Runaway diesel

[Kim]

I saw this on another forum and it's a great idea. A CO2 fire extinguisher aimed at the air intake will shut down a runaway diesel(or gasoline engine too, for that matter) They are easily available and inexpensive especially compared to the cost of a blown engine. We all know we should have an extinguisher aboard in any case but how many of us do? I will get one for my Major very soon. Happy New Year to all!

[Kiwi Kev]

Kim
I work for the local Gas(lpg) company. One of our old bulk LPG delivery tankers used to have a dry powder fire extinguisher piped directly into the intake manifold for incase of emergencies.
I often wondered what engine repairs would be needed after setting off the extinguisher though.
Kiwi Kev

[Kim]

Hi Kev! I don't know what the dry powder consists of in an extinguisher but it must have an abrasive effect of some kind on moving metal parts. It sounds like the CO2 gas would be non-damaging as it stops combustion by eliminating oxygen. Perhaps some of the forum members have information on this?

[The Swanndri Guy]

Kev, have you got that 2712e engine yet? As for fire extinguishers,I would think its adviseable that all tractors have one.Cheers TSG.

[JC]

Kim,
The CO2 extinguisher sounds like a good idea. At the shop, we have a steel plate with a piece of rubber glued to it. We keep it handy when we start a new engine or one that has had work done to the fuel system or governor.

[Brian]

Isn't that strange, I have been around diesels for over 50 years and have serviced and rebuilt hundreds of engines and the thought of a "runaway" has never occured to me. I have known of only three in that time.

Early E1ADDN Majors could run backwards. They drew air through the exhaust and exhaust out of the aircleaner. Very messy! Back in 1954 our neighbor had this happen and managed to throw his hat over the exhaust and she stalled out.

The second one was in a Ruston Bycarus drag line in a local quarry. The 5 cylinder Gardner diesel got up to 750 rpm before she stopped! The linkage broke inside the pump. I wondered what the driver was complaining about, being used to engines that ran up to 2200 rpm, but she was goverened down to 500 rpm

The third engine was a 590E in a Claas Giant Matador. The driver lifted the cutterbar at the end of a run and shut down the engine to turn around and unload the grain tank. Unfortunately she did not shut down and ran away like an areoplane. The stop did not work so he put it in top gear and with the brakes full on tried to stall her but she only stopped when things went bang.

The leak off pipe in the valve cover had fractured and she had filled the sump with diesel. This was getting by the piston rings and she was running on that.

Some solvents, like petrol, used to clean air filters will have the same affect.

[BarryM]

Kim & Kev,

We used to have a small fleet of petrol tankers. In the 1970's all tankers that had pumping capabilities had to be fitted with a 'strangler kit'. It consisted of a BCF (Yellow) extinguisher mounted at the rear of the cab on the left hand side, with a hose connected to the intake manifold. This type of extinguisher is now obsolete. We were told only to use them if absolutely necessary as there was a large temperature variation of the extinguisher contents and the temperature inside the head. If used, you could expect to replace a set of pistons as it would crack all the tops. Over all the years, luckily we never had to use any of them.

[Grani]

Some years ago when my friend came to the pier with a inboard boat the engine was impossible to stop. It was a single cylinder Yanmar 12hp. The stopcable was ok so it was running on the engine oil. We tryed to put the forward gear on but it does not help mutch on a boat. The rews was about 1500 rpm and as it cooled down after 5 min or so it finally got to a stop. The fuel had leaked through the fuel lift pump in to the engine oil and the level was to high. After an oil change it run ok again.

[Kiwi Kev]

Barry
You are dead right. I was just about to do a followup post, when I read your post.
What I was going to say was that these air intake mounted extinguishers where not there to save the engine, they were there solely for the purpose of stopping the engine, which would be or could be pumping liquid gas, in our case LPG liquid. As anyone thats knows about LPG, it when released to atmosphere, expands 273 times from a liquid to a gas. 1 litre of liquid LPG will expand to 273 cubic litres of gas. So a truck carrying 2000, 5000 or even 10 000 litres of LPG liquid has the potential to be dangerous.
The new trucks have a soliniod operated valve on the air intake, which blocks off the air intake. Therefore it can be operated over and over without the need for an engine rebuild all the time.
Kiwi Kev

[BearCreek Majors]

OK, my turn to share a few stories about engines running away. A friend was pulling in competition with his JD, someone told him he needed to run the engine looser by removing a bunch of the rings from the pistons, it sucked oil out of the crankcase and took off , he got it shutdown quickly by slapping a piece of wood over the turbo inlet.
My uncle was plowing snow with a Lamborghini 4X4 (probably only a handful of these tractors ever made it to the US) Running out of fuel only a few feet from the shop door (do not try this at home!) he got it going with some ether and kept giving it a little squirt until he got it inside. Got fuel in it the next day, primed everything and started it up, not sure if the ether soaked into the carbon, settled into the intake or air cleaner, but it took off. He gut it in high gear and held the brakes for all he was worth, and it finally shut down only a few feet from the back wall of the shop, I believe the shop was a 50’ long.
And then my stupid trick, we got a Volvo semi tractor that had been sitting for several years and was quite wore out, the owner had a screwdriver stuck under the edge of one of the intake hoses giving him a crack to squirt ether directly into the intake to get it started. My cousin and I were trying to start it one cold day, he gave it a shot of ether and it almost fired, I told him to give it another shot with the same results, after several tries I figured something was wrong, finding a bad electrical connection for the fuel valve we tried it again and it started, and it took off. I turned off the key switch but it just kept winding up, no air for the brakes, I grabbed a clipboard to put over the air cleaner intake but it had shut itself down before I got over to the other side. Ether can kill!

