Fuelish Purchase

[wdyasq]

A couple of months or so back, I ran across a small diesel advertised in Craig's list. It was a Petter '2.3hp/1.7kW' and they wanted $40, it was not running. I drove the 40 miles to look at it and found a "Petter AA" with little signs of wear but missing the 'banjo bolt'. 'bleed bolt' and copper washers at the fuel pump. I bought it.

My guess was this was a 'cement mixer motor' - it had a lot of sand in and about it. I also guessed it had run out of fuel and the person refueling, finally tired of trying to get it started, replaced the engine.

I found a fellow in England selling manuals in PDF format for $35 and purchased them. I found a supplier in Dallas who promised to look for the needed bolt and washers. A week later, he called back and said $53 Dollars please, in advance. They are from 'Jolly Old England', you know.

All the parts finally arrived. I decided today was a good day to get the thing running or attack in another direction. I flushed out the fuel pump and found sand in it ..... The banjo bolt and fuel lines were attached and a gallon jug of diesel set to siphon into the engine.The decompression lever was pulled. I bled all air from the filter system, then the pump, the pump to injector lines and finally loosened the injector housing to bleed any air from the injector and housing.

On about the 10th turn, white smoke was seen coming from the exhaust. I dropped the compression lever and an occasional fire became a steady run. The governor would cycle the fuel on and off, as it should. The engine was shut down, the cooling shrouds and such were replaced. I cranked the engine again and let it warm up, also checking the throttle. It is definitely a black smoke belching, vibrating small oil-burner.

I don't know the use this engine will get. It will be ideal for about a 1kW (constant) generator. Fuel use will be minimal and shouldn't be less than 8-10 hours per gallon of diesel at near full load. I still have to find oil filters and air filters and devise whatever mounting is needed. But, all in all, not a bad deal for less than $150.

Sometimes others' ignorance can be your reward. Odd thing is if I had been passing by a job where the mechanic was having trouble bleeding the air from a small diesel, I would have showed him the techniques that work and told him why his method wasn't working ... Life is strange.

Ron

[Bruce S]

Ron;

   That is a good find!! Check with Pepa, he has a full running unit:-) he should be able to give a lot of help with the running of it. He was( back when I visited him) gearing up to work with WVO. His unit is a prime candidate just for that.

Your's should be too.

If you can't find the original type filters for it try look into picking up a lub-a filter system, they still use cotton type drop in filter, my '83 5cyl uses the same type and these are good / easy to replace.

Your banjo bolt, did it come with a couple copper washers? if not watch it closely when it comes up to full working condition, these washers are those "special" items needed to keep the fuel from becoming a new fashion trend.

Wow, what A FIND!! BTW that's where I found my '83 5 cyl for 1/2 what I could find anywhere else:-)

Cheers to you!!

Bruce S

[wdyasq]

Bruce,

I think I still have about a kilo of copper washers around from my 'mechanic' days. I found they were hard to find when you needed them and ran across one of those 'deals'. Diesel fuel is not a fashion statement.

In this operation I got fuel everywhere. But, I plan on pressure washing the engine again before messing with it. Had it been in a confined place, I would have stuffed paper towels around all the spots where fuel bleeding needed to occur and had an oil-proof trash device to place them in. This works well in boats where folks eat and live with the engine.

I may or may not run this on SVO or WVO. I know I will demo it just to show folks. I think one needs a good switching system to properly run anything but diesel or bio-diesel.

Ron

[bob golding]

hi ron,

 if you need any parts from "jolly ol' england" email me and i will get them for you. there is a lister petter dealer about 40 miles from me so might be able to get a better price than over your side of the pond. i was going to get  a petter myself so i could have matching bookends with the lister i brought about 3 years ago, which is still waiting for me to do something with. decided to go the easy route and get a 5 kw chinese one instead. at least all i have to do with that is pull the starter cord and plug it in.

cheers

bob golding

[spinningmagnets]

Concerning the lube oil filter, You mentioned something about England, so the threads may be metric, but...

Oil flows from the outer circumference of the filter through the element, and then back through the center hole into the block. you may be able to tap new threads into the holes where the original filter attaches (if the outer circumference hole on the block is an un-threaded port) Oil pressures are typically reasonably low, so odd threads can be sealed with "JB Weld", by that I mean that a soft brass SAE adapter can be jammed into a metric threaded port with JB to make a permanent adaption to American threads. This would allow you to run two hoses to an aluminum adapter that accepts a very common and cheap Ford/Chevy oil filter.

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10002_745536_-1_10467

Also, the center threaded portion of the oil filter mount may be a separate piece from the block, and you may be able to unscrew it with a pipe wrench. This would allow you to make a pipe thread "nipple" that is SAE straight threads on one end and Metric "pipe" threads on the other. You should then be able to find a common filter at you closest auto parts store that matches the new interface without having to run two hoses to a "remote adapter".

Great find! Have fun.

[Bruce S]

Ron;

   I absolutley agree. I am seeing / hearing stories of people that have gone the dual fuel route and didn't go with the automatic switching back to diesel and they've had the spend real money to get the injectors pressure washed.:-(

One thing that may help if you get into the WVO thing that I learned from Pepa , was to let the oil sit for a couple weeks, and when using a barrel, cut a hole for a faucet about 1/3rd the way up, he poured out oil that looked purely new, it is his preprocess holding tank and it was a clean as new stuff. Another trick I've learned from B-100 people is to screen the "gathered" oil through old jeans; they are said to clean it down to 5 microns if you let it flow slowly. I've tried this on some of my batches and it does work very well to clean the gunk out, and best of all the glycerin that is a waste by-product works very well to wash the jeans out :-) ( Mother-in-law is currently teaching me how to make lye soap out of the by-products.

I can't for sertain say that it clean it down to 5 microns but it surely is a much cleaner oil when done this way.

A kilo of copper washers is big money around here lately keep a close eye on those!!

Cheers and Have fun

Bruce S