My new Cat 226B does NOT like to start in sub-freezing weather. I'll hit the glow plugs for about 20 seconds and then crank it over for 5 seconds or so and then repeat this about 5 times before she wants to run. Once it starts up it runs great. Does this sound normal? Do I need to hold the glow plugs longer? What's too long? Thanks, -john
You might want to have the boys from the Cat House come down and check the glow plug circuit. It's possible that a lead has come loose or maybe a plug or two has failed. If your machine is new, warranty will cover the cost, excepting travel time, and mileage. Cat is using glow plugs again huh? I thought the factory had got over that. It may be you will have to use the plugs longer. Older big Cat equipment we used to run them about two minutes, then throw the ether in and give it a try. Good Luck!
The 3024 Perkapillar engine has yer bog standard glow plugs. The Cat manual states to operate for 10 seconds in "cold" conditions. On older trucks you could easily check if the plug was working by touch after the alloted time but I never tried on the 226B. If its under warranty get it checked.
CAT says max time to turn on your glow plugs is 30 seconds I think your not cranking over engine long enough if your only cranking for it 5 seconds . engine can be cranked for 30 seconds then alow time for starter to cool Cat says 2 minutes then crank again . also if you want check the plugs there is a supplier code stamped on them if code is BERU they should be changed the New code stamped should be PEC There was an issue with supplier for BERU plugs the ends of plugs errode causing hard starting part number of plug is 1724585
I just went out and fired it up. It's 25* F here right now. I let it crank for ~20 seconds and it started. Guess I just wasn't holding the starter long enough. -john
I haven't run a lot of machines with glow plugs, and the ones I have I've never needed to use ether with, in fact I've been warned that using ether with the glow plugs hot could cause severe engine damage. I've never seen it happen but have always been warned of it.
SOP with bigger Cat equipment for years Steve. Older D6/7/8/9 dozers, 621, 631, 641, 651 scrapers, 825 compactors, nearly all the bigger glow plug engines from Cat require ether, and plenty of it during temperatures below about 35 degrees above. The new direct injection Cat's do too. Detroit's, Cummins, Mack's, Allis Chalmers, International, and many other engines with or without glow plugs all needed help from ether. The main problem with the older pre-cup machines was, however, poorly designed and maintained glow plug and related electrical systems. It was hard to ever find one that was 100%. I'd have to write a separate chapter about all the trouble Cat has had with glow plugs and electrical over the years. In addition, many machines need to be carefully prepped for shut-down at the end of a shift so that they will start and function in the morning. In late fall, winter, and early spring, you can never depend on the weather in the morning being anywhere near what it was the night before. If you do not set it up to start and run the next morning if the temps drop by 50-80 degrees overnight, as it often does in Wyoming and Montana, you are going to have heartache and cold hands for a while. I'd bet that right now, there are a lot of people cursing the sudden change in weather in our mid-west and east coast areas. Frozen radiators, air lines and fuel filters, gelled up fuel systems, exploding batteries or older batteries that did fine till the cold hit. Oh yeah! That I don't miss! Our friend in Colorado reported a starting problem at 25 degrees. From my past experience in that state, he hasn't seen anything yet. It will be interesting to see how his machine does when it hits 25 below zero with a 30 knot gale blowing past his ears. If the equipment is well maintained, is started by experienced people who understand the cold weather characteristics of the machinery, then it's not so bad. I've run several fleets of large Cats in winter down to 60 below and once the bugs are worked out and the hands understood each machines quirks, we didn't have a lot of trouble. What is surprising, is that many, many equipment owners do not pay much attention to their equipment, except when it won't run because of neglect. Then they seem to have all the time and money in the world for overtime and extra maintenance and repair costs. Most of which could have been avoided with good PM. Of course, ether has many other uses. But it doesn't do a thing for me by inhaling it. Ether doesn't work in all engines, particularly smaller ones. But it sure beats building a fire under the machine in a cut-off oil drum or by using a stack of wood pallets. I'd like to have fifty cents for every pallet or case of ether I've used or bought over the years. I try never to be without some in the garage. To all you fellas fighting the cold weather this week, good luck and be careful!
My Cat 944 and 235 will start at 0 degrees without either, just hold the glow plugs for a couple minuits and away they go. I will not let either touch those engines. In fact I have had very little trouble with Cat glow plugs (maybe im just lucky:beatsme ). Most Cats have always started good for me in the cold, as long as the engine is in decent condithon. I try to keep the either away from any engine with glow plugs, unless they are worn out and need a little help. The old 2 cyl detroits that we still run are just about the oppist - seems like they need either to start if it's below 60 degrees . I find that block heaters work great, but it is rare to have a place on site that you can plug them in.
