My schedule for hosting my boys changed a little bit this NewYear. Rather than having them on Tuesday nights, my boys asked that we switch it to Wednesday nights to make room for C's basketball practice schedule (Tue/Thu nights). They figured we could get in some night skiing on Wednesdays. Clearly, they have become accustomed to a packed schedule. We didn't go last night, and today's post is all about why.
Tues-day Bruise-Day
C has played basketball a couple of seasons. He says he's not very good. He understands the strategy, he just doesn't have the mechanics yet. He's crafty and has good lateral movement, so he could be a decent player if he wanted to. This season started the first week of January, so they're really only just starting. On this most recent Tuesday (Jan10), he arrived at practice early. A few other boys had as well, so they grabbed a few basketballs and started practicing their shooting. According to C, he was dribbling for one basket and one of the other boys started defending him. C chose to dribble to a different basket. When he went for the layup, the defending boy had sprinted to get to him and crashed into C, taking him into the wall and then the floor. He felt dizzy, and continued to feel dizzy for about half of practice. One of his friends helped him up and they walked over to a bench where C sat until he didn't feel dizzy anymore. At this point, he practiced with the team. He shouldn't have, but done is done. Fortunately, no additional contact was made.
C tried school from his mom's house yesterday and signed himself out of school before lunch. He called a neighbor and was shuttled home. His mom dashed home from work and took him to a doctor. "Moderate Concussion," he said. "Limited activities on a 6-day recovery plan. 200mg Ibuprofen every 4 hours." So, obviously, skiing is out for now.
Mon-day Fun-day
Based on my simple math skills, 6 days from the day of the injury would be Monday. MLK Day. It's also the one-year anniversary of the weekend I started crashing at my folk's place leading up to my divorce. Neat. Sounds like a party is in order. It seems the weather-gods are going to smile upon us too. Based on the projections, we should be getting consistent snowfall starting on Saturday and extending into early next week. Can you say "fresh pow-pow"? Now, that's a party. But wait, there's more.... with the bus running, and new glow plugs in the mail, MLK Day could be the first run to the mountain in the bus. Can you feel the excitement? :-) If all goes to plan, we'll play at Mt. Hood Ski-Bowl next Monday.
If C recovers more quickly, or if we can determine that higher altitude has minimal effects on a concussed brain, I may take Boo, her boys, T & C up to Timberline and hang out in the Main Lodge with C on Saturday. Then, at least Boo, Boo's boys and T can get some sliding in. C and I can play ping pong, drink hot chocolates and read by the fires. Still beats a day of watching the rain in the valley.
That's it for today. The bus is doing great. I have the glow plugs on-order, like I mentioned, and I need to buy and add some coolant. Overall, though, he's basically ready to play. So am I. We just need C's concussion to mellow out and we'll hit it. He's already tired of waiting :)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Return to Service
Rather than spend the weekend playing in the snow with Boo, we both spent our respective weekends in the valley. Today's post will be more technical than usual, since I spent all weekend on the bus. Consider yourself warned :)
Glow Plugging Away
The glow plug is a mystery to non-diesel folks. I know it was to me, when I first got into diesels. I figured it was just a diesel version of a spark plug with some fancy lingo around it to confuse people. Actually, it is core to the difference between a diesel and gas engine. A gas engine depends on a spark to create a small explosion in the combustion chamber (by setting the vapor on fire), creating force to drive the piston down, and create movement. A diesel engine depends on compression for this function. This sounds a little strange to the newly inducted, I know. Now, gas engines need compression too, but not nearly as much. In fact, when you start losing compression in a gas engine, you suffer "blow-by", but the engine will still run, while you slowly start polluting your oil with un-burnt gasoline. An early indicator is a smell of burnt oil (rings going bad) or your dipstick smelling like gas. Once a diesel engine's compression falls too low, or should I say once the pressure created within the combustion chamber falls below a certain level, the engine won't fire at all. So, enter some chemistry....
