Lister Engine Forum

Lister Engines => Petteroids => Topic started by: hotater on August 22, 2006, 02:18:34 AM

Title: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: hotater on August 22, 2006, 02:18:34 AM
Here's the story as I know it and then I'll speculate.....

I cranked my 3.5HP Mini Petter pump today to take videos for Emerald.  I took one at about thirty seconds and several more for grins with a dark background and the exhaust plume in the sun.  No smoke after the muffler burnt off a little oil.  It was holding 32 psi and pumping water into two one inch poly pipes and then to nearly an acre of sprinklers.  No problems so I went up to the shop to break into a spanking new PS-Jkson short block for my tired ol' Listeroid, but I degress. 
  The Petter ran great for about 25 minutes...full of fuel and oil and everything ready to go all day, then I heard the tone change into 'dragster' mode.  I ran that way for about nine leaps and decided since IT was on the OTHER side of a poured concrete building full of hot water and *I* was on the safe side....I'd just stay there and try to figure out what happened once the smoke/dust/parts cleared some.   

There WAS smoke!   Black, unburned fuel smoke and puffs of white.  The RPMs finally leveled off but the smoke kept rolling.  The engine sounded rough...much like the video posted elsewhere, and popped and missed a bunch but kept right on running.  I considered going down and pushing on the throttle bar with a rake handle, but not for long.

IT took six minutes by the watch for the engine to start missing more often and finally staggered to a stop.  I'd already gathered a fire extingisher and my IR gun to see what a molten puddle of Petter actually measured.

I peeked around the corner and it was sitting there slightly smoldering around the pepper can muffler but otherwise plumb normal.  The head was a little warm at 199 but not bad.

The mystery became 'why did it quit'?  I checked the oil---down to the 'add' line.   I 'shot' every part of it with the IR gun and saw nothing out of ordinary hot except the muffler.  IT was toasty!!  The flywheel was perfectly free and it had plenty of compression, too!  I couldn't help but try to crank it back up.  No squeek from the injector.  OUT of fuel!!

It had sucked down a whole tank in 31 minutes!  NO wonder it blew a lot of smoke!

I re-filled the fuel tank and purged the line and tried it.  FIRST time it fired and off it went.  BLACK smoke, white smoke, billows of it.  I noticed the governor lever was bouncing back and forth when I shoved it over to shut it down.

The governor weights are NOT controlling the throttle bar.   I thought about that for a while.

The pumpsets are crankshaft started on the 'other' side.  The pump is mounted on the ordinary crankshaft extension.  That means the governor end of the camshaft is behind the flywheel and tough to get to.  I decided, in the interest of science and just because I'm not too bright, to get out my fancy new laser guided tachometer and find out what the engine was really doing and where was it *supposed* to run. (1500 on this one).

I cleaned of an area of the flywheel across the face and then on the back towards the throttle bar for the tape.  I wanted to be able to see the reflective tape from somewhere other than in line with the shrapnel, but I put enough on the face that I could compare readings.
  The first run I took video with one hand and controlled the throttle bar with the other, then I switched to the tachometer and re-started the engine.

WOW!!  This engine will climb to 2500 rpm so fast you don't know it's gone!  Past that the black smoke starts (along with squirts from my adrenal gland) until the valves float(?) and the popping starts with puffs of white smoke.  I pushed the 'record' button on the tach  and, after several partial shutdowns to rearrange my escape path, let it climb to 3855 rpm.!  It  *might* have gone a little higher if I'd let it try, but I'd seen (all too close) what I wanted to see and there's no use doing it just for grins.

I monkeyed with the governor bar.  It takes about six pounds of pressure by hand on the yellow knob to make it slow to 1500 rpm.  If released it immediately goes into boogety boogity mode.  The governor bar just hangs out and rattles back and forth when the engine is in full runaway.  The six pounds is the spring inside the rubber sleeve on the throttle bar.  The governor is somehow 'disconnected'.

Here's the innards of a MP governor--

http://community.webshots.com/photo/2817818680028237237LaeogP

I don't yet  know  HOW it can DO this!!