Block heaters are a great idea, if, as is mentioned, you have a place to plug them in. A story: Back in the winter of 77/78, I worked for Great Lakes Paper out of Thunder Bay, Ontario. My station was at Camp 603, northwest of town about 200 miles as the crow flies and well within the Artic water shed. It was a cold winter, and a severe storm moved in where we got a bunch of snow as well as temperatures that dropped from around 10-15 above zero to about 60 below overnight. The camp had a big parking area with electric outlets set up so workers could plug their cars in so they would start in the cold. This was all well and good, except that each branch of that electrical setup had it's own circuit breaker. As you might guess, most of the breakers tripped during this storm as each individual autos heater started working overtime trying to keep some heat in the block. No one went anywhere during the week so this was not noticed till the end of the day shift on Friday, as guys tried to get their vehicles started to go to town for the weekend. Utter chaos! Nothing would start due to the bitter cold excepting one or two strings whose breakers hadn't tripped. Those fortunate enough to get their car started soon were working to help jump start others. The mechanics from the shop -- both shifts-- were right in the middle of things. We had an old skidder converted to a retrieval machine that had extra batteries installed and it was soon festooned with clusters of jumper cables leading in all directions. Among other things to remember is that many of the hands cars were what they called "runners." These were old beat up, high mileage autos that were used strictly on the gravel road going up to the camps. New cars and pickups were left near the main highway close to the first camp so that they didn't get all beat up on the long haul into the other two camps. Many of the runners weren't even licensed as they never operated on the Kings highway. So, the runners weren't in the best of shape and often didn't run well even when it was nice out. But on this day, nothing in the parking lot ran very well. Some that did start soon shut off due to frozen fuel filters and fuel lines. My International Scout, rather newer and much better maintained than most of the other vehicles was one of those that would not start. The engine oil looked like molasses and wouldn't even drip off the dip stick. Some fellas gave it up and rode to town with other people or at least down to their other car in the lot by the highway. Some decided to stay in camp instead. Some of us were able to use the old skidder to pull our vehicles into the woods garage, where we directed a couple of torpedo heaters at them to help warm them up enough to start. While that was happening, we went back over to the parking lot and helped out as best we could. In my case, it took about an hour to warm that big 345 International V8 up to the point it would start. Once it did I took it over and pull-started several other vehicles, then loaded up four other fellas and headed to town. All this was done in a fierce blizzard and whiteout I might ad. The trip to town, usually about two and a half hours in good weather, turned into an endurance run of about seven hours. There was in those days, only one spot to get gas between Thunder Bay and the road that led up to camp, if you didn't consider the trading post at Graham. I refueled there and it was a good thing I did. We stopped a lot and pulled other cars back out of the snow banks off the road. One car was upside down and we couldn't get it back on it's wheels, so loaded up the driver and his passenger with us. We had been fighting the cold all week with the various fleets of skidders, slashers, log handlers and support equipment scattered out over a two hundred square mile area. Just about everything was powered by Detroit's excepting the Caterpillar equipment. The camps electrical power was provided by a Cat 150KW gen-set, no back-up. Most of the woods equipment had propane powered tank heaters on them. These would be connected to propane trailers that were towed to designated parking areas. The trailers had connections for up to twenty machines each. In certain circumstances, individual small tanks were used for machines that were too big or too far out to use the trailers. These little propane heaters worked great, except during periods of high winds. Each heater had a pilot light, and these tended to blow out from the winds. They were not real well protected in the first place. All the woods equipment had the tank heaters for engine coolant. The slashers and Koehring Whole Tree Harvesters also had a couple in place to heat the enormous hydraulic oil reservoirs. Nearly everything we had used Gulf, SAE 10wt motor oil, and this fluid got very stiff during extreme cold weather. I once changed a hydraulic pump on a slasher during this period and only lost a few very long drops of oil, even though I didn't shut the valve to the reservoir off. The oil just slowly crept down and stretched out till it finally dropped off. The real cold weather lasted nearly a month tho we didn't get a lot more snow after the initial blast. It was a tough time in the woods and one I'll remember forever. Engine heaters are a good deal, if they work, and if you have a place to plug them in, if electric. Good PM and maintenance will also help a lot in cold weather.
Would a large battery(marine or something) with an inverter hooked up be enough to power a block heater overnight? Just throwing it out there, I really have no idea what kind of power requirements the block heater has:beatsme
The block heaters require a fair amount of electricity. A battery would not be enough. Last year while working in Big Sky, Mt. I would plug my skid steer into the ground heater generator and it would immediately pull the generator down and use about twice as much fuel compared to not running the block heater. I don't know the size of the generator but it functioned the ground heater so it could not have been too small, but it sure worked a lot harder with the skid steer plugged in. The temps were down to minus 43 below.