First start,
I finally got everything together and decided it was time to start 'er up. I hooked up the jumper cables, opened the pressure release. filled it up with rotella D, antifreexe solution, and diesel fuel, and hit the starter solenoid and it turned over briskly. I loostened the banjo nut on the injector and turned it over until I had diesel coming out the line, re-tightened the nut, Released the compression lever and it fired up on the first compression stroke.
I have the whole gen set up on two 1000lb furniture dollies for moving around in the garage, and left it up on wheels for the first run. It rapidly stabilized at about a 600 rpm idle and I let it idle for a few minutes. Noise was bearable with the tractor muffler. Couldnt hear any intake noise with the McMaster air filter/silencer. Mostly mechanical and normal diesel knocking. Overall, about the level of a loud lawnmower.
After a few minutes I opened the rack to 1800 rpm and after a second of governor hunting it ran smoothly. No visible vibration. No movement of the gen set on the wheel dollies. Could easily have set my glass of water anywhere on the set.
This thing runs really smooth. The counterbalance shaft concept seems to be doing what it claims to do. I havent run it up past 2000 rpm, and may never since I'm direct coupled to the ST.
So far the weichai gets an A+. Starts and runs great. Just one very slow drip from the fuel filter housing that I havent bothered to fix yet.
Speaking of the ST....it's dead. No output at all. I checked all the wiring and components and everything seems to be in place. I flashed the field with 12V and read 90VAC across the 220 leads, but it wouldnt go on its own. I'm going to load up the 1750 lb monster on my trailer and haul it to the local friendly generator repairman today and let him take a look. Seems to have lost all residual magnetism. I put a powerful lifting magnet up against the rotor a few days ago, and let it sit there, but havent started it up again as I worked the weekend.
I'll try it again before I load it up for the trip. Mabe the magnet has done some good....I hope. If all else fails I can get a DC motor controller from Surplus center that puts out 0-130VDC at 8 amps, and I'll feed the field with that. Not the ideal solution, but should work.
I'm open to suggestions.
Zeke