Yet again, another call out on a machine that wont start when it gets cold. I show up and there is 4 empty cans of starting fluid laying on the ground by the machine. The machine had ice in the fuel line, and after 15 minutes with the forced air heater, it started, BY ITSELF. What say you about ether?
you cant cure stupidity or lack of maintenance on equipment and then expect it to run with no issues...before cold weather sets in fuel should be treated and new filters if you think there will be a problem with contaminated fuel...I was told too much ether can make bad things happen to an engine...before I try to start any equipment in the ice cold I plug in or heat up( portable torpedo heater) just to get some of the chill out of the internals...
To me, ether is a heat aid like glow plugs. First, you need to be sure that there is fuel reaching the cylinders. If there is, and it is not igniting, then a little ether will light it off and you are off to the races. Ether works by detonating as the piston is coming up on the compression stroke. The little bit of fire should then ignite the diesel that is already in there. You can also spray a large amount of ether which will cause a large and uncontrolled detonation. You don't need this. It doesn't do anything or anybody any good. However, as you stated, most engines from the last 30-40 years will start on their own, so instead of spraying ether, they need to figure out what is wrong with the fuel system. You can also fix broken glow plugs or relays or shoot a propane torch down the inlet which works without all the excitement.
Like anything used in moderation Ether is a godsend If you need to start an engine when its cold and no external heat available or not enough time to let it fully warm up or is just to damn cold a sniff of either though the air cleaner will not hurt anything if you need to empty a case something is wrong its much better than burning the starter out or the batterys going dead Many times you only have one chance to get it lit there is no trouble at all when properly used I like to keep the either can warm on the heater in the pickup it vaporizes better Remember a little goes a long ways you only need enough to get to fire When its -30f and blowing not to many people are out there pulling air filters and intake tubes to fart around with torches and hair driers you would end up with cold fingers broken parts and probably be looking for a job because the engine could be running and warming up instead of fooling around 90% of our cat equipment is equipped with an either switch on the dash
Some of the newer equipment actually have the ether injection system controlled by the ECM for the engine, you can't even override it at all. If engine wants it the computer gives it just the right amount and you hardly know it has happened. Also this topic reminds me of a 6V-53 Detroit that was afresh rebuilt in the summer then when it wouldn't start one day they screwed with it for a long time and finally called up the outside contractor who told me there were several empty cans of ether on the ground when he got there. He did some quick checks and found the emergency shut down flapper to be closed! Really didn't matter because once it did start he said there was still a problem. Seems back when the rebuilt engine was put in at our shop the big boss was told the reason the previous engine had failed was the lousy leaky exhaust letting water down the cylinders causing bent rods. Well we were told: Don't worry about it we will fix it as soon as it gets back to their shop. Guess what they never did? This big boss is the main reason I never thought twice about retiring when I hit 65.
Yair . . . I have never had to contend with the cold some of the folks here speak of but I always felt the gasoline soaked rag in the inlet or around the pre cleaner was as effective as a spray can and (to me) the engines sounded happier without that ether rattle. Cheers.
X2. ∆∆ I still use a can of ether when in a hurry.. but very much prefer a gas soaked rag as it definitely lights off easier in the motor.
WD40, CRC556 or other such products are much better to use than ether. Ether dries the bore away to much for my liking and engines seem to become addicted to it IMO
Have to agree with you on that Tones and I like to warm the can up good on the truck heater before spraying
4 cans of ether..........$14 Service call...............$250.00 Job foreman telling me this morning " If ether was bad for engines, they wouldn't manufacture it and sell it."...........Absolutely PRICELESS!:roll
Ether is fine, when used in moderation, in engines that are built tough enough, to take it. That being said, DON'T USE IT ON ASIAN DIESELS! blowing your piston tops into the oil pan, doesn't make you any money... If its real cold, take a propane torch, torn it on, and try starting on propane. Or better yet, use a coolant heater, or my favorite, for where there is no power, slide a single burner coleman gas heater, under the oil pan, and wait the 45 min to an hour it takes to warm up the engine... ointlaugh
Turkey fryer jet burner works really well for oil pans. (grin).
Reminds me of times in my younger years when on jobsites, the crew would keep fires going for days, even weeks, and shoveling the coals under the equipment for a warm up on cold days. Those were the days!
I started my old 4-53 Detroit in my log skidder this morning same as I do every morning. Lift the dust cover off the intake, give it a shot of the "good" ether aimed at the air cleaner element, replace the dust bowl, jump in the machine and hit the starter. Cranks about 8 to 10 revolutions and starts right up down to about zero F. Colder than that and it gets a torpedo heater blowing on the side of the engine for 20 minutes. No ether required then. I also would be leary of ether in most newer engines. At 40 and above the 4-53 starts right up with no aids. Same starting game for the 4-53 in the feller buncher. Beware of the type ether you buy. Some of that crap is made for fuel injected gas engines and have hardly no ether in it. I used some in a old 2 valve 4-71 and it just would not go. It always fired right up in the past. Finally when I used the good ether it started right up and ran wild for 10 seconds from all the crap ether in the intake tube laying there unburnt until the engine fired. Got lucky that time and always read the can now to make sure it is not diluted.
I have noticed about the only place to buy good either is at the equipment dealer and then you have to be careful that it is at least 80%. The stuff they call starting fluid is about worthless.
Ive never tried the gas rag routine. I was taught at a young age that was bad. It seems a lot of you haven't had any trouble doing it though, so was I taught wrong maybe?
I can't see how gas could hurt anything like ether does. Ether goes off with such a loud knock that if there is too much in there the shock wave is liable to damage something. Most types of fuel are valued for their resistance to detonation while ether is valued because it is prone to detonation.
If its one that just hasn't been started in a while, I use jb80 or worst case use choke clean, only think I use ether for is setting beads on tires, as long as it's 80% which the normal parts houses don't carry.
Last week I needed to move some snow around with the grader. Plugged in the block heater and returned to start it when I discovered the block was still cold. After 12 years the 2000W block heater had failed. Not wanting to put the ether to it right away, (tempertures was right around zero F), I went into town to buy a new heater and ran into a old farmer friend. He said that he had used WB-40 on his JD machines instead of ether. His thinking was it supplied some lubrication. I ended up using ether as I was not in the mood to to clamp off cold hoses for the replacement and I was concerned about WD-40 messing up my paper air filters. Any thoughts on using WD-40 instead of ether?
You spray WD40 directly in the intake when cranking. It is not vapor/fumes when it gets to the cylinders like ether or gasoline, it is still small droplets, so the air filter will take out most or all of it and as you surmise you will be left with an oily air filter. The reason ether works well and is flexible to different situations is because it is so violent. That is what also makes it prone to damage. Other methods will work but not as easily. You choose your poison.
ether works great for mounting tires..again not an approved method , but when out in the woods and not left with much choice , it will get the tires sealed back on the rim, just stand back and out of the way incase it blows the bead off the rim...
You guys talking about ether washing down the cylinder walls? how much are you using? I've got a deere that'll start without it but I'm leery of long cranking times tearing up the starter. Near 0F, a one second shot into the outer air cleaner will have the engine running in four seconds of cranking, I'll usually crank for 3 and then give it a whiff, then 4-5 more and it'll start up as gentle as pie. No banging knocking or rattling. It runs out of that 1 second of ether after five seconds of running but by then its already fired up on all six. It just complains for another ten seconds. Without the gas its a minute or two of cranking with some partial starting before it'll hold on its own, then another 10-20 seconds of smoking like crazy before it smooths out.