Pressure is a function of temperature and the vapor contents. The presence of water in air, for example, reduces the vapor's ability to compress. A low temperature of the vapor increases its ability to compress, or should I say decreases the amount of pressure created within a cylinder. If the temperature remains sufficiently high and constant, pressure is equally high and consistent for a static vapor make-up (atomized diesel fuel, cooking oil, bio-diesel, eg).
This is where the glow plugs fit into this picture. They are little combustion chamber warmers, but hardy enough to withstand the pressure and heat of an active engine. Once the ambient temperature falls below about 40*F, the pressure created within the combustion chamber is insufficient to create an ample burn for the engine to run consistently. As the temperature drops from there, the engine becomes, eventually, inoperable. The glow plugs create the heat necessary to warm the chamber so the engine can start and run until the combustion warms the chambers directly. Then, they shut off.
With this "science" in mind, we can better understand why it was so important for me to get the borrowed harness (without a glow plug circuit) replaced with a fully functioning harness. I completed that in my last post. On Saturday, I discovered that 3 out of 4 plugs in my engine were bad. I had lots of old plugs, but only one good one, so I popped it in and hoped for the best. Since it was over 40* in my garage, I wasn't too worried about the plugs. Turns out I was right, though starting on the mountain may be interesting if I don't have 4 operable plugs.
Okay, So Why Won't It Start?
Aside from pressure, a diesel engine needs something pressure-combustible within the vapor. As I indicated earlier, this ranges from diesel fuel, home heating oil, bio-diesel and vegetable cooking oil. I've heard of other alternatives, but I'd stay with those 4 (and home heating oil only if you aren't afraid of getting ticketed in the US - its a road tax aversion thing). So, I have temperature, I have compression, so I must be missing the fuel. Since I had the entire system open, I probably failed to get all the air out of the fuel system. I attack this in 3 steps: priming the lines to/from the filter, priming the pump, and priming the injectors.
Priming the Lines
With a Mity-Vac, simply apply vacuum to the fuel line that runs from the big fuel filter to the Injection Pump (IP). Block the return line from the pump to the filter. The filter is large and holds a considerable amount of fuel, so you can find yourself second-guessing whether you have it right. I have a small clear filter between the tank and the main filter so I can see fuel enter and move through. This little $1 filter extends the life of the spendy stock filter too, so I encourage others doing this too. Once you have fuel collecting at the Mity-Vac bottle, connect the IP feed line back to the IP and start priming the pump.
Priming the Pump
At the pump, remove the little return line which comes from the injectors. Apply vacuum with your Mity-Vac to that little nipple until fuel collects in the bottle. Do this carefully, with low-pressure vacuum. You don't want to damage any pump innards (read: rubber seals) by applying too much vacuum at once. I found keeping it under 5 pounds was sufficient. Once you have fuel in the bottle, re-connect all the lines and move on to priming the injectors.
Prime the Injectors
Now, you have fuel at the pump and the pump is full of fuel. All that's left is making sure there's no air in the hard and return lines between the injectors and the IP. With a wrench, loosen the nut at the end of the hardlines where they connect to the injector. Do this for all 4. I completely loosened mine, but just "cracking" it should suffice. Now, start cranking the engine. Keep cranking until you see diesel fuel start to pop out of the loosened injector connections. Once all 4 are popping, you're air-free. Tighten it all back down and the engine will start. Mine did.
I took a test drive over to Boo's house to prove out all of my handiwork. This is a few miles, including a highway on-ramp/off-ramp and some city-ish traffic driving. The new tires felt fine, and I couldn't even hear the noise of the studs over the racket of the engine and rattling windows. The bus drove well, reached 185* and effectively leveled off there. The heat works (though the defroster air was a little funky), and I think we're back in business. I need to top-off the coolant, and double-check the oil, but I think the bus is now "back in service". Now, to plan the first trip to the mountain, and the next "real" road trip: Dark Star Orchestra...
