I love the sound of Diesel engine idling. They sound like they could could do it indefinitely. 900+ hours doesn’t sound like very many hours. Spent most of its 55 years on standby :)
When they pulled our DD 6-71 gensets they only had 750+ hours on them in 20 years. We ran them every other week ( alternate weeks as we had two ) if we had not had to use them during the week under load. They weren't replaced because of wear on the units, they were replaced because of the after affects of 7 years since Andrew on the electrical panels. Switchgear does not like salt, ketchup, mayonnaise, Diesel fuel, motor oil, water, dirt, etc... blown into it at 150+ MPH. Ours were barely broken in compared to the number of hours we put on our main engines. We could easily put a 1500 hours on each one of them ( we had 3 ) per year.
Davo's Shed ... if it were in the same location for 60 years that's only 15 hours per year, so hardly more than weekly exercise. The engine (well maintained) should be good for at least 5,000 hours and possibly closer to 10,000 hours if they kept after things.
Said too much? I was on the edge of my seat. That was a thrilling detective story!!! :)) Ignore the naysayers, we're here for the talks and awesome stories that go along with the repairs.
Well done, nice detailed explanation, yes ignore the negative Nancy Arm Chair Quarter Backs that seem to always surf RU-vid and put in negative comments and never leave the comfort of their own little chair inside there own little city dwelling apartment or basement afraid of the world.
A good freind of mine is a consulting mining engineer in the northern territory and he says he likes the small of my 36 year old Mercedes Diesel .it's all to0 do with the fact that he enjoyss working around the big Cat mining plant they have out in those mines.
@Deplorable Centrist That's the Typical ORIGINAL TURBO sound characteristic of a REAL CAT Engine. And look at how easy it was to start it up after sitting for so long. No modern engine can cop that.
I'm not sure if "SmallEngineMechanic" is the most appropriate name for this channel anymore. I've been seeing what I'd call some pretty big engines lately. 😃👍
One trick we used to use to check phase rotation on medium voltage generators (13.8 KV) is run the machine with no field voltage (no excitation). There’s usually enough residual voltage to operate the phase sequence meter which was good to 600 volts.
Sweet running machine...nice to see attention to detail with the pre start inspection...see these as light plants on older oil and gas drilling rigs...
Thanks for the great video. It reminds me of my own youth 55 years ago apprenticed as a plant maintenance fitter at a local builders merchant. I then went on to bench fitting for a great old firm that produced some marvelous machines that would last a hundred years with the correct maintenance. Liner Concrete. They were based in Gateshead until they too fell foul of our topsy- turvy economy during the early 70s The machines we produced were painted much the same colour as the Cats. Keep them coming and thanks again.
I’m amazed I watched this whole video. 😆 Love old engines. The sound, the maintenance and what their purpose in life is/was. Bringing them back to life properly. Fun stuff. Great vid. 👍
Now thats how you do a proper start up, and it runs real sweet to for sitting a while. It kinda makes me mad watching some guys go to some old diesel bulldozer or what ever, they've got 1 or 2 half dead batteries they found under the bench. All the wires and terminals are corroded, they don't bleed the fuel system properly. Then straight away dump half a can of ether in, until it knocks hard or won't even turn over, then repeat 3 times before it fires up. hopefully next time you get lucky with the generator, thanks for sharing, Take care
My grandfather teached me that ether (starting fluid) kills engines, especially diesels as they can over-rev when starting. Over the years I've only needed to use ether once, on a boat where the engine stalled and would not light up, and we would drift onto rocky shore in not the best weather. Engine vs life? Easy choice. But the engine needed full rebuild after running on a big can of ether for many minutes. Thanks for the videos btw. I love the old engines.
Yes I admit it I used ether to start our old 1962 international 504 in the dead of winter in Buffalo NY. Even with fully charged batteries and glow plugs on for two full minutes it just wouldn't start without a little help, but it was a quick spritz while the engine was cranking, and it would be just enough to catch, I hated using it. I found that propane works just as good and not nearly as knocky. Ether is VERY hard on bearings, especially when they are dry after sitting for a while. Propane doesn't seem to be quite as hard on them but it does help a lot when it's below 20 degrees
Those are called "Hillbilly Hacks" and need there fingers smacked with the largest hammer they have in there tool box. Problem is, they never had anyone teach them the right way of doing things. And are just repeating the stupidity they watched as a teen.