Agreed if you can get enough ether in there to wash down the cyl walls get between the rings and remove all the oil trapped in there it is defiantly going to cause engine damage its going to take more than a couple cans for that to happen (; When using common sense the ether to fuel rate is so ridiculously small it isn't going to wash down the cylinder or destroy the pistons Had a truck today that didnt get plugged in long enough about three hours on the cord around 0f colder last night and the 2 new 4d batterys in there couldn't get her rolling and it wasnt going to do any good to try for more and a second Ran the queen bee with extension pipe elbowed up at the oil pan (keeps the fire danger down and puts the heat right where you need it) That cummins was smelling a hit either the next time i hit the key and fired right up throttle wide open until it was running backed down to 1500 until it wanted to stay running smooth at idle No knocked no excitement at all just standard operating procedure around here Let it warm up for an hour or so and ready to get to work while I can get on to other things like getting the 950 running and laying under another truck burning off the ice thats blocking the slack adjusters from releasing the front brake
Pretty much this^^^. Ether in moderation is sometimes a necessary evil in cold weather. Unfortunately some people think it's a cure all. It's not. More than once I've seen guys try to prime an engine with the stuff, had a customer ruin 2 injectors and a priming pump on a C-15 cat trying to start it. Why? It had lost one of the ECM feeds and wouldn't fire the injectors but they kept trying till they broke the tips off.
Try this , instead: Take out the paper element, and insert a bernzomatic or similar propane torch, with the gas on, but not lit. Put throttle all the way up Give it a few seconds, and start cranking. Most of the time they fire right up. Remember that almost all aerosol oil products use butane as the propellant, and propane and butane are both simple fuels...
^^ The propane torch trick works great for motorcycles too. it's a lot easier than getting them flooded with fuel when they been sitting a while.
Some machines that are located in extreme cold conditions have a zero start system installed that when activated shoots a measured amount of ether directly into the intake to aid in starting
I like the propane torch method, Im going to try that. In my relatively limited experience it seems either is especially bad for IDI diesels. In an IDI, combustion happens inside a pre-combustion chamber so when you shoot ether in there, a very violent blast is coming out of the chamber through a small port and BAM- right onto the piston, I have seen this leave deep gouges into the piston crown.
What if you had the propane torch and had it lit? wouldn't that be similar to an intake air heater or that zany configuration in some Perkins engines.
Perkins thermo-start burns diesel in the intake and works really well. For really cold weather like -30 and below some Perkins will use an optional ether injection system.
Anybody remember the old Cummins "build a fire in the intake manifold" system? Glow plug and hand pump, worked well if you knew how to use it.
Last year some dimwit tried to start a 416 Cat backhoe with the ether injection switch, putting ether in the engine w/o cranking it at the same time. Result? Cracked head and I believe one bent rod. I'll occasionally use a little goose juice on my own equipment in cold weather, but I'm cranking the engine at the same time I aim the can at the intake.
Often the air cleaner is not accessible to the operator station. In those cases I use a small shot of ether on the air cleaner and run to the operator station. Since I don't use much ether, I might have to run 2 or 3 times. In many cases, as I'm half deaf to begin with, I can't hear the engine very well because of other engines running or in excavators it's far from the glassed in cab. So when I hear the engine start to rev, I back the rack off quickly which often results in shutting the engine down. No problem. I do it 2 or 3 times if necessary. Trying to use enough ether or rack to get it going the first time can be an easy way to ruin an engine.
I leave the rack full on until that sucker is running. First chance might be the only chance with bad batteries. Diesel fuel will not hurt it. But ether might. I really do not like dousing an air filter with a long intake tract. It seems that sometimes you have to spray a lot of ether to get it to fire and once it does take off it draws the remaining ether from the air filter and sometimes it is more than you want. But sometimes desperate times call for desperate means. I just don't want to be the one responsible for a customer engine just to save 20 minutes of work starting it some other way.
If it doesn't start with ether you can always resort to swearing at the #@&%ing thing.
Too much ether and boom, broken rings. $8000.00 later for an inframe overhaul and loss of the machine for a week. Ether is just too expensive.
I am in the gas/rag school of thought. I was taught that by a very senior hand quite sometime ago. Been doing it for years as needed. Rarely use ether, just hate that pounding.
Agree. Always works for me. Don't need ether.
do not ever use ether on a deutz air-cooled diesel. It will stretch the cyl barrel studs(which also hold the cyl heads on) and the cyl heads will leak compression, requiring top end repair. these engines require a heater element in the air hosing to warm the cylinders. Or use a herman-nelson to warm the whole engine
Have the same " Thermo - start " option on the Ford tractors . Hold the key switch in " heat start " position for about 30 seconds to warm it up . Basically turns the intake manifold in to a small fuel oil furnace . Pretty good setup , I like it ! https://www.tractorjoe.com/c5ne9a436a-heater-thermostart-intake-manifold-1 Detroit's & Allis Chalmers industrial engines also had a similar set up .
Talking about either ... Used a can as a diagnostic tool couple day's ago . Went to fire up one of the gas drive welders and nothing after crank crank crank . Pulled the air cleaner off & cranked while shooting either in the carburetor and she started & ran fine until I quit with the starting fluid . No fuel ? Was able to pull the top off the carburetor and noticed the float / needle valve was stuck shut . Freed it up and ran fine ! Starting fluid also works good as hand cleaner in a can . Spray down a shop rag with it and it will take off old school Detroit oil
I personally won't use either-too damn hard on rings. When one of our trucks won't start I wheel the torch out. Remove hump hose to intake and preheat the intake for 30 seconds or so and keep the flame going while someone cranks it over and they fire right up. Been doing it that way for forty plus years. To me either is a last resort. Had a beer distributor truck that the driver complained about the engine was making some strange knocking noises. So I went out and took look at it and got a faint whiff of either. It was an International COE. His metal receipt book holder had fallen off the dog house down on top of the either start button mounted next to the shifter. He drove from Yakima to Ellensburg- 34 miles like that. Said the truck really ran up the hills . Later that week it started making noise-six cracked pistons on that poor 855. Truck Shop
Used to work with a fleet of scrapers powered with turbocharged 12V71's, 16 to 1 compression. all were equipped with the propane cylinder style ether injectors to get them started, BUT... the way we wired them you could not inject any ether unless the starter was engaged. Never had any ether issues that way.
Tiger torch in a pice of 6" stove pip with a 90 on the end does wonders, if you don't have any bad leaks lol.
I just had one today. Broken glow plug wire, no start. Older Mitsubishi IDI engine. I thought I would show the owner some of the tricks mentioned here to see if there would be alternate ways to get it to run before fixing it so they would not have to call me in a panic. WD-40 sprayed from a can - nothing. Flammable brake cleaner (had this work a little on other engines) - nothing. No gasoline on site for the gasoline rag trick but brake cleaner is pretty much the same thing so no dice there. Propane from a torch into the intake - nothing. Light the propane torch and hold it in the intake - fired but not real strong. Move the torch away and it will stop firing. Move it back and hold it for a couple seconds and it fires right up. Some engines are more cold blooded than others.
Used to keep a oil squirt can of white gas in my kit for service calls, pull intake boot back and apply gently as someone else cranked the engine over. That and our engine overhaul drip pans became charcoal trays to heat engines been cold soaked too long, carried 50-100# of charcoal on the service truck just for that reason.
