Hard Starting Diesel

[Anonymous-0]

Kubota straight 6 naturally aspirated.
Hard starting in the cold were having (I'm wearing a sweater shirt its not cold 32F in the morning).
Checked the glow plugs believe there all good.
Thinking of adding a block heater. Never been through the process. All I have in my pockets in the moment is sawdust. Have an old Ford/International 6.9L diesel block with a block heater sitting in the scrap pile.Can that be adapted?

Logger friend said do quick disconnects off heater hose from one of my trucks and use that to preheat. I like the idea since I'm often pretty far from the electrical grid. Don't want to do this off one of my good vehicles though (share coolant) thinking leave a truck in the woods or a beater car.


To solve that problem with the block heater(120VAc) electrical grid I have plenty of battery packs. 12vdc--->120vac -->block heater.



Thanks,
Ray

 

[Nebraska Cowman]

Don't want to share coolant? Must be in a sad state. One thing that will always work is to build a small fire under the tractor. Either that or top of the fuel and let it run all night.

 

[Don-Wi]

The first thing that jumps to my mind is mixing the pink & the green stuff. Some say it'll work, but I wouldn't be willing to try it out if I had a newer truck.

Donovan from Wisconsin1

 

[I wanna Farmall]

Theres a difference? Put pink in the kuboda that had green. What can go wrong?? :-0

 

[ben brown]

when i lived in colo. wehad a 2010 that we feed with no ele. black smith built a propane heater for us county also use propane on there mantaners. seem to me all it was was a 4 inch dia. pipe steel. about 18 inch. high taper down to about 2 inch dia. then a small steel pipe half inch came in at bottom run up through big pipe then came out cloes to top. small burner at bottom of large pipe for heat. down to about 10 below took about a hr to heat,to start 20 40 below couple hr. but it sure beat using the team and pitch fork to feed. line from block drain went in bottom top out line went to top of engine no pump just hot water rises cold water falls.

 

[Hugh MacKay]

ray: Probably not holding the glow plug on long enough before the start. Check your manual see how long they should be on before cranking. There are different types of glow plugs, some can't be kept on long. I'm an old IH guy, when we first got those old 6 cylinder 560s, most folks complained about the hard starting. I think IH called for close to a minute in summer. I know I've often held the 560 glow plugs on for 3-4 minutes in winter. I realize 3-4 minutes is a long time sitting on a tractor doing nothing but holding a button, however it makes them start easy.

I had neighbors using the coolant hook up between pickup and tractor or forestry skidder. It works well however my friends found it awful hard on pickup engines. They blamed it on cold coolant from machine hitting pickup block while hot. I expect there may also have been problems with hot pickup coolant hitting the cold diesel block.

There are propane block heaters today. Best idea I"ve seen was an external heater sat on ground several feet from tractor, again quick couplers are used to couple it up. Hot coolant goes in a bottom block port, rises within the engine, returning from top of block to the heater. This setup was home built, and relied on thermosyphon for circulation. He just modified a propane fired tank heater. He claimed a barbeque tank of propane lasted close to 2 weeks and tractor block was always warm in the mornings. With propane fill ups at $15. to $20. still less expensive than electricity, and its portable. He liked the idea of having the propane fire away from the machine.

 

[glennster]

yep big difference in anti freeze. i think at last count we stock 5 different types of antifreeze at the body shop for various vehicles. also bunch of different trans fluids, and power steering fluids. gets to be a real pain in the wallet.

 

[dlplost]

I agree with Hugh MacKay, check yer manual on glow plug times.
On My JD 2010 the book says:
Warm Engine = 30 seconds
Above 32F = 1 minute
32F to 0F = 2 minutes
Below 0F = 3 minutes

At 32F it should fire right up just on the glow plugs.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I've got a Kubota in my skid steer. I remember when it was still under warrantee it wouldn't start when it was a little cold. It always did but not this time. When I went to the dealer he said to crank it longer. I did and it started but to this day I have no idea what was wrong. A couple things to check. First make sure the air filter is clean and dry so it can suck enough air to start and isn't wet from snow getting in it, then change the fuel filter. I know from experience that if you change the fuel filter, get the machine running first and warm it up. I had a guy renting my skid steer and I went to his place to service it in a fairly cold garage. Took the fuel filter off without starting it first and it was a real pain to prime it and get all the air out. I had to take the fuel line off and very slowly pour diesel down it till it overflowed. I put the line on quickly and finally it started. Mine is a 4 cylinder with a 500 watt block heater and a hydraulic oil heater as well. When it's really cold it's still hard to start. My 3 cyl. Perkins I can get going as long as I get it to turn over fast enough. I have a kerosene ready heater I can use now for warming things up. If you don't have power a propane weed burner(tiger torch) inside a length of pipe will work very well. Just make sure only heat and not a flame is coming out the end of the pipe. A piece of 6 inch or so pipe with a 90 deg on the end works good. Hope this helps. Dave

 

[Doug N]

dlplost has it on the money. The kubota in our Bobcat has that same glow plug chart. For some reason they have you hang on to that glow plug for a long time. Same with the kubota in our zero turn mower. It's just the nature of the beast, they're fair weather diesels. Heh, even in the dead of summer(90 degrees plus) you have to hit the glow plugs for a little.

It must be a lower compression diesel, I never did look up the ratio.

Doug N

 

[Bill(Wis)]

If it's hard to start at 32F what are you going to do when it really gets cold?. At minus 20F we cover the engine with a tarp and seal the bottom of the tarp real good with bricks and then stick a torpedo heater in between the rear wheels and let it run while we have breakfast. You can get most of the tractor hot to the touch that way. Good idea to take the torpedo heater inside where it's warm in between usings just to make sure it will light off. Be careful. You can melt rubber this way.

 

[Jimmy King]

Your finger gets tired too, but it works.