My old man use to work on these babies and Detroits back in the early 70's for oil testing. They don't build 'em like that any more. Great engine and video, thanks for sharing!
I worked at Cat for 38 years. Helped build test and inspect gen sets on the assembly line. When you went to start the engine i didn't think there would be any problems. Sounds great love the old yellow.
The governor drive on most fuel injection system have a flex drive to dampen the torsional vibrations of the gear train. I admire this man for taking the precautions against an engine runaway from a seized fuel rack. Many guys on videos like this just put new batteries on and turn the start switch. They make my hair stand on end.
Cool old Cat. I lived close to a "Flying A" service station and the owner had a tow truck with a Caterpillar Diesel. I used to love to hear him fire it up with that turbo whine and the exhaust note. I asked him; what can you tow with that motor? He smiled and said If it was hooked up right, I could pull your house right the foundation. Ha. Great videos.
She's a beauty buddy 👍🏻 Loved the way you talked through how you got her going 😀 Hopefully you'll get the bits too finish off the fix and post the video soon 😄 Cheers Stevie 😎🇬🇧
I worked at 20th Century Fox Studio, and it was originally built in 1927 some where around there. Man did I ever get a lesson, The old saying THEY DON'T MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO.. I am not referring to Cat. But Western Electric equipment, Westinghouse you can't imagine. I found a reprint of the SHEET METAL AND AIR CONDITIONING CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION , IT was and still is the best Design Manual I have ever seen. And it was from 1927. I will warn you , it will pull you in and not let go..
The reason they pulled a lot of these old Gen sets (Cat,Cummins, Detroit) Was they burned a GOD awful amount to fuel. I'd bet this late 1950's engine burned 20-30 gallons per hour at load. The E,C model engines reduced that amount to 1/4 or in some case even less with modern electronics gen sets installed. There's a crap ton of these old Cat engines still making saw mills turn and water pumps pumping water all over the world. This was definitely a find with less than 1000 hours on it. The possibilty's for this old engine are pretty vast with it being in this great if shape. Cool video
Just discovered your channel and I'm blown away! No nonsense, and no childish made-up words/phrases or unnecessary profanity. I thought I was the only one who was obsessed with generators of any kind. I have 4 (2 gasoline, propane and diesel) for my home in Florida. And think I need another... lol Thanks for taking the time to put these together for us. I can respect the amount of time it takes!
You know your stuff! She purried for for a 1960's engine and no emission crap.. some company will want to buy it in these crazy times. 150kw.. thats serious power.. cant wait till part 2 on genset
No company will buy it because they can’t. The EPA has a law that when industrial and marine diesels are replaced they must be replaced by a modern engine with emission controls, the emission controls have increased in tiers and they are now in tier 4.
What a nice score Mike! It is nice when newly acquired equipment does not need a full teardown and rebuild to work. All I can say is that that unit did not come out of Huntington Hospital on Long Island. They had (might still have) an array of twenty cylinder EMDs pulling 3MW generators
Wow, what a Turbo. Worth 5 digits as it sits. Close to it. That engine is only halfway through its life. If that. When you "excite" the Gen? Wow again. Even if the gen is toast, there is a dozer waiting for this engine. Preliminaries say the gen is fine. Thanks, Man!
Sounded great! I work in hospitals and once a few years ago was inspecting a generator room with 3 1MW Cat generators (3512's?) one hot summer day. An order for load shedding came in from the utility due to overload and they fired them all up. 10 seconds from dead stop to full rpm, synch and transfer of life safety, critical branch. Equipment branch was brought over manually. It was awesome and the sound was like music!
Very cool find. I enjoyed seeing the operation of the mechanical governor as that is something I don’t get to see often as a young diesel tech. Thanks for sharing!!
Now I understand why when some of the older trucks used to go pass my house, dog's in the neighborhood, either would howl, or chase the truck. Great video. I scraped out my older D-8 cat with the pony motor, just 10 yr's ago. It had a cable winch blade 8'ft wide. In case anyone is looking to restore one of those, the front cable set-up, uses 75 ' Ft. (seventy-five feet, Minimum, not a mis-quote) of cable. I would suggest going with 85 feet.