Comments welcome.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: mobile_bob on August 22, 2006, 02:24:17 AM
tater:

you arent kidding anyone...

we all know you are trying to qualify your petter for indy next year :)

wow, you da man, you must have balls the size of watermelons,,, lol

bob g
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: Quinnf on August 22, 2006, 02:32:30 AM
Was that your hand shaking that blurred the pic? 

You know, if you want to see how fast it can REALLY go, maybe advance the timing a little and fire it up again!

You're a better man than I, Gunga-Din!

Quinn
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: hotater on August 22, 2006, 02:38:59 AM
I just can't help but wonder about what gyroscopic effect of the flywheel would have on a go cart..... ??? ::)

I had just tightened down the hold down bolts on the engine.....smooth as silk until the missfiring starts, then it rattles some.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: sid on August 22, 2006, 02:54:56 AM
i know how you feel with that run away//the times mine ran away i did not give it a chance to run very long.but it is amazine how fast it can reach.. those engine need a throtle on it instead of the pre adjusted speed//I have one of each/ I will not run the one like you have/ it is too dangerouse// they should be used only for spare parts or destroyed..they should of never been sold//but i love the one with the throtle i have a 3 and a 6 hp and both run very good// I will try to post a picture of the throttle on one and it should not be too hard to make one//sid
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: hotater on August 22, 2006, 03:29:00 AM
THat's a good idea, Sid.  Just pull the governor parts out of it and take the spring off the throttle bar (or leave it on) and make a knob, lever, pedal to run it.

I have confidence in the engine a LONG ways more than I did before, but the fact it's bolted to 20 sacks of concrete COULD be a factor in my standing around a whirling dervish while it snorts diesel fuel by the pint.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: emerald on August 22, 2006, 07:13:45 PM
Hotater, I was looking forward to a video on a working engine with no smoke, only to discover you went and created a whole new story line for your new adventure!

The black and white smoke shows us it was burning lots of fuel and the timing was way off. No blue smoke though and that is a good sign.

I have just been pouring over the engine diagram and the problem is most likely a binding or badly machined linkage. This was usually the Listeroid problem in the early days with their throttle linkage. I dislike the plain same metal on metal approach they take. A little bush made from phosper bronze would solve it. Even Listers original CS engine has a terrible linkage and I replace those external ones with rose joints.

Take a few measurements and I bet you'll see the problem easier that way than just fiddling about with the various pins. Another thing that was common on the Listeroids and may apply here, the weights were not always machined true and they wouldnt pivot very well on the pin.

You should get it running right without much more drama and I doubt you have done any damage. I know people who have ran those engines to 2400RPM for extended periods.

If I can find Speilbergs number I will pass it on to you, there could be a sequal coming up :)


Emerald
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: hotater on August 22, 2006, 07:54:32 PM
Emerald--

I figured out what I did... I have a new Canon S-2 IS camera with several settings for video quality.  Of course I had it on 'Speilberg ready', hi-res, and 30 frames a second so it plays on MY computer as plain as a VCR does a TV, but the dang things are 35meg!!

I'm going to run it again as soon as I mount a throttle on it.  It's a pump, the load is steady once the pump primes.  I don't need a govenor.

RE black and white smoke--   Right again.   The timing was WAY off at high rpms.  I would imagine the fuel pump tappet was floating and maybe a couple of valves, too.  Whatever it is makes it a self-limiting wreck and acts as a governor (before a dry bearing does it for us!). 

I'll bet the rings are seated!!    :o
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: mkdutchman on August 22, 2006, 08:19:10 PM
Hotater--
I would REALLY like to see those videos!
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: europachris on August 23, 2006, 12:30:05 AM
Hotater, you should be able to compress the video down to a manageable size.  I know I can select the quality when I run the digital tape down to the computer for whatever quality/size I want. I just don't recall how I can do that post capture.  I think I can select what I'm saving it too (format wise) and it will pare it down to fit in the resolution required.