I'm getting a lot of questions, calls & email about it, especially on Perkins & Ford engines.. [no/hard start] I tell them the "proper way" {CAV/Delphi pump} is to pull the throttle 1/2 way, run the GP's or thermostart & turn the key.. EVERY response is>> "Well, I never had to do that before".. "What the hell ya want me to tell ya??" "You've been doing it wrong since you've owned it.. Just try it & let me know how it works out.." The next call is> "it started, thanks"..
Not to mention plug in the block heater for about an hour before starting . Was using the Ford and Allis Chalmers ( Perkins engine ) tractors yesterday . Warm block sure makes the difference in cold weather starts . A simple tractor / equipment shed with electricity is money in the bank .
In my case it is usually an off grid generator. No heaters allowed/available In this case we just do what we can to get by because of finances. If I had one this cold blooded and it was a new unit or a high dollar customer, I would be thinking about adding an inlet heater for some redundancy. Not usually necessary because the more modern engines will usually start glow plugs or not. Sometimes the starter suffers.
I have always shyed away from using ether. Have seen bent rods and shattered liners early on in my career from Yahoos who soak the air cleaner with 3 cans then run around and hit the key. I got spoiled with the Volvos. Good batteries, they were almost guaranteed a start. Only time that wasn't the case is if the oil was just too cold to pump. Then it's heater and tent time. Just my 2 cents.
I've thrown tarps over equipment and put torpedo heaters or barrel heaters under them to get something going. It was up to 30 or so here yesterday afternoon, and after cranking for a little while, I did give my 6-71 a little shot (before the batteries were gone). I didn't even pull air cleaner, just shot a little at the intake (one two count- no can emptying), then walked over and cranked it and it fired right off. I try to get inside what I need the next day, the afternoon before while its warmer. Like td25c says, block heaters and sheds or heated shop. We don't get near the cold that the guys up north see all the time, but next week we're supposed to get down to 5 F or so, which is pretty cold for here. City has already lost a water line, and if it stays cold for very long, we always lose some in town.
I think it has already been said but I much prefer to shoot it in the intake in little spritzes when the engine is actually turning and preferably remove the air filter or some pipes so it goes in as close to the cylinder as possible. It is better to be able to gauge the effects and meter it in while cranking than to shoot some in the air filter and hope it was enough but not too much. But you got to do what you got to do and especially when the batteries are starting to get sluggish.
Had a small milling machine that didn’t like starting fluid. One shot would lock it up. After it would turn over again took out the OA torch ,pulled air filter, kept torch a couple feet from filter housing pumped hot air in. Turned it over ,fired up.
It gets just about as cold here as anywhere. [arguably] I also like the gas fumes from a rag better than ether when necessary but can usually get by with a block heater - esp. when combined with a magnetic heater on the oil pan to thin the oil out to where it's more pump-able.
One of the guys I worked with 25yrs ago, had to start some 631Bs, 631Cs, a D9G, and several D8Hs every morning. He ran a 3/8" hose to the intakes and used an old 90wt quart bottle full of gas to squirt a snort in them. It worked great.
With our machines left off grid in the woods, something we do before dark if we're expecting below 20f is keep machine running, get some blankets and tarps ready, top up one of those kerosene lamps (wick type) and get it lit. Then shut machine off, hang the lamp off a bent wire hook next to fuel pump, throw blankets and tarp over, then pray all night that it isn't a smouldering pile in the morning. Even with 0 degrees f temps, it amazes me how well it starts and runs, like a summer morning start. If we don't do this, it means a blow heater for an hr, and trouble there is our generators are both diesel so likely won't start up anyway. We don't get enough regular cold here to have block heaters, etc. But ether has bad reputation here, generally used on old unmaintained beaters, so it gets tarred by the same brush as the derelict machines it starts.
I use a whiff or 2 on some machines on a cold morning. It sure helps to have a shed and a block heater. If you can park out of the wind seems to help a lot. -15 here the other morning. Clean filters before winter, 5 or 10 wt. oil, good batteries. Be prepared
Had a excavator turn to jello on Monday. We stiffened up the fuel treatment in the runners and after exhausting all the good cuss words we had we finally created enough heat to get it to fire again. Looked a little like the chicken dance for awhile... as always
Here's my shake your head story last winter hd41 sitting for years 20 degrees out 10,000 cranking amps at 24v plus and welder hooked to batteries and six cans of either. One can wide open of good either per air cleaner and it did not rattle . It's was going to bone yard so wasn't to worried. when it finally lit throttle was wide open and only thing I could compare it to was a run away freight train. The cloud of smoke could of filled and high school foot ball stadium.
The old 6.9 and probably 7.3 Fords would do that too. Crank them too much when they were not firing and the fuel seemed to build up inside the engine somewhat. Then when the ether finally reached it or the glow plugs became operational for whatever reason, once it started to fire and burn off the leftover fuel it sounded like it was going to blow for a second.
I have used ether exactly once in the 9 years I've been doing this and only because the guy ran a machine out of fuel in the middle of a street at -32C. Bled injectors out and the battery was shot. Couple snorts of ether once it was making smoke and away we went. I try to avoid using ether as much as possible.
You must be lucky and not have to deal with any old low compression Cummins or Turbo Detroits. If those aren't plugged in... Get out the nose candy and be smart with it.
My funny ether story regards an ALCO locomotive with 6000 cubic inches. I was operating this engine for a shortline railroad in 1999-2000. Anyways, were cleaning the cab one day and what did we find in the toolbox? a 10 ounce spray can of ether. I doubt that would have done much good to start that beast in the cold. It did have a diesel fired engine preheater that used quite a bit of the battery power to run the burner and circulating pumps, so we would just connect a welder to the batteries and let it run. It took 3 hrs in zero temps the heat her up to start temp.
I wonder if anybody ever tried it. If it only takes an ounce or less to start a big Cummins or Detroit then you would think that the 10 ounce can might do the trick if it was used entirely. That or find a spot to spray it where it gets in real strong to just a few cylinders, sometimes the extra speed of a portion of cylinders firing will help bring the rest of them to the ignition point.
Years ago I worked at a place that had three old Ford dump trucks with Cat 1160 motors. Even in warm weather they would smoke but get the temp down to thirty degrees and the nose candy was a necessity. Some drivers are smart and you never worried about them. Others were dumber than rocks. All the air compressors pulled fresh air off the engine intakes and one of our brain surgeons put so much ether in before turning the engine over that the air compressor popped and blew out the reed valves when he started turning the engine.
I know I've told this story before.. A place I used to work for back in the early 80's REBUILT locomotive engines.. we had our own tracks & a DYNO.!!!! VERY KOOL place to work.. The OWNER bought a EMD loco engine at an auction for a few g's & figured if we could put it on the dyno & get it spinnin' we could get it to fire off..?? & make a bundle.. lol A CASE of ether later.. it fired off.. oh boy did it fire off!!! It blew EVERY widow out of the building.. & BENT the tracks on the BIG roll-up door that was open about 3ft. The EXPLOSION TRIED to take the 60ft WIDE roll-up door off the tracks.!!!!
I doubt it would have done much good. The air intakes were huge, then it would have to go through a turbo impeller and housing 3 feet in diameter to get to the cylinders. The heater worked good.
I had a friend tell me he saw some guys loading a Diesel man lift last week in -25 weather and they were running it on ether to load it on the trailer.
