right, lol

but engine is brand new,
starts, and runs fine, with no loss of power, no misses, backfires Etc.

Can you put a temp gauge on it? Wonder if someone else with a similar machine can do the same to compare. Something isn't right.

 

[K5lwq]

I had a Bobcat skidsteer with a Ford Industrial gas engine. Unknown to me the vacuum advance hose pulled off and the timing was retarded. It ran fine, but the muffler was red hot and it scared the crap out of me. Reattached the hose and problem solved.

I would never have imagined it would make that much difference.

Yes, I would think the timing is retarded on this engine as well. Hopefully the manufacturer will come through and make this right. But in no way would I accept this as normal.

 

[coondle]

Petrol or gas powered engines do have much hotter exhaust hardware than diesel powered equivqlent machines. Many years ago U used to drive an Allis Chalmers WD with a power-kerosene engine. (Do not know what power-kerosene is known as in the US, it is "vaporising oil" in the UK and has a very simiar flash point as "jet turb" or "Av Gas"). The exhaust manifold in low light was cherry red. My meal while out ploughing could be triple wrapped in aluminium foil, placed above and behind the exhaust and would be warmed up in a matter of minutes.

Srewing lots of horsepower out of a small gasoline engine results in high exhaust temperatures and emissions legislation requires complete combustion's of the fuel resulting in even higher exhaust temperatures which show up visually in red hot exhausts.

Exhausts do not generally come in contact with flammable material like dry grass. However if the exhaust discharges flakes of carbon then you have a fire starter. Some diesel engines with relatively low exhaust hardware temperatures were notorious fire starters, the Perkins P6 is a prime example with carbon flakes often starting fires. A 2.6 litre Mitsubishi gas engine with a catalytic converter was another that flung out red hot carbon flakes on a regular basis. Look at most small stationary gas engines running a pump under load and the exhaust will also be cherry red in low light.

In Australia all agricultural tractor exhausts must discharge vertically and in the warmer months the exhausts must have an "efficient spark arrestor" which on almost all modern tractors is inbuilt in the exhaust.

A large scale classic spark arrestor could be seen on the early US rail locomotives with the huge enlargement to the smoke stack. That enlargement is there to reduce the velocity of the smoke discharge to allow embers to fall back and be totally burnt to ash before light and cool enough to be discharging out the top.

 

[Goose1776]

Can you put a temp gauge on it? Wonder if someone else with a similar machine can do the same to compare. Something isn't right.

I don’t think my temp gun registers that high
But I’ll try

 

[ponytug]

@coondle: Learn something new everyday: TVO, aka power-kerosene

"As a substitute for petrol, TVO was developed. Paraffin (kerosene) was commonly used as a domestic heating fuel and was untaxed. Paraffin has a low octane rating and would damage an engine built for petrol. The manufacture of paraffin involves the removal of aromatic hydrocarbons from what is now sold as heating oil. These aromatics have an octane rating, so adding some of that otherwise waste product material back in a controlled manner into paraffin gave TVO. The resulting octane rating of TVO was somewhere between 55 and 70."

More at Wikipedia. Funnily enough, I seem to recall that the original VW air cooled flat engines were designed to utilize a similar quality fuel.

Back to the original post: @Goose1776 As I mentioned above, hot, even red hot, exhausts is something the 425s are known to do, usually only visible at twilight, just as you saw. I am not saying don't check for things that are wrong, but you aren't alone.

Good luck!

All the best,

Peter

 

[joshlee]

Yeah, I’m aware that engines that are being worked can make the muffler glow when looked at when twilight/dark. Around here back in the day when farmers used to full till the ground, they would do allot of their plowing at night after the cows were milked. With some tractors The muffler would get red from the engine being worked, tilling that ground.

I’m curious as to what Terry’s opinion is on your pt muffler getting red?