"kittylover123" wrote:

- i would also check your battery voltage when you get it started and again after a few minutes, just to make sure all is well with regulator/alternator....ya dirty terminals could make smoke, try to keep them clean as possible, its a lot of current draw

I haven't hooked up my alternator yet. I'd like too find a battery box that can hold two group 31 batteries that also locks and is weather proof so I can leave them on the tractor and use the alternator to help keep the batteries charged. That way I don't have to keep removing the battery connections.

"Neil" wrote:

BAC, I like the way you're thinking - when I stall at the show and there's a bunch of chicks watching (there's always chicks watching sophisticated dudes running big gear...), it'd be quicker and easier to just hit the button to get the engine running again. In my situation, I have a 6v system so options are limited but.... I'm willing to give rigging up a 6V starter to try to see if it would start the main when it was stalled hot. I figure pop the compression, hit the button, then throw the compression once it's spinning over. My battery is an Optima 6v with 800CCA so I think it would have enough juice for a quick restart - just need the main engine to spin over fast enough so would need to find a suitably sized motor. Probably the way to see if this hare-brained scheme would work would be to see how slow the main engine could turn and still start, when hot. That's easy to experiment with with the pony. Now if only they'd let me out of jail to go tinker with the tractor!

I think you just have to get one piston to fire. When my tractor stalls, I don't think the flywheel is even turned a quarter of a turn and the diesel is back up and running. I am not sure if cranking speed matters so much as the ability to achieve the compression step in a hot engine as far as getting restarted.

Solutions
Ether for a quick start

Crank decompressed to build up oil pressure then stop and let pony warm it up while starter cools before throwing decompression to run and opening the throttle for the start.

Fix the pinion

Starters are designed for a very intermittent duty cycle. They build up a lot of heat that has to basically radiate or be conducted away into the clutch housing. You may have noticed there’s no fan on a starter.....

I also need to install my new coolant temp gauge. I feel like if I had some gauge of the temp of the water, it may help determine the best time to start the diesel without any extra cranking. I'd like to find out how fast the pony warms the coolant.

"BigAgCat" wrote:

I also need to install my new coolant temp gauge. I feel like if I had some gauge of the temp of the water, it may help determine the best time to start the diesel without any extra cranking. I'd like to find out how fast the pony warms the coolant.

-that would take some time...lots of factors of course...that's a bit of steel to warm up

-ALERT::
-another automotive comparison....a big block Chevy(or your favourite flavour) requires 30 minutes running time to fully warm..

"kittylover123" wrote:

-that would take some time...lots of factors of course...that's a bit of steel to warm up

-ALERT::
-another automotive comparison....a big block Chevy(or your favourite flavour) requires 30 minutes running time to fully warm..

Hehe, if the specs are correct, there is something like 12.5 gallons of coolant in the engine. So, yeah, may take a while to warm that all up.

ya wow, 12.5 gallons of coolant to warm as well....it's worse than i thought:eek2:

-i always cringe when i see video's of guys trying to get big diesels going in the winter time, no heat(er) of any kind, snikeys...batteries and booster cables everywhere....cranking for minutes, not seconds...

and then why i are my batteries toast and my starter always fried...

I've never had a working temp gauge, so I really do not know how long it takes to heat the coolant. I usually figured the temp gauge was to make sure the engine wasn't overheating, not as a gauge of having enough temp to start the diesel.

Even in warmer temperatures it takes 10 or 15 minutes to get the needle off the low end.

With the post today by King of Obsolete my mind got jogged. He uses direct electric start on his Cat's and has as cold of weather as anyone. His go to has been a kerosene/diesel space heater and a tarp over the whole thing.