Mark ur dipstick with a stop level mark when u know for sure. This will let u know if u get water in the oil when sitting awhile BEFORE A START. Pretty much awesome!
The KTA19's that were in my boat would eventually wear off the lock wires around the fuel and speed settings on the PT pumps. I really wanted to bump up the no load so when we could do better time when pushing empties around. No use in turning up the fuel when the engines only get 30,000 ish hours on them and need rebuilt
Hi guy - old Alaskan generator man here - I ran Into an issue like you have with that old cat - you have a field circuit with very low resistance so you will have to have an expensive high amperage regulator if you go with a static exciter. What I did was take a 24 volt truck automotive alternator and hooked it up to the field - to control the field on the "aux generator" I just used on of those cheap regulators we called a chocklet bar regulator - I believe it was a Basler ... I hooked it up sensing the output voltage of the generator and hooked the field of the regulator to the field circuit of the aux generator (truck alternator). The old generator was a 24 volt system and I repurposed it's own battery charging alternator. I solved the battery charging problem by just putting an ac powered charger on the generator battery... I'm pretty sure the insulation in the 24 volt alternator will handle the 63 volts that the regulator will try to push to maintain the voltage on the generator at full load because it will be relatively low amperage compared to the amperage and heat design of the alternator... so have fun - nobody will be able to figure out what you did lol...
Thanks very much for the input! That is a great way to get around not having the original exciter. My unit calls for 110v at 29a nominal to the main generator field. I am going to set up a test rig and place a load on the output to see what the actual requirements are at different loads. I know the little basler regulators your talking about!
@@SmallEngineMechanic get one of those Delco alternators that have the external regulators that way you have a way to plug the field right onto the brushes ... maks life easier and wont cost much...
Caterpillars never die they just get old my grandfather had a cat in his boatAnd the boat set for four years before the engine started again and when I put the boat back in the water the engine fired right up if I remember correctly it was a 3108
That thing is CLEAN! It was well "loved". It could be the oil was not changed as it was going to be decommissioned. It still looks like it was not used too far past the scheduled change time, if at all. It could just be "timing". "OK, guys. This is the last oil change. They're swapping this out for a new unit, soon."
Wow, it looks to be running great! I admittedly don't know much about diesel engines, but it sounds like it's in excellent mechanical condition. I didn't see any leaks at all, and it didn't overheat even after revving it so high to get the generator up to 60hz.
060520/1525PST. Thank you, for exhibiting your years of experience , expertise and your ability to shoot the video at the same time. You are a great Diesel Engineer, you were calm, confident and knew the Engine in and out. Bravo. Wishing you all the best and stay safe. 73s
Nice job Mike! It sounds really smooth, that is one heck of an engine. CAT always made neat stuff. A friend of mine collects their old dozers and stuff.
I have a D333T in my 1968 classic 50-ft DeFever trawler boat that i have owned and operated now for 22 years. I always spin engine for a few seconds with throttle completely choked off before allowing it to start. The idea is to let spinning motor push oil up to turbocharger before hot exhaust gases get up there. Unless you have a pre-luber or some other way to make sure you have oil up to turbo, I would suggest this start up procedure. Replacement turbos are expensive. But that engine is a beauty!
The peaks and troughs of emotions that run through you when you first turn the key is staggering, no matter how many engines it's just like the first, Great video and hi from 🇬🇧 enjoyed it.
its just great to watch some one who knows what they are doing ,,,working !!! So many people are sloppy ,,don't understand the engine/ motor ,,and you ,,sir ,,do a fine job and educate as you go ,,
Mike, My late Dad was a CAT MASTER MECHANIC and if he were alive he would say the following. "That youngman has a future int this field. And that there engine D337F sure sounds like a goodun" wish you two could have met.
Amazing this diesel generator still runs after all this time. Its shameful how these sort of technologies will day become obsolete because everyones focusing on reusable energy which make sense from environmentalists perspective. I've enjoyed watching technicians working on these machines over the years thanks for sharing the video looking forward to the next one.
Thank you for a professional, pleasant to view and interesting video Sir. You are obviously capable and willing to treat old iron right! Very refreshing to not see the dreaded ether.