As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post more as there's more to post about...
Glow Plugging Away
The glow plug is a mystery to non-diesel folks. I know it was to me, when I first got into diesels. I figured it was just a diesel version of a spark plug with some fancy lingo around it to confuse people. Actually, it is core to the difference between a diesel and gas engine. A gas engine depends on a spark to create a small explosion in the combustion chamber (by setting the vapor on fire), creating force to drive the piston down, and create movement. A diesel engine depends on compression for this function. This sounds a little strange to the newly inducted, I know. Now, gas engines need compression too, but not nearly as much. In fact, when you start losing compression in a gas engine, you suffer "blow-by", but the engine will still run, while you slowly start polluting your oil with un-burnt gasoline. An early indicator is a smell of burnt oil (rings going bad) or your dipstick smelling like gas. Once a diesel engine's compression falls too low, or should I say once the pressure created within the combustion chamber falls below a certain level, the engine won't fire at all. So, enter some chemistry....
Pressure is a function of temperature and the vapor contents. The presence of water in air, for example, reduces the vapor's ability to compress. A low temperature of the vapor increases its ability to compress, or should I say decreases the amount of pressure created within a cylinder. If the temperature remains sufficiently high and constant, pressure is equally high and consistent for a static vapor make-up (atomized diesel fuel, cooking oil, bio-diesel, eg).
 |
| glow plug image borrowed from autoengines4842.blogspot.com |
With this "science" in mind, we can better understand why it was so important for me to get the borrowed harness (without a glow plug circuit) replaced with a fully functioning harness. I completed that in my last post. On Saturday, I discovered that 3 out of 4 plugs in my engine were bad. I had lots of old plugs, but only one good one, so I popped it in and hoped for the best. Since it was over 40* in my garage, I wasn't too worried about the plugs. Turns out I was right, though starting on the mountain may be interesting if I don't have 4 operable plugs.
Okay, So Why Won't It Start?
Aside from pressure, a diesel engine needs something pressure-combustible within the vapor. As I indicated earlier, this ranges from diesel fuel, home heating oil, bio-diesel and vegetable cooking oil. I've heard of other alternatives, but I'd stay with those 4 (and home heating oil only if you aren't afraid of getting ticketed in the US - its a road tax aversion thing). So, I have temperature, I have compression, so I must be missing the fuel. Since I had the entire system open, I probably failed to get all the air out of the fuel system. I attack this in 3 steps: priming the lines to/from the filter, priming the pump, and priming the injectors.
Priming the Lines
With a Mity-Vac, simply apply vacuum to the fuel line that runs from the big fuel filter to the Injection Pump (IP). Block the return line from the pump to the filter. The filter is large and holds a considerable amount of fuel, so you can find yourself second-guessing whether you have it right. I have a small clear filter between the tank and the main filter so I can see fuel enter and move through. This little $1 filter extends the life of the spendy stock filter too, so I encourage others doing this too. Once you have fuel collecting at the Mity-Vac bottle, connect the IP feed line back to the IP and start priming the pump.
Priming the Pump
 |
| IP image borrowed from Dieselgeek.com |
Prime the Injectors
Now, you have fuel at the pump and the pump is full of fuel. All that's left is making sure there's no air in the hard and return lines between the injectors and the IP. With a wrench, loosen the nut at the end of the hardlines where they connect to the injector. Do this for all 4. I completely loosened mine, but just "cracking" it should suffice. Now, start cranking the engine. Keep cranking until you see diesel fuel start to pop out of the loosened injector connections. Once all 4 are popping, you're air-free. Tighten it all back down and the engine will start. Mine did.