Chris
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: sid on August 23, 2006, 02:46:21 AM
jack.. you are on the rite track. what it need is a throtle control to keep it at a pre set speed // I think it can not respond quick enough to keep it from running away..just a simple ratchet lever on a cable or control rod attached to the control arm will work.. you will not have to disconect anything. leave the springs on and attach a control rod to the control arm and it will work// still trying to get pictures of one///sid
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: sid on August 23, 2006, 03:12:57 AM
jack// I sent you an e mail with a picture of the linkage// I could not post on the forum// the usual problems // feel free to post it if you can// if any one else wants a picture, just e mail me and I will send it//sid
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: hotater on August 23, 2006, 03:55:30 AM
Sid--

Thanks!  That's what I had in mind but on the other side since my flywheel is reversed.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/2662122290028237237OQQizJ
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: hotater on August 24, 2006, 10:18:52 PM
Video of the MP is posted here----

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6145424973956719749

The first part is of it running fine.  The second part is after it ran away and I re-fueled it and experimented some...THEN took the video. 

 The highest rpm seen here is estimated  at 3200.  I later ran it while using the digital tachometer and measured just over 3800.

I'll take bids on another video shoot.    :P
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: bitsnpieces1 on August 24, 2006, 11:04:22 PM
 :o  Guess that helps with the issue of flywheels coming apart.  :o
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: sid on August 25, 2006, 12:27:52 AM
Jack// been there on that run away///it will get your attention real quick/// I can see something like a choke cable holding the throtle in position//sid
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: Doug on August 27, 2006, 12:05:19 AM
Kubbota, Duetz and a few other engines I have seen have a manual shut down rod you pull out like dead mans throttle to close the rack or injection pump down.

They work....

Some also have the same thing to rev up the engines and run the hydraulics ( we called it Cruise control on the 520 Cubs ). Not a good idea to confuse them.

Sounds like we're getting ready to head down the shutter road again so I'll quickly sugest the Victaulic 77 series of air/water valves. These are all rubber inards with a simple gate valve in 1 - 2 inch sizes. A little creative welding could make a great emergency shut down I think.

Doug

 
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: sid on September 17, 2006, 10:30:48 PM
just a reminder for the mini petter owners.. do not forget that they have two water inlet ports. a top and a bottom on..be sure to drain the bottow one too. it will hold enough water too freeze and bust the cylinder.just got back from an engine show and saw a beautiful old 15 hp fairbanks wit a 12inch crack in the side from last winter cold weather/ yes it does get that cold in the south.sometimes.///sid
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: Guy_Incognito on September 18, 2006, 06:47:24 AM

Sounds like we're getting ready to head down the shutter road again so I'll quickly sugest the Victaulic 77 series of air/water valves. These are all rubber inards with a simple gate valve in 1 - 2 inch sizes. A little creative welding could make a great emergency shut down I think.

Doug
 

I guess you won't have too much trouble with oil getting pulled in under high vacuum somewhere and dieseling with that engine.

Hopefully  :D

I've seen a Detroit 149 run away and a 16 cylinder two-stroke at 1500RPM over high idle is something you don't want to be near. I did my apprenticeship at an open-cut coal mine and we had quite a few trucks with that engine in them. When we started one after an injector changeout one day, it just spun up .. and up .. and up. We didn't realise there was a problem until it went past high idle as they were used in a diesel-electric setup and used to sit at 1800rpm all day.

Holy cow! Abandon ship!

It was possibly the loudest engine note I have ever heard - and the old 149's were loud enough already! Everyone in the workshop scattered, but one brave soul ran up and flicked the switch that released the flaps on the top of the blowers and it dropped it's note for about 2 seconds, and of it went again misfiring all over the place - the blower oil seals were sucked in and it ran on it's own oil until it seized. Turns out someone had dropped a rocker bolt from one of the cylinders and it wedged into the rack at full fuel. The alternator logs showed it had reached 3650 RPM.

The funniest thing about it was that a day or two later, I was talking to one of the maintenance guys at the washplant - about 1/2 mile away - and when I mentioned the engine letting go he said, "Yeah, we were all in the cribroom having lunch and suddenly we could hear this wail over the noise of the plant, so we sprung up and hit the e-stop and the whole place ground to a halt... but the noise kept going! That's when we realised it wasn't us, it was you guys over at the workshop." They heard it let go over the noise of 7 stories worth of pumps, conveyors, centrifuges and vibratory screens.  :o
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: rcavictim on September 18, 2006, 09:26:16 AM


Sounds like we're getting ready to head down the shutter road again so I'll quickly sugest the Victaulic 77 series of air/water valves. These are all rubber inards with a simple gate valve in 1 - 2 inch sizes. A little creative welding could make a great emergency shut down I think.