Small Engine Mech...... OUTSTANDING old engine start video!!.... one of the Most detailed and very well articulated videos of this genre on the internet to date!! Well done!! Have you ever come across the iconic D343 anywhere... aka the 1693T & TA (in 1970s truck applications)? The "D343" version was used in worldwide marine apps, as well as the Cat 988 rubber tired front end loaders (first generation), Cat 853(??) tracked loaders, and numerous Gensets, etc. Very robust and reliable engines and was also a "cammer" (overhead cam). Thanks again and keep them coming.
That turbo whisle is piercing through the air like a bullet ...music to my ear...cat engines lives forever...very well made not like the computerised crap stuff of today...keep up the good work and good luck with your neighbours....
That was awesome ! She runs like a smooth sewing machine. Loved that turbo spooling. If you can't get the gen set operating, you could sell the engine for someone replacing a CAT engine in equipment .
There is a diesel generator in the building I work in that is so longer, it takes about 15 seconds to walk around it. It stands about 2.5 meters high is is about 6-7 meters long. The building is re-enforced concrete. When the building was first "poured" there was a way for the engine to come out, but at some point, a wing was added. Now, this engine is a permanent part of the building. It's not coming out without breaking up a crap-ton of re-enforced concrete.
Thank you for explaining all the bits that are specific to these. I mainly work on low loud fast cars and bikes, have never touched anything diesel before and it greatly interests me so this is wonderful.
Great job, Mike. Not a single PLC or printed circuit board to go south, and a mechanical governor to boot. After the EMP happens, party at Mike's house! Hope you can get the generator going and pump some electrons. You've got the rare combination of excellent mechanical skilz AND electrical knowledge and wizardry. Very hard to find in one brain!
What a great find. When you get up to operating speed the turbo doesn't sound that bad. Presumably, if they did away with the exciter they must have had another power source for that, maybe so they could have multiple generators running synchronously.
Awesome video mike. That is really low hours for that of a Genset. As you said it started up like it had been ran yesterday. Thanks so much for sharing!
Nice sounding Cat! I am not sure if anybody mentioned this yet, but the governor's fly weights aren't directly splined to the pump shaft drive gear. When I was in trade school many moons ago, I recall the American Bosch injection pump governor had a 15 lb/in slip clutch spec for the fly weights. This would smooth out any instantaneous speed change in the engine affecting the governor that would in turn affect the engine. We had a Cay 3406b at my trade school that had a turbo they would scream like a banshee!
( THE LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON BOLT )Tight bolts. I used to get those on a late Friday afternoon when serving compressors .the last bolt on the sperator would be right at the back of the compressor . And you only had an inch of movement on the spanner. And for some unknown reason it would be an 1" longer than the rest LOL Happy Days
Tie wire actually serves dual purposes. Tamper proofing is the secondary purpose and a side effect. Its main purpose is to secure fasteners from backing off and loosening. When installed properly, it will hold the bolt at torque and pull tighter as a bolt tries to vibrate loose.
"Abner. ABNER!" "What Gladys?" "The neighbor is running a jet airplane in his driveway!!" "It's a Caterpillar Diesel Generator, Gladys. Leave Mr. Stevens alone". :-0
I worked for a CAT Dealer that overhauls CAT engines, dyno and Paint. enjoyed the video. With the age of the engine you can probably call CAT or A CAT dealer and give them the serial number and they can find the build date.
Dude, what a great video! I really appreciate your attention to detail and the camera work. I ran equipment for Weyerhaeuser out of Klamath Falls back in the early '80's and fell in love with old Caterpillar engines, especially the D339's in the D7Es. Their exhaust note and turbo whistle was unmistakable. Thanks so much for the trip back in time!
Hi Mike, I ran the Serial number through all the Cat service systems and nothing comes up anywhere, I'm assuming its just too old and the information was not migrated into the computer database. Assuming all info on this old girl would be in paper manuals/documentation. I believe the dealership I work at may have sold this engine new originally back in the day, actually the dealership has morphed and combined with several other Cat distributors since then however when Cat first started making gensets not all dealerships were selling them, only some dealerships had "Power Systems" divisions and at that point in time it was usually only a couple of guys supporting electric power applications per dealership. Things sure have changed since then. Great stuff!