I took a test drive over to Boo's house to prove out all of my handiwork. This is a few miles, including a highway on-ramp/off-ramp and some city-ish traffic driving. The new tires felt fine, and I couldn't even hear the noise of the studs over the racket of the engine and rattling windows. The bus drove well, reached 185* and effectively leveled off there. The heat works (though the defroster air was a little funky), and I think we're back in business. I need to top-off the coolant, and double-check the oil, but I think the bus is now "back in service". Now, to plan the first trip to the mountain, and the next "real" road trip: Dark Star Orchestra...
As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post more as there's more to post about...
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Holidaze, Hood and Harnesses
Its been 10 days, and I've been on vacation for most of them. I'l hit the highlights, and describe my final engine harness resolution.
Holidaze
The miniature house painting, like so many projects I undertake, took longer than I described in my post before. In fact, it took as long as I told folks in person: over 40 hours. It still needs to be shipped, so it totally missed the holiday window. Once its been delivered, I'll post a picture. My dad says that the Three Kings actually arrived on the 12th day of Christmas (Jan6), not on the actual birth-night like the songs imply. So.. I'll stretch that so I can have the finished product in-hand by Jan6 and still meet Christmas expectations. Its all in how you frame it...
Hood
As I write this, I've been to Mt. Hood to go sliding 13 times since the start of the season. That is more than all of the times I've ever gone in all my previous years combined. On Christmas Eve and the 26th, I took the boys to Ski Bowl. After nearly a month without fresh snow, the conditions were really very good. Ski Bowl has snow-making machines like the resorts in Vermont, so the sub-freezing weather allowed them to make snow almost every day. This left an inch of top-powder on top of the packed base. The mountain was practically empty on the 24th and it was almost as quiet on the 26th. These were possibly 2 of the best days we'd had to date.
We went up to Ski Bowl again on the 27th, but it rained. I was practically soaked through by the top of the first lift, so I only took a couple of runs and called it a day. We took the next 2 days off, so our legs could recover, and we had family holiday parties to attend. Our last trip to Mt Hood was Friday Dec30 to Timberline. Mt Hood was experiencing blizzard conditions, making the drive a little challenging for some, and the sliding a little interesting for us.
The drive to Government Camp didn't require chains, but I pulled over into the rest stop/Summit ski lift parking lot and had them on in a few minutes. All those early trips gave me lots of chain-up practice. It also gave me some needed snow-driving practice, which came in handy. We found a front-row parking spot, set the car in gear (leaving the hand-brake off), and stepped into some of the worst weather I've experienced since moving to the West Coast. In the time it took to get our gear on I had an inch of snow in my back seat and over an inch in my trunk. The car was completely covered, and we were all cold to the skin. We hauled our equipment to the day lodge and set to sliding. Timberline had at least 16" of fresh powder on the ground and more was pouring out of the sky. Visibility was about 15' and foggy through goggles. Still, the sliding was slow with the fresh powder, but that encouraged more direct paths downhill. The spills were all the more epic.
I avoided a young woman who was sliding very slowly down the center of the trail (in an outstretched jumping-jack pose), but ended up hitting the drop-in at the top of Thunder with my body out of balance. I dropped about 10 feet hit a mogul, bounced, hit another mogul and then cartwheeled twice before landing flat on my back with a thud. If the 16" of powder weren't there, I would have been hurt. Instead, I caught my breath, checked my extremities, jumped onto my toe-edge and finished the run. Good times, and more to be had for sure this season.
Harnesses
So, I bought a replacement harness. It wasn't the right one. I found the part number on the ECU plug and bought a replacement off of eBay. It looked right, but once I unwound the tape and pulled the dust cover off the back, it was clear that it wouldn't work either. The picture here shows how the wires don't route to the same pins. So, even though the part number was right, the implementation was different enough to make the part useless to me. One more thing to sell. Great. So, at this point, I got a little creative. I looked at the pin-holes that click into the ECU on both the old plug and the replacement. It looks like the inside of each of those little holes contain a metal clip. I figured I probably damaged or bent the clips with my connectivity testing. Next to each square-ish hole is a tiny slot. I found a tiny paperclip and started working the holes where I could see the clips. I did this on and off while watching football, so I'm not sure how much time this took, but it was more a case of move slow, than bang-it-out.