If I ever ether something with large air intakes, I always try to find a plug or something where I can get it as close to the cylinder as possible. Loading up an intake tract with ether gives me the willies because you never know what might happen.
Used in good sense ether is just another tool. If something is spinning over and smoking a little I'm giving it a snort of ether before I drain the battery or smoke a starter. Im pretty sure a sniff of ether does far less damage then draining the batteries and taking life off the starter. I've ran stuff on pure ether to get it out of the middle off an intersection before. Or on a trailer. If you feather the trigger on the ether the engine sounds just like its running on fuel. Dont get the engine knocking and running away and you're not gonna do any damage. I'll take all the name calling you guys want to do on my ether usage but I haven't seen any bad side effects of ether usage. However I've changed out my share of starters and batteries that could have been avoided with a snort of ether.
I don't agree that feathering ether to get a unit out of an intersection or on a trailer can be considered safe. The ether is detonating at some point on the upstroke, probably quite early, compared to how the diesel would be igniting with controlled timing. But every engine is different and I'm sure it can be done with no damage on some engines, I just don't know which ones they are, and don't want a customer to come back to me over something like that. But I do agree if it is injecting fuel and just not firing because it is too cold, just enough ether to get it to start igniting the fuel is what I aim for.
Good points Knepp ! 2018 and people still aint sure when to use starting fluid / ether ..... Good Lord help them .
When I was still in school had to start ir ecm 660 after school to let it warm up for lowboy never worked on one before dad told me give small sniff she would pop right off if cranked alot batteries would go dead. After third cranking cycle. Realized I was spraying compressor filter housing started nice once it was going in engine lol
I'm gonna hijack this for a minute>> On another site, there was a fella who, at one time awhile back, filled his diesel w/ gasoline.. & he now has a problem starting his engine[cold weather] & was suspicious of the fuel he just put in... I posted that service stations make mistakes all the time.. & he could pull his filter, pour some out & hit it w/ a lighter.. IF it was gas, it would flame-up quick.. IF it was diesel, it wouldn't.. THEN I got hit w/ a dozen comment like> "you don't know sh*t" "diesel fuel WILL flame-up" & "we use diesel fuel to start brush fires" THEN there was 1 guy who dared me to put diesel fuel on a paper towel & lite it, just to PROVE it will flame up..& the comments went on & on... OFCOURSE the paper towel is gonna burn, you idiot.!!! [I didn't write or post that last comment] I've put a lighter to 1000's of "fuel puddles" to SEE what the fuel was... I have NEVER in my entire life had diesel fuel "flame up".. WHO"S the idiot here??
I’ve visited some of the other sites and am amazed at the bad and wrong information spewed forth and the others are non the wiser. They get weeded out quick here though pumpguy.
The glow plug relay on my old E70B excavator doesn't work. I have no idea where the dadgum thing is. All fuses good. When I have to start it in very cold weather, I just run jumper cables from the 24 VDC battery bank to the common glow plug busbar and by the time I climb down and make it in the cab (15 seconds or so) it fires right up like it's August. Never had to use ether.
I KNOW.. its sickening.. I don't bother to go back & answer these type of people.. What are they called? Keyboard Commandos?? ALWAYS disagreeing w/ the answer or whatever you have to say.. basically, picking fights.
Ask these same idiots why diesel fuel can be carried in a slip tank and not gasoline. The DOT or whoever doesn't consider diesel a flammable liquid. I think they should come up with a better term because diesel will burn but isn't as easily ignited as gasoline. A spark or a match won't light diesel fuel. Die Hard 2 comes to mind when apparently the leaking jet fuel is lit with a lighter and travels along the spill all the way to blow up the plane.
Knepp said: "Used in good sense ether is just another tool. If something is spinning over and smoking a little I'm giving it a snort of ether before I drain the battery or smoke a starter. Im pretty sure a sniff of ether does far less damage then draining the batteries and taking life off the starter." Exactly correct, I think. Spinning the starter, in the cold, while the engine pops and stutters, for 30-seconds-at-a-time, is a *lot* worse than a shot of a 'starting aid'...
I disagree a little bit with that posting, also. Spinning the starter doesn't damage anything but the starter. If the engine pops and stutters it is helping the starter along at that point and starter time limits can be disregarded (within reason anyway, you have to be getting somewhere, no sense cranking forever if it's only hitting on 1 cylinder and no more). Because the engine is helping the starter along and starter current goes way down at that point. I actually read it in an OE manual somewhere and it makes sense. A whiff of ether in this situation is probably no problem, but it has the POTENTIAL to be a big problem so that's why I like to avoid it. Also, a starter at 0 degrees takes a lot longer to warm up to a damaging temperature than one at a "reasonable" temperature. I have probably thought about this way too much.
That's how I look at it. I'd rather rebuild a starter than rebuild an engine.
Machine / truck setting out in the cold with no electricity near buy gets one chance to fire while cranking it over with whatever life the batteries have left in them ......... Ether / starting fluid gives a slow cranking diesel an edge to light up in cold weather . Do ya want this rig to start or not ?
Basically... Unless you are totally stupid you wont be rebuilding an engine? or even a starter?
Starting fluid has a learning curve ...... Kind of like a monkey pissing off of a cliff ...... A little bit go's a long way
Years ago I worked for a company that had one guy that was "allowed" to spray ether. What a retard. Had no idea what he was doing. But he made sure he kept his nose warm with the boss's... And the boss was just as bad, so I was out ASAP with that bunch. Some of this ether dogma boggles my mind. It's a tool in the right application used with care. Engines do not get "addicted to it" unless an idiot breaks piston rings using too much. Seen that on many old Detroits.
I agree. The people who think it gets addicted probably think of an engine as a living breathing being and probably have never taken one apart and put it back together (very successfully anyway). I don't know if it has been mentioned in these 5 pages but I remember plenty of trucks and equipment that had an ether can loaded with a button you could push in the cab. If the manufacturers put it there, it can't be all bad.
In measured shots it's good stuff.
My Case came with a factory Ether injection for cold weather that was what they did.. I've dumped 1/2 a can in before trying to get it going. Maybe I'm getting old but.. plug it in, 2 new batteries and cleaned the cables and terminals and it actually starts without it. 1 thing I did this time which I haven't done in the last 10 years when replacing this stuff was put a disconnect switch on the batteries.. No more parasitic draw no weak batteries, knock on wood...
Ye I didn't mean to imply that excessive cranking is bad for the engine itself. It is however bad for me. The longer she spins the more I age.
Back in the late 70's early 80's, people (including myself) used ether like it was going out of style, oblivious to the damage it caused. I think this was because the effects of ether were not well known and the manufacturers didn't know either. The fact that they all stopped providing ether injection systems should tell us something.
My thought is it was a separate system with a separate fuel type to maintain and once batteries and electrics got better to the point that they could work, it was seen as a much better option.
There have been ether injection systems on diesels engines since at least the 60s and probably earlier that I have had experience with. They are in fact installed on a lot of new Cat equipment now.
I use the saying. "No smoke no ether" not that iv never abused it. But if it aint got smoke prolly aint gonna stay running.
Had a small, REALLY small issue on my farm tractor cold start injector, corrupted a shade Fully closed and had to clean the port. Can ALMOST see that well if I don't have to hold it out about two arms lengths!!
Is that on the Allis Chalmers DMiller ? Our 175 diesel has that feature . Chained up the 170 Allis this afternoon expecting ice & snow ..... No worries about starting fluid as he has the 226 cube gas engine . Pull the choke & fire him up Old gas burner tractors still have there place as they will fire off fast in cold weather .