[Dandy Dave]

A friend of mine was running a Cat Bulldozer a number of years ago cleaning up an area that was somebodys dump at one time and he hit an old propane tank, I think it was a 20 pounder, with some fuel left in it. He heard the engine take off in the dozer and was puzzed at first but managed to get it away from the leaking tank and under control by stuffing the blade in the ground and making the machine push hard. After he got away from the fumes the machine started to idle again and he shut it down. It was then that he could smell LPG as he walked back toward his truck. To this day he is not sure why the tank didn't just explode in a ball of flame. I guess it just was not his time to go. After the tank seemed to stop leaking he went home for the day. The next day he resumed the Job without further problems. Dandy Dave!

[John]

Kim
I work for the local Gas(lpg) company. One of our old bulk LPG delivery tankers used to have a dry powder fire extinguisher piped directly into the intake manifold for incase of emergencies.
I often wondered what engine repairs would be needed after setting off the extinguisher though.
Kiwi Kev

I used to work for a major fire equipment manufacturer. IIRC, dry powder forms a type of plastic barrier over combustible material in order to starve it of oxygen. And very effective it is, too.

But in an engine, it makes a mess. It'll coat the combustion chambers, exhaust valves and manifold. From those who have told me they've done it, it's not to be recommended as it will at least involve the head coming off.

Use a gas extinguisher.

[Jerry Coles]

Most dry powder extinguishers use Sodium Bicarbonate.
I did a fire NCO course in the Army many years ago and in a day we went through 10 150lb trolley mounted extinguishers practicing fighting liquid fires (contaminated fuel usually). The Instructors never told us (Deliberately!) that the powder used was Sodium Bicarbonate.
Where else is Sodium Bicarbonate used? Well its the raising agent in baking so we were breathing in the powder all day and over night what we had swallowed, manifested itself the next morning by 24 guys have a very very bad case of continual belching and farting!! A good laugh but strong backside control was needed!

We also had a generator on a trailer which got tipped up when running and the oil in the sump went to the rear of the engine and that ran away and threw a con rod.

Regards

Jerry

[Roel]

The Instructors never told us (Deliberately!) that the powder used was Sodium Bicarbonate.
Where else is Sodium Bicarbonate used? Well its the raising agent in baking so we were breathing in the powder all day and over night what we had swallowed, manifested itself the next morning by 24 guys have a very very bad case of continual belching and farting!! A good laugh but strong backside control was needed!

This is a great story; not only diesels will "run away" here.
My personal experience with runaway engines is limited to a motorcycle engine that I once rebuilt. Please do not remove this post yet, I will get to the tractor part in a minute ). It had a washable air filter element and I thought that paint dissolvent would do a great job cleaning it. That was correct.
Also, the bike burst into life with much greater enthousiasm than expected and I have never grabbed the ignition switch so fast. No harm done, but then you think just how st*pid it was.
It has been some 20 years ago, so I am no longer afraid of mentioning it. As far as our tractors are concerned, I see the only risk in over-filling the oil level of the air cleaner. Brian, please correct me if am wrong.
Other than that situation I have not heard stories in the tractor area. I know about a situation where a well preserved tank (!) engine was taken on a test bench for performance testing and that it went into extreme high rpm immediately after startup. The test supervisor put on his hearing protection, ran into the test box and slammed the regulator back in the position where it should be. It appeared that this bar had also been very well preserved (in the full open position....).

Regards and, of course, a healthy 2010 with the right type of blues...

Best regards,

Roel

[JC]

We used to have a lot of 2-stroke Detroit Diesels over here. We were always worried about them "running away". An old mechanic used to say, "Detroits don't run away. They overspeed. Mechanics run away." I saw one in a vibratory roller start to run away when something broke in the governor, but the operator realized what was happening and pulled the stop cable before any rods decided to live outside of the block.

I was driving a Detroit-powered truck up a hill, when it died, rolled down the hill and started running backward. I shut off the fuel solenoid, but it kept running. I finally got it stopped by backing it into a ditch.

If they were worn out, they could run on the oil that got past the rings. They had a Roots blower on the intake, and could run away on the oil that went through the blower seals. If someone set the rack wrong (which was easy to do) they would start with full fuel, and you had to be pretty fast to get them shut down before something came apart.

Detroit knew that they were prone to run away, so they had a spring-loaded door on the blower that would shut the air off, if you pulled a cable. Not everyone kept them in working order, so they would still run away sometimes.

I guess that's why we worry about run-away diesels, Brian. Detroit paranoia

[Brian]

Not really a "running away" event but a running backwards with a two stroke. Correct me if I am wrong but some Lanz Bulldog, two stroke tractors, are deliberately run in reverse to get reverse gears. Shut them right down until they are just about stopped then open them up and you have reverse.

I had this happen to me as a young tractor driver with a two stroke Field Marshall. I was driving between the rows of straw bales in the field with a four wheeled trailer in tow. Two men were on the trailer stacking bales and two on either side throwing them on. My job was to just keep moving slowly forward and the Marshall was running dead slow. She pulled down to a stall so I hit the clutch and gave her a handful of throttle and she fired right up. I had a trailer full so the two men climbed off the top of the load, roped it down and I was sent off to the stack to unload. I put her in top gear to get a move on (6 mph) took my foot off the clutch and set off backwards!!!

Those engines ran the same backwards as forwards and you never knew which way until you took your foot off the clutch.