Monday, January 16, 2023

Runaway diesel


I am not that familiar with diesel engines. I owned an Oldsmobile diesel in the 1980's. My experience with it was similar to everyone else who owned a GM passenger car powered with a diesel at that time- that being it was not a good experience. They had problematic injector pumps and acceleration was pretty much nonexistent. Diesel power in passenger vehicles has come a long way in the last twenty years.

The video captures what is referred to as a "runaway". Diesels don't depend on an ignition system to provide a spark to ignite the fuel that is injected into the cylinders. Diesels use a very high compression to cause the fuel to ignite. Turning off the key in a diesel stops the introduction of fuel and the engine just stops due to being fuel starved. 

The problem (especially in turbo charged engines) is that in some rare instances engine oil makes its way into the combustion chamber as it is sucked past the seals in the turbocharger or even past the piston rings. Diesels will run on diesel fuel, kerosene, vegetable oil, or engine oil. Once the engine is running on the oil from the crankcase turning off the key only stops fuel from the tank being introduced in the process. The result is a runaway. Unless you can get to it quickly and starve the engine for air the result is what is shown in the video and the engine self destructs.

No comments:

Post a Comment