One of my favorite snow tractors was a Farmall 766 with a gas engine, it was cheap because nobody wanted a gas burner that big, Wish I still had it. The other toy was a Farmall 400 with the gas start diesel. Nice hot magneto for spark, it didn't take much to fire up.
No doubt RZ , those were well built reliable tractors . When my Grandad farmed half the tractors were gas & the rest diesel . The gas tractors worked great for winter time chores as they started easy . Still do today ....
That's funny with the gas engine talk, I had that last week in the cold. We've got three trucks, a 2001 dodge cummins, 2000 ford with 7.3, and a 1992 ford 460. (one ton dodge- fords are 450's) The cold snap got the 7.3 with a little ice in the fuel line, the power steering pump/ brake booster on the 5.9 doesn't like below 30 very much, but the 460 fires right up and has the best heater. It was the go to rig here last week, it came and pulled the 7.3 to the shop when it gave up the ghost. If it wasn't for the horrible fuel mileage, I would take it over the other two trucks.
Birken Vogt said: "I disagree a little bit with that posting, also. Spinning the starter doesn't damage anything but the starter. If the engine pops and stutters it is helping the starter along at that point and starter time limits can be disregarded..." Maybe... The *only* insulation between the wires of the wire-wound-coils, in the starter, is the varnish on the bright copper wire. Not much insulation, only a mil or two of 'plastic' insulation... and not high temp resistant. I've never seen an engine that was damaged from ether. I've replaced many overheated/'burnt-out' starters... and they were almost always the starters that are really hard to replace... and solenoid contact points and conductor disks that were eroded or fused together... P^)
Ether damage right here D315 direct electric start. Fogged the engine without it cranking. Very rarely do starters give up because they are old. Most times its because of heat from bad connections that create a voltage drop and kill things. Weak batteries will do the same.
I've seen ring lands broke loose from pistons caused by ether in Japanese engines. The explosion is too much for them if the rings are spaced close together.
That's a major Owie!! I suspect by the other marks on those rings they were about ready to give up anyway
All I can say about that is if an engine can't handle a little ether in the morning, no way is it gonna make it through the day with me at the controls. In all seriousness I know that ether will absolutely kill an engine dead. I also know that I've seen a little 4bt inhale dang near a full can of ether and it sounded awful when it fired. Wouldn't stay running because it had a blown fuse on the fuel solenoid. Ran like a top after I put a new fuse in it for the guy. Made me think that all this paranoia about ether is a little much. A lot of damage on the old truck engines was due to driver pushing the ether button instead of downshifting. Or if they wanted to race a fellow truck driver. I'll just say I've seen some serious engine abuse with ether and have yet to see one actually blow or suffer premature failure. I'll keep using it.
Know how that go's Jim ...... Sometimes you and flip the disk & clean up the contacts for another round . It worked great , rig cranks & starts fine now ......... With a little shot of ether in cold weather http://www.heavytruckforums.com/showthread.php?363-Ccc&p=2830&viewfull=1#post2830
I have always been more afraid to use it on little Japanese or Ford-IH 20:1 or greater compression engines than on lower compression turbo engines for fear of what it will do to the wimpy pistons. Although sometimes you do what you have to. Another rule to live by, if you have an engine under warranty if it took ether to get it going don't tell anybody, we all know how they love to use any excuse to deny warranty.
farm i took care of once upon a time had a ford 1000 2 cylinder jap diesel if i was in a hurry which was rare . and didnt want to gag on the exhuast while it was triing to get running on both cylinders i would glow plug it start it then get off and literly put a couple dropps of either on a corner of paper towel and just wave it near the air filter inlet that was enough to make it hit on both cylinders and clear the exhuast to get it backed out of the building , or while it was triing to run i would turn key backwards again for a few seconds at a time to rewarm the glow pluggs not sure that was good for it so didnt do that much .had a half can of ether with almost no propellant in it last me over 6 years doing that , he used to buy a 3 cans a winter , now i know what happened to the piston rings
When I start a unit that has glow plugs I almost always leave the glow plugs on while cranking and after it runs if it is still running rough. Some units have a diode that runs the glow plugs whenever you are cranking the starter.
Makes sense it may be more dangerous on smaller high compression engines. The smallest diesel engines I have any experience with would the little four cylinder deutz engines in manlifts.
I'm curious about the mechanism by which starting ether breaks piston rings. I know that the obnoxious loud knocking sound of old mechanical injection diesel engines is caused by the unstable combustion propagation of the injected fuel. I know that modern electric injection diesel engines have 'multiple timed combustion events' to stabilize the combustion propagation, and that eliminates the 'detonation' knocking. I know that high speed, high compression, gasoline engine detonation [combustion instability], and worse, pre-ignition [before the spark] detonation, will melt piston crowns. So how does ether break rings?
What I am about to write is speculation because I am not aware of any controlled studies on ether in engines. Ether ignites by compression. It detonates. And it does so pretty easy since it still works even when very cold. Since it is already in the intake charge, it is going to detonate when the piston is on the way up in the compression stroke and not necessarily near TDC either. When it detonates it all goes off at once with a crack. Not the controlled spray of an injection event. Couple that with the fact that the piston is still on the way up squeezing it tighter before it can go down the power stroke and you have a recipe for damage. I like to think that introducing just enough ether to ignite itself on the way up is all you should need. Even if the tiny bit of ether is completely gone and stopped burning by the time injection starts, the cylinder air will probably still be warm enough that the injection will burn instead of just spraying, and then the fire is lit and the engine will run.
No. Those piston rings broke because the engine over-reved. Remember the piston ring ridge at the top of an iron cylinder: If a old chevy six grocery getter never spun more than 3000 revs, ever in its life, and the cylinder ring ridge developed over years, from the "plucking" of the ring and cylinder metal, when the rings stoped and reversed at the top of the stroke, and if then next, a 20 year old bought that chevy little old lady's car, and then he raced the engine to 4000 revs, the first thing that happened was that the rings hit the ring ridges, because inertial force from greater rotational speed increased the crank, bearing, rod and piston stretch, and the piston moved a few thou farther up at TDC, and top ring hit the ring ridge much harder, and the top ring broke in many pieces. And then next, when the 20 year old hammered the piston out of the bore, without removing the ring ridge, the second and oil control rings broke too, but not so badly... A diesel engine is well governed. The max speed is exact. They often always run at that max speed, for *many* hours. Long oil change intervals (no oil changes, sometimes...) mean oil additive depletion. That maximizes "plucking" wear, and ring ridges. One over-rev, maybe from ether, means broken rings...
Over revved engines drop valves and break rod bolts. Busted rings are usually from worn out cylinders, dripping injectors and ether. In order for the rings to hit a worn ledge on a cylinder the rod bolts are either loose from over speed which would be known because of the knocking, even at low speed, or the hole is already out the side of the block. I have seen broken pistons and rings from ether. The process is as Mr. Vogt stated. Ether is a hammer that used appropriately will solve a problem. Swing it too hard and you might end up with an unplanned expense or a sudden career change event.
I'm with BV on this one. How many time have you ever seen an engine "run away" even for a second on ether? I can't ever remember one hitting the governed speed. If you load it up then crank it, you get CLUNK, the starter stalled for a second, CLUNK, another second of stalled starter, until it clears and cranks over. The right amount of ether doesn't clunk one bit, it probably doesn't even ignite before injection.