Once the holes looked more like the plug I bought, I took the harness downstairs. First, I tested the loaned harness with the OBDII trip computer. I had only one code: P038 - Glow Plugs. I pulled the loaned harness out, shot every plug on the original with Di-Oxit5 and strung it into the engine and ECU. Quick test with the OBDII computer and I only had the one code. Hazah! I tried to start the engine and it wouldn't start, but its because I hadn't fully primed the fuel circuit. I'll be completing that this week, and I should be able to drive the bus again.
Well, that's like 2 or 3 posts in one. There's so much sliding season left, I expect to have lots of outdoor pictures and experiences to share over the next few months. It seems like the bus is almost road-ready again after a 3 month span. I plan to prime the fuel circuit this week and he'll be ready. When he drives again, he'll have a completely refreshed fuel tank, a fan on the intercooler, an operating glow-plug circuit, a freshly painted exhaust and studded snow-tires. Wow, when I spell it all out, its been a very productive 3 month lay-over. Like every other time the bus goes back into service, I'll start a list of things I want to work on the next time. If it goes well, I won't plan for another run of projects until May when the ski season is over but camping season hasn't started yet. As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post again soon-
 |
| Mt Hood Xmas Eve |
The miniature house painting, like so many projects I undertake, took longer than I described in my post before. In fact, it took as long as I told folks in person: over 40 hours. It still needs to be shipped, so it totally missed the holiday window. Once its been delivered, I'll post a picture. My dad says that the Three Kings actually arrived on the 12th day of Christmas (Jan6), not on the actual birth-night like the songs imply. So.. I'll stretch that so I can have the finished product in-hand by Jan6 and still meet Christmas expectations. Its all in how you frame it...
Hood
As I write this, I've been to Mt. Hood to go sliding 13 times since the start of the season. That is more than all of the times I've ever gone in all my previous years combined. On Christmas Eve and the 26th, I took the boys to Ski Bowl. After nearly a month without fresh snow, the conditions were really very good. Ski Bowl has snow-making machines like the resorts in Vermont, so the sub-freezing weather allowed them to make snow almost every day. This left an inch of top-powder on top of the packed base. The mountain was practically empty on the 24th and it was almost as quiet on the 26th. These were possibly 2 of the best days we'd had to date.
 |
| Mt Hood from Mid-Reynolds top at Ski Bowl |
 |
| Sunset over Ski Bowl Lodge |
I avoided a young woman who was sliding very slowly down the center of the trail (in an outstretched jumping-jack pose), but ended up hitting the drop-in at the top of Thunder with my body out of balance. I dropped about 10 feet hit a mogul, bounced, hit another mogul and then cartwheeled twice before landing flat on my back with a thud. If the 16" of powder weren't there, I would have been hurt. Instead, I caught my breath, checked my extremities, jumped onto my toe-edge and finished the run. Good times, and more to be had for sure this season.
Harnesses
 |
| wires don't go to the same pins |
 |
| plug underside |
Well, that's like 2 or 3 posts in one. There's so much sliding season left, I expect to have lots of outdoor pictures and experiences to share over the next few months. It seems like the bus is almost road-ready again after a 3 month span. I plan to prime the fuel circuit this week and he'll be ready. When he drives again, he'll have a completely refreshed fuel tank, a fan on the intercooler, an operating glow-plug circuit, a freshly painted exhaust and studded snow-tires. Wow, when I spell it all out, its been a very productive 3 month lay-over. Like every other time the bus goes back into service, I'll start a list of things I want to work on the next time. If it goes well, I won't plan for another run of projects until May when the ski season is over but camping season hasn't started yet. As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post again soon-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)