Doug

 

I`ve got a 2 inch ball valve here somewhere.  Maybe I should install it on my VW plant.  That engine has no compression release so no way to kill it in the event of a runaway except to stop the intake air.  I have observed that the slightest air leak will allow the VW diesel engine to continue to run.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: europachris on September 18, 2006, 12:33:54 PM
I've seen a Detroit 149 run away and a 16 cylinder two-stroke at 1500RPM over high idle is something you don't want to be near. I did my apprenticeship at an open-cut coal mine and we had quite a few trucks with that engine in them. When we started one after an injector changeout one day, it just spun up .. and up .. and up. We didn't realise there was a problem until it went past high idle as they were used in a diesel-electric setup and used to sit at 1800rpm all day.


We have a 16V-149T powered 1MW backup genset at work.  The muffler is the size of a couple of 55 gallon drums laid end to end.  BIG sucker.  Even still, the set is deafening when running at 1800 rpm.  What a glorious sound, though, when she lights off.

Chris
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: dkwflight on September 18, 2006, 12:53:25 PM
Hi
On the VW diesel. I remember that on the vw cars there was a modification the the crankcase vent to help prevent the oil vapors from a worn engine produce a runaway. The runaways were fairly mild at first. You could overpower the engine with the brakes and slow the engine down.
I don't remember the details.
Dennis
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: rcavictim on September 18, 2006, 01:37:26 PM
Dennis,

The first VW engine I bought to build my genset from turned out to be in really bad shape.  It was a 1.6 from a `84 Jetta.  Practically no oil pressure once warm and so much blowby that it did try to run away on me more than once during testing of the finished plant but disconnecting the fuel solenoid and a hand over the air intake did the trick to shut it down.

I went to a lot of trouble making a fancy valve cover vent oil separator filter to catch liquid oil and let it drain back into the valve cover instead of being pumped by the blowby into the intake manifold collection box.  It was less than 100% effective.  I finally gave up on that engine with great disappointment and managed to locate another, a 1.5 L from a 1980 Rabbit.  This little engine is in really good shape as far as low blowby and no oil consumption.  It runs like a champ.

I plan to rebuild the 1.6 as a spare engine, ready to drop in when needed.  It is on my engine stand now.  The cause of low oil pressure was not a  stuck bypass valve in the oil pump as I thought but when the last person pushed the intermediate shaft into the block they curled the split front bearing, pushing it out of it`s channel.

I subscribe to the VW Diesel list and the problem of runaway from a well worn engine ingesting it`s own oil is documented by a few members.  You are right, they have been able to in some cases stop them with the brakes but in one case the engine went supersonic and just stopped on it`s own when it ran out of oil.  Never came apart but sure hid the car in a cloud of smoke.  T`was somewhat exciting for the driver we were told.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: Doug on September 23, 2006, 04:01:46 AM
Guy_Incognito

I own a Petteroid, its a little different but I don't think the high vaccume would cause a problem uless I sucked in a seal or something. Anothe fellow here with Petteroids snuffs out his Petteroid this way.

Doug
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: rcavictim on September 23, 2006, 05:51:30 AM
Guy_Incognito

I own a Petteroid, its a little different but I don't think the high vaccume would cause a problem uless I sucked in a seal or something. Anothe fellow here with Petteroids snuffs out his Petteroid this way.

Doug

I own a original Petter PJ-1.  Air cooled 12 HP@2000 RPM.  The crankcase ventillation is a small short steel tube that is inserted through the head from the space under the valve cover into the intake air passageway just ahead of the intake valve.  As such, if one were to manually block the air intake port on the head, lube oil would likely be sucked up the pushrod tubes from the crankcase into the rocker box and eventually through the PCV pipette into the intake valve.  A hard port blockage would surely starve the engine of enough air to bring it to a stop before the oil got very far but a highly restrictive air filter condition could theoretically cause oil injestion by this circuit.  For this reason, and as a diagnostical tool in locating the source of oil in my exhaust I brazed the PCV pipette closed and ran a separate, external PCV line fron the valve cover into the midsection of my outboard mounted oil bath air filter.  Through the external clear hose I discovered that i have no blowby.  My oil in the exhaust appears to be a crack in the head allowing oil from the rocker gallery to penetrate the exhaust pathway on the way to the head`s exhaust connection port, downstream of the exhaust valve.  Aside from this annoyance my Petter runs like a champ.  It can make 5.5 kW electrical output at 1800 RPM wheer it is factory rated at 10 HP.

If the Petter were to try to run away I could simply move the exhaust valve lift lever to release the compression in addition to closing the fuel rack.  The manual cautions NOT to use that as a method to routinely shut down the engine however!

To answer questions others have had about the reliability of the mechanical governors on the Indian Petteroids. I cannot speak for those but my original English Petter governor works well and appears to be trustworthy since my engine has accumulated over 99,000 hours in the power plant it came in.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: Doug on September 24, 2006, 04:18:30 AM
Hard to say much about why the run away happened. I've looked at the cam and the govener rod/linkage/weights and it can't see what may have snapped. However the injection pump does have a return spring that fully opens the rack without something to hold it back incase of a failure of some sort. Others with the adjustable external  throtle have a third spring and linkage that pulls the rack closed.

This is a lot of springs and parts that can add up to trouble.

Doug
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: mobile_bob on September 24, 2006, 04:38:11 AM
Guy incog:

interesting story re: the runaway 149 detroit,,

never saw a detroit continue to runaway with the air doors slammed shut, not enough air to do much more than a very low idle at most.

it had to be getting massive amounts of air elsewhere, which is hard to imagine.

as for sucking in the seals, was this a 149 turbo model? or a naturally aspirated engine?

about what vintage was the engine?

bob g
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: rcavictim on September 24, 2006, 04:59:57 AM
Hard to say much about why the run away happened. I've looked at the cam and the govener rod/linkage/weights and it can't see what may have snapped. However the injection pump does have a return spring that fully opens the rack without something to hold it back incase of a failure of some sort. Others with the adjustable external  throtle have a third spring and linkage that pulls the rack closed.

This is a lot of springs and parts that can add up to trouble.

Doug

My Petter is that way also.  The big spring on the FI pump pulls the rack into full throttle if there is no governor arm at the end to push it back in and close the rack.  FI pump is a Bryce.
Title: Re: RUNAWAY MP Pump!!
Post by: Guy_Incognito on September 24, 2006, 10:50:14 AM
Guy incog:

interesting story re: the runaway 149 detroit,,

never saw a detroit continue to runaway with the air doors slammed shut, not enough air to do much more than a very low idle at most.

it had to be getting massive amounts of air elsewhere, which is hard to imagine.

as for sucking in the seals, was this a 149 turbo model? or a naturally aspirated engine?

about what vintage was the engine?

bob g

It was 15 years ago, but the were relatively old then and each one had about 20K hours on them - we'd bought that fleet off some other mine. The newer ones we had had DDEC2 systems on them which were a lot less prone to runaway. They were the 149's with the (quad?) turbos  - they were spec'd at 1800HP. From what the fitters told me afterwards, the boost pressure from the turbo's fully spooled up can either bend up or spring the doors on top of the blower after (or as) they slam shut. It's the blower seals that let go and let all the oil in, something about their seal geometry didn't hold up to high vacuum well. Well, so those cynical old fitters reckoned, but maybe they were leading a young sparky astray too and just covering their arse. It did spin down for what seemed to be an eternity after the flaps were shut before picking up again, but it can't have been more than 4 or 5 seconds.

Alas, I'm fuzzy on the full details now -   ???  Too many beers between now and then methinks!  Doesn't help that I'm the guy that fixed the wiring, not the mechanical bits either - the main thing I remember is spending the next day unhooking all the wiring off it and accidentally dropping the *cough* rather heavy and expensive 50DN alternator about 15 feet off the back of the engine onto the concrete.