Ok. So how does ether break rings? Only thing Mr Vogt said was that "... you have a recipe for damage." (Dragster engines run on *nitro methane!*, and they don't break piston rings...)
For reference, the broken "piston rings" that I am referring to are those in the photo that Doyle posted, bottom of page 5 of this thread. One ring in the photo is broken into eight pieces. For a dished combustion chamber piston, the top piston ring is 3/4 or 1 inch below the top of the piston, so the two paths to the top piston ring, from the combustion volume in the piston, for the violence of ether, are through the metal of the piston, and through the tiny annular gap between the piston and the cylinder wall. So, to break piston rings, some shock force, from ether, large enough to fracture the iron or steel piston rings, has to propagate through either of those paths... So which of those speculative shock waves or forces, from ether, hits the top piston ring with enough violence to fracture the piston ring?
Diesel is slow burning fuel. Ether is the opposite. When fuel burns in a combustion chamber faster than a piston can run away from it, something has to give. I would speculate that's what happens to ring lands.
Ever notice when dragster engines are rebuilt, usually every other run. No ring wear, generally only two rings for weight control and little to no piston to head clearance set by head seal either shims or gasket while the combustion region is compressed ring sealed between head to the deck. No chance to develop wear where the rings can be over rev deflected and are designed to use the nitro methane yet they still grenade. Ran drag jeeps in the 80's using Hillborn FI on the stuff. Destroys a engine in short order if not adjusted right.
Jim D> your beating a dead horse.. Your trying to explain how ether wont break a piston or rings to people who collectively, have 1000 years experience FIXING THIS PROBLEM, seriously? Think of it this way.. piston pushing UP.. ether explodes pushing piston DOWN when crankshaft wants it to go UP.. opposing forces.. something has got to give.. weather it be pistons themselves or piston rings or blowing a head off an engine.. THAT being said, some engines are more tolerant than others. Lets move on.
What hasn't been said in this thread is the affect of the ether washing the lubricant off the cylinder walls and the rings now riding on a dry cylinder liner. One also has to keep in mind that when diesel is injected into the cylinder most diesel engines have a dished piston where turbulence is generated and the flame front starts. Ether is drawn in through the intake and the flame front will happen on the edges of the piston instead of the dish in the piston. There is plenty of sudden expansion of gasses to bear on the rings as the piston is rising. Now add some carbon in the ring lands so that there is point loading around the circumference plus the ring riding up touching the dry liner and you have multiple places that can crack the cast iron ring.
I never did buy the ether washing cylinders thing. I can't imagine how much you would have to use to get any liquid ether in the cylinders, it has to be all vapor by the time it gets there. It won't even stay liquid long if you are using it to wash parts in temperatures around freezing. Plus it has to go through filters, tubes, turbos, etc. to get there. Plus to wash cylinders there would have to be enough liquid to displace a meaningful amount of the thick, cold, sticky oil.
Most starting fluid I've seen says it has upper cylinder lubricant and corrosion inhibitor. https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/motormedic-liquid-fire-quick-starting-fluid/6000077653955
Just replaced an engine in a snow cat due to excessive ether. Story goes load unit on trailer in yard to go out to work, was -35c so driver let it run, got to bush and wasn't running (ran out of fuel) but didn't know it, try starting it on ether would run a bit so figured it might pick up fuel if kept cranking, called in that engine is running rough and knocking, so it gets sent back to shop, we have a look. well #5 piston seized in bore and rod broke at crank journal, crank and block are toast, $31,000 f#@k up. We did find a complete drop in and swapped it out. Company said no more ether allowed anymore! yes we are staying busy this winter.
Must not of had enough upper cylinder lube in that brand?
Yeah, I've seen similar....Engine quit/wouldn't start so some other 'techs' worked on it for most of the day... I get called in and show up and the first thing I notice is 5 cans (empty) of ether lying next to it with the jumpers still hooked up. So first thing I did was get their story... "basically almost runs when you shoot ether into it" Ok so I give it a crank and what do ya know... no smoke, Hmmmmm so grab some tools rip off the kill solenoid cover and tell them to give er' a crank -- starts right up with a good rev and a pile of smoke!!! So, I told them what they needed partswise or how to 'temporary fix' it and got outta there before things got worse.
I think that is just a gimmick, like they put a little WD40 or some light oil in there and it must be a very little. Funny thing, I use ether for cleaning parts and (brake) parts cleaner for starting (mostly gas) engines. The ether dries clean so it must not have too much lubricant in it, plus it is cheaper than parts cleaner, plus it does not attack plastics so bad. The parts cleaner is more similar to gasoline (the same for sake of this argument) so less likely to detonate under compression. Ether has a cetane number of about 90 (diesel is only 50) which makes it want to autoignite and flammable range of 1.9-48% which is way broader than the normal hydrocarbon fuels which are about 1.5-8% and are resistant to autoignition.
I just noticed that it says that on the can but I've used ether for cleaning too and you don't notice any kind of lubricant in it. If you have an engine in good shape and your fuel is good, a small shot of ether to get it started doesn't hurt anything. Obviously the engine has to be designed for ether use. Thousands of machines came with factory ether injection systems. Imagine the warranty claims if ether was so bad. I think the problem is some people figure if a little helps a lot will help more. I saw a guy who was (apparently) a golf course mechanic spray a ridiculous amount of ether into a 14 HP gasoline engine to get it going in to bring it into the warm shop. I just shook my head when I saw that.
Not to mention, that most of the starting fluid, that I find, today, is nowhere near as potent as an old can of drydene... I suspect epa has been adding **** to it, that works about as good as today's gas...
so the moral of all this is what i have always said , only people that know how to use starting aids properly in a way that will not cause damage to an engine are the only people that should be doing so , it usually takes 2 people unless engine has built in starting aids , the truck im building into a lube truck wouldnt start the other day batteries were weak 8 years old has new ones now , anyways its a ih444e in an f650 so it has glow pluggs rather then disabling glow pluggs took the air inlet pipe off charge air cooler and gave it warm air with the torch on my service truck took a couple tries but got it going and back in shop , there is lots of ways rite and wrong to start a cold engine and if one is not sure how to do so safely one should get some dang help from someone that knows . on diesels if it aint smoking it aint gonna go , fix your fuel problem first most people i know go straight for starting fluid instead of using there eyes and nose , i keep all the ether locked up and hidden at our shop mainly becuase drivers !!!
"Jim D> your beating a dead horse.. Your trying to explain how ether wont break a piston or rings to people who collectively, have 1000 years experience FIXING THIS PROBLEM, seriously?" Yes, very seriously. What is the physical means by which ether breaks piston rings? Pre-ignition detonation in light weight, very high output gas engines, i.e. very high manifold pressures and lots of nitrous, will melt piston crowns, it will batter down piston ring lands, it will bend rods, but it doesn't break rings. So how does ether break piston rings in very heavy, low output diesel engines?
I have no idea, and it would be nice to know, but I don't NEED to know. Possibly light weight, high output engines melting pistons at high speeds/loads/temps isn't relevant to extremely slow speed, cold engines cracking rings? I agree that I can't explain why rings would crack. Probably the most experienced members here couldn't say with any scientific certainty why they crack, maybe not even that they do crack? I still say it's not from overspeed, but then I'm not in the habit of starting turbo, intercooled, big air filtered engines with ether. It has to go pretty close to the manifold to work, and it won't be enough to overspeed a cold diesel. Once they start, they run smooth, unless you're trying to load something on ether alone. If they knock bad, it's usually going to slow to keep turning.
gas engines dont have 20- 22.5:1 compression ratio on a brutally cold start up. rings are fragile , that compression ratio i listed is for small naturally aspirated diesels usually , that is what i have seen with finding broken rings. in particular a ford 1000 with 1500 hrs 2 cylinder, 6 compression rings 4 out of 6 rings were in 2 peices or more, old care takers and operators of tractor regulary used ether in it after it was overhualed i ran it 2500 hrs without any problems and if i used ether it was a drop or 2 on a corner of a paper towel wiffed by the air filter inlet , we dont know why or how it breaks them but us mechanics know what we see and usually get the rest of the story after its repaired . unless someone want to go to school to be a diesel engine design engineer and torture tester and figure out the exact physics of it we may never know . have you ever seen an inexperienced person triing to light off a diesel that wont start with a can of starting fluid? A. they soak the air filter with it or B they are smart enough to take the air filter out and spray it down the throat but dont have someone to crank it while doing so , so a **** ton gets sprayyed into the intake and then they go try and start it . remember we are not talking gas engines running nitrous we are talking very cold weather diesels starting dead cold , alot of diesels arent using some kind of an exotic piston ring either like those gas engines you described above . actually physical means was already explained ether detonates on pistons travel upwards triing to push piston wrong way then when that force is over come here comes a fuel injection cycle then it repeats untill the ether is gone, now do this all the time something is bound to give up the ghost and get fatiqued, thats my theory on how and why they get broke into peices . only a guess but just a logical one . one would have to know the actuall cylinder pressures and tensile strength of rings and how much pressure actually got to them and have to make a test engine to figure out how and what it takes to break a particullaer engines rings , im not planning on going to school for this i just keep the ether locked up so some jo blow cant spray a whole can of it into an engine before they call me out for a no start .
I still remember that double disc Cummins six bolt head engine that over revved and popped the center head(did have previously broken at least cracked head bolts) where never expected to see anything that destructive but the dummy trying to start it loaded the oil bath air cleaner with a FULL can of starting fluid, maybe more.
6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other.. I guess I'LL move on..??
I tried using ether once for cleaning when I ran out of brake cleaner in the field. Works great, but when I used it, was a cold ass day and I had gloves on. Finished cleaning my parts and not thinking, attempted to light a smoke. Yeah the "Boom " at my face caught my hair on fire, and my gloves of course. My barber laughed his ass off when I walked in the next morning.
Yes, if I am going to hose an area down with ether I think ahead to be sure there will be plenty of time for it to evaporate and blow away before I have to start something or cause a source of ignition in that area.
It had nothing to do with ether, but I was working around a Gardner-Denver W series compressor that spit the middle 2 cylinders into the air once. That was exciting.
Runaway? Or just decided was 'Tired'?
Mostly just tired. It was the second stage cylinder bank, a piston came apart and stacked up to hit the head hard. Broke the flange that held the cylinders to the crankcase and sheared the inlet and outlet flange bolts, tore off the water lines, threw the cylinders and head about 20 feet and left the 2 pistons and rods flailing about. It had a 12V71 driving it and luckily there were E-stop buttons everywhere.
Good points crane op ! Pay's to keep some gas burners around when everything else fails to start . Pull the choke & fire it up ! No either needed on those rigs . I generally plug the diesels in & let them warm up for an hour or so before starting in cold weather snow fall . While they are warming fire up the 170 Allis-Chalmers gas powered rough terrain crane & start slammin the snow out of the way . Heater on the 170 aint nothin to brag about but ya stay warm yankin the levers . Ford Galaxie heater will run ya out of the cab
Some don't know the difference between flame and explosion.
SKOAL tobacco when around either / starting fluid . Smoking can be bad for the health when around flammable's .
I have used ether and a BIC lighter to clear Wasp infestations from equipment.
I learned that trick many years ago it's cheaper than bee spray too!!! and when used properly they can't figure out what's going on... also found when used inside structures they don't seem to reinhabit when you leave their blackened encampments roasted in place.
Drove fuel tanker at night as a second/third job late 70's, gas, diesel, JP4. Used to smoke HEAVILY, where that was a no-no so started with Skoal, the Copenhagen then up'd the ante to Redman and Uncut Beechnut long leaf. Would go a little further when made Jerseyville IL where a old store still sold Plug and Block dried tobacco for chew. At one point driving home one day had a cigarette in my hand while smoking, had a roll of beechnut in my cheek and was drinking a Coke. Got pretty good at not swallowing the cud, and HAD to have the nicotine hit. Finally quit it all in '96, threw a 3-5 PACKS a day habit in the trash and did not look back.
A grill lighter and a can of ether is an awesome padlock defroster !
We tried ether in a buddies potato gun that he had in camp, didn't work very well, I thought it would be great, best propellant is hair spray unreal how well that works!
I drove a tanker in 1983, luckily Copenhagen was enough to get me by 'til I could grab a smoke.
You'd have enjoyed my old ride. 1974 A-car round fender, Super 250 Cummins with a thirteen, SQHD Rockwells 4.33 ratio on 10,00x22 rubber. Had the LOVELY White Velvet Ride suspension that had been adapted to it, great for the kidneys, back, churning lunch. 170+/-" wb with Armstrong PS an old Bostrum spring ride seat while AC was 4/50, ALL the windows open and 50mph. Tanker had a pto pump mounted under(old US ** 8200 gal STEEL tanker) inside tool boxes, could almost scale 5000 gallon Diesel in it, just Not Quite. Single drop, NO baffles and SUCKED to drive with half a load. Side roll, end SLAP at stops/takeoffs. Still not sure why the end caps stayed on it!! Was not fast, was steady! In winter would stuff rags/old towels along door openings to keep what little heat it made INSIDE the cab! I believe if memory serves it weighed EMPTY at just around 46000. Only good point, the scale boys KNEW the truck, KNEW the load would take DAYS to settle if jostled and when hit the slab would get a auto green light!! Scale crossed many times with 85k gross!
A spark or a match won't light diesel fuel. Die Hard 2 comes to mind when apparently the leaking jet fuel is lit with a lighter and travels along the spill all the way to blow up the plane. Jet fuel is mixed with naptha I used to use it to burn the garbage pit it always went off with a big whoomp and a nice blue flame
Different breeds of JP out there. JP4 is as volatile as gasoline(petroleum Naptha based) as it does contain a rather copious quantity of naptha and will light with a match if fuming. Was cautioned Heavily by the Helo crew using it out of Jerseyville IL.
I started the old grader the other day with my torch warmed up the big cast intake manifold and took the air filters out ,had a big time oxygen rich flame and let it suck in hot air it worked pretty ok , still took a bit but it finally lit off . I am apparently out of ether in the shop we don't use it much so we tend to forget about ordering any .
I may have to scrounge up some firewood and build some heat under my 7G Allis, need to use it today but is cold soaked something fierce!! Torch heat sounds a better idea!
Good ether is like perfume. Just enough to smell. After cranking enough to see oil pressure begin to build, hold the can back 18" from the air intake. A 1 second spritz where only a small portion of the ether finds its way through the air cleaner is enough.
Just sold an old 7.3 to a fella. Got out there knowing it wouldn't start, hit the key, let the plugs cycle, and no crank. So I walk around to the other side of the shop truck to grab a set of cables and hear the dreaded "pssssssssssssssst" got long 5-10 second spray of the nose candy right into the air filter housing. Told him as soon as I heard it not to do it again. hooked the cables up and went to crank it again and see between the hood and cowl he is spraying again. About that time the glow plugs hit and POW goes the filter box. Fireball, burning filter, them yelling at me to quit cranking (at this point the truck is about to fire and I would rather suck the fire down it's throat like an old 4 bbl back fire than let this oil slobbering pig burn. Finally got her churnin on her own and used the intake to suck up what fire was left. Looked at him and said "that things got glow plugs, theres a reason I told you no ether!" He replied "no hable espanol"
Idiots
I ran across a CAT loader a few years ago. They called and said they had been using ether to start it for months, but now it wont start at all. I went there and pulled the air filter cap off to find..........only the wire cage of the filter. LOL Some time in the past the filter had caught on fire and burned the paper up. They had been running the machine with NO air filter........instant engine overhaul.
You need from the ether a source of fire, not the fuel to run. If the engine is to run on starting fluid, it needs valve timing changed. Diesel burns, expanding slowly enough to push the piston down. (Think of a foot on a bicycle pedal) . Immagine a smashing blow on that pedal before it reaches top center. If it were less explosive, it would try to run backward. As it is ether explodes too suddenly to move a crankshaft, most of its energy is destructive. A tiny bit ignites diesel fuel. That is a good thing. Too much, it wants to oppose the starter, firing too early.
I was just going through wiring diagrams looking for something else, saw this & thought of this thread. Must be 466 only, the 444 would blow the hood off!
Picked up a few cans of either at the hardware store this evening .... Hardware store feller warned me it was flammable . I thanked him for the advice . No **** Sherlock .
It could probably be rigged up on the 444e ecm would just need to disable the glow plug solenoid if ether start is engaged . Not sure if that was an option though been along time since I have seen dealer programming for those .
Ether is best. There is high ether content starting fluid, and low. The good stuff is best. Use a tiny squirt, it's hard to spray little enough. Too much of it, it doesn't work. Willie
I was buying canned dry compressed air, the kind you use to blow out a computer. The ingredients are air. The clerk at Staples needed my driver's license. Why? It can be misused as an inhalant. I responded; "It's air!"
Maybe the cans you were buying but some are not just air, here is the MSDS for Staples Electronic Duster spray: http://sds.staples.com/msds/712196.pdf I have no idea of what "Ethane, 1,1-difluoro-" is but not something I would want to inhale!
Petroleum distillates, ethane. Difluoroethane. Will burn if used wrong!!
And if it is burned the stuff you get can kill you or cause bad acid burns!
Most flammables will burn or explode at a range of 2-8% in air or something like that. Ether is more like 5-50%, really wide range, so it is easier to get a proper mixture to light it off.
Then there was always the Jolly Joker that would sneak into the bathroom at the shop, touch off a little ether into a populated toilet stall under the door or walls!! FOOOOOM! Flame ON! That'll get the poop moving, or shut it down!
I generally try to laugh it off anymore ... The cat informing me that the either was flammable . LOL ! Had to get on the management at the drug store ...... They only sell barley soda warm and the Doctor prescribed it taken cold . Just jamb a case in the milk cooler few hours before I pick it up .
Reminds me of a time many years ago. The wife asked me to pick up tampons on the way home for her. Now......I hate buying the dam things in the first place, but I did what was necessary. So I get to the checkout with them and the clerk ( a chick no less) asks me if I knew what I was buying. I calmly replied "Yeah I know, but they have changed them some. I don't know if I can get these in my ears."
reminds me of the old dog food diet joke: “I was buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for my dog at Walmart and standing in line at the check out. “A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. “On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting the Purina Diet again although I probably shouldn’t because I’d ended up in the hospital last time, but that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms. “I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. “I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her. “Horrified, she asked if I’d ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned by the dog food. I told her no; I stepped off a curb to sniff a poodle’s ass and a car hit me. “I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard.”
Well, I watched 2 Mexicans bead a tractor tire with ether last week. One sprayed the rim, the other was throwing matches at it from too far away. Everytime the match missed, they resprayed the ether. I told them they didn't need to do that with THAT much ether, but they couldnt speak English! So, after the 4th match miss, one of them touched it off with a cig lighter. The resulting BOOM and percussion knocked **** off the shop wall and that Mexican was on his back , on the concrete floor, trying to extinguish the burning beard he had. No one seriously hurt but hell, I TRIED to tell them! I couldn't understand what they were yelling at each other afterwards, but it surely wasn't good. Another crew of them was watching and busted out laughing. All in a days work for them I guess
Have seen the Mexican Jumping Tire before, they seem to feel the ether evaporates too fast or something. Usually with similar results!!!
Is there any way to determine the % of ether that is in a can ?
The answer lies in price as best I can tell.
Or how high the tire jumps off the floor .
LOL!!
Well, I had some ether residue on my glove yesterday when I lit my cutting torch, glove went up like a Christmas tree. I proceeded to violently shake the glove off my hand...………..only to fling it (in flames of course) onto the bag of trash I had sitting in the back of my truck. Isn't there some kind of super hero that throws flames from his hands? Yeah, that's who I felt like as I watched the glove traveling through the air.
I like to use ether as cleaning fluid. Because it is pretty much non toxic, it does not attack plastic like acetone in brake cleaner, it evaporates super fast, etc. One reason to be concerned is its flammable range. Acetone, like gasoline and propane, has a flammable range in air of something like 5-15%. It has to be right to fire. Ether is something crazy like 3-50%. That must be why it is used as a starting fluid, because it will fire no matter what the concentration might be. I always think about when I will need to start an engine or cause a spark before I go hosing ether all around.
Did the bag of trash catch on fire? This sounds like one of those stories.
How bad is the damage?
I rebuilt the posi in one of my pickups one time and ran out of brake clean to clean out the housing. Figured ether would work. Yeah no, not a good idea. Fumes accumulated under the truck box. Lifted my head a bit as I was trying to climb out and just about passed out.
Yes, I think the same substance was used for surgery in the past. I only use it in open areas, have not had that effect where there was air circulation.
List of damages below...…… 1. Outer plastic of trash bag on one side before I got it out of the truck. No truck damage. 2. One left handed jersey glove 3. A bit of hair on my arm and face 4. My ego 5. My pride It only lasted a few hours though, now I'm good to go again!
Well... Uh… Ether boo boos. I once ran a can under a Bostrom seat on a scraper, no ignition but I ran with my head out the window for a while. The other was trying to start an old 66A D9, I dropped the can while reaching over to crank the engine... it landed on the starter terminals. boom. Luckily the explosion blew the can out before it did much damage to the machine.
A lot of this sounds like story tales of horse feathers. A little snort from a can won't hurt you none. Get you some!
Wow.. that made a bang i bet
Nice!!! Gonna be a little harder getting that liner out
I actually have a few customers that would have asked me if I could hone that.
Build it up... spray weld??? then rebore
Is a little bit beyond Excessive ring wear there!! Sleeve.
Was it "addicted" to "easy start" at the end?
Actually I bought it that way. Did I do well? It is an Isuzu in a Mustang. I drained the coolant out of the bottom of the pan and got it to run. What really surprised me came from the machine shop. Sure we can sleeve the block for the replaceable sleeve. It will be like new no problem.
That's a high tech variable compression engine.