So what happened?

[Dirtman2007]

This morning was unusually cold for my part of the world with the morning temp around 9 degrees. I've got a 2008 model Komatsu D39 dozer with about 215 hours on it. This morning I cranked it up, everything was fine. I let it warm up for about 15 minutes before I started working. I ran the dozer for a good hour or so before I noticed it started to loose power when pushing. It soon got worse. The motor was going from 2100RPM to 1100RPM just backing up. I tried to track the dozer back over to the truck and it just stalled about half way there. When I tried to crank it again, it sounded like it was running on a few less cylinders and shortly cut off again.

So I left it and came back about 3 hrs later when it warmed up to about 30 degrees to pull the fuel filter off. Before I pull the filter off I tried cranking it again, sure enough it fired right up. I used it the rest of the day without one problem.

Is it possible that the fuel froze up in the lines or filter?? I'm not use to these artic temperatures... wow was it cold out!

 

[Dwan Hall]

There is a good chance your fuel gelled. The wax in the fuel congeals and plugs the filter when it gets that cold. sometimes it will clear itself when warmed up. To keep this from happening again mix 50% #1 and 50% #2 fuel when you expect temps to drop below 20 degrees. You will notice a power drop but that is much better then a freeze up like you had. You could also add Power Service to lower the point which the wax congeals.

 

[mailtrain]

so what happened

Hi Chris;

Welcome to winter, that is what happened your fuel gelled.changing the filter helped but you do need to use some anti-gel. Power service or sea foam.It will not hurt even if you don't get cold weather again.An ounce of prevention,even a mix of kerosene will help.

BTW it was -15 this morning having a heat wave now 7 above zero. Have a warm night.

mailtrain

 

[Dirtman2007]

Hi Chris;

Welcome to winter, that is what happened your fuel gelled.changing the filter helped but you do need to use some anti-gel. Power service or sea foam.It will not hurt even if you don't get cold weather again.An ounce of prevention,even a mix of kerosene will help.

BTW it was -15 this morning having a heat wave now 7 above zero. Have a warm night.

mailtrain

Thanks for the help.

I don't know how ya'll take the cold up there.

This morning I had to break the ice on the pond with the dozer blade so I could pump the water out. The ice was 2" thick. getting your hands wet when its 10 degrees out setting up a pump is not fun!

I think if it got below zero, I would just stay in the bed. LOL

 

[qball]

next time, put the filters in the cab of your truck with the heat on. that usually helps along with some fuel treatment.

 

[Steve Frazier]

Power Service 911 will dissolve the wax and get you running again if this happens again in the future. Power Service also make a fuel treatment that lowers the gel point as mentioned.

 

[rino1494]

We use power service in our fuel and always keep spare filters in the truck. BTW, a 15 min warm-up at 9 degrees is not enough time. If the temp drops below 10, we will not even start them until it warms up. When it gets into the teens, we let them warm up for 30 min, then turn up the throttle halfway and move all the hydraulics slowly back and forth, each cylinder at a time. I then run the throttle about 3/4 until the hyd oil gets warmer.

-10 this morning, I stayed working in the shop.

 

[willie59]

I strongly suggest using Power Service fuel treatment. It not only controls the affects of cold temps on the fuel, but it also is good for your injection pump and fuel injectors. I used to drive an '89 Ford F-350 with the old 7.3 prior to the Power Stroke, I used Power Service treated fuel year round. On those engines you could expect to rebuild the injection pump between 100K - 130K miles using just diesel fuel. When I quit driving the truck, it had 210K on the original injection pump and was still running fine. Another thing all you guys should do, before freezing temps arrive, is be sure and drain the water from the bottom of your fuel tank. Ice in fuel lines is no more fun that gelled fuel.

 

[Reuben]

Ya I would bet you "gelled" up....I Have experienced that a lot. just simply acts like your filter is plugged and/or you are running out of fuel. We treat all of our fuel from late oct till spring to prevent it. this morning it was 13 below zero and everything fired right up and ran good. Yesterday it was the same in the morning and the RPM's in our 580 super m dropped for a brief second and I dove for the side of the road as I thought it was going to die on me but it never missed a beat after that. We also top off the fuel every day to help keep the condensation to a minimum.

 

[N.CarolinaDozer]

We didn't work Friday due to the cold. Our company will not allow us to run the equipment if it is 18 degrees or lower.

 

[Dirtman2007]

We didn't work Friday due to the cold. Our company will not allow us to run the equipment if it is 18 degrees or lower.

Yeah that would suck running a open cab machine in weather like this.

I ran the volvo excavator on friday, Let it warm up for about 15 minutes before using it. Man that machine was stiff for about 10 minutes until the fluid started moving around some.

 

[alco]

We didn't work Friday due to the cold. Our company will not allow us to run the equipment if it is 18 degrees or lower.

That must be nice, they never shut us down no matter how cold it gets. The coldest I have experienced was -52 before the wind chill. The wind chill was down to the mid -70s.....and we kept going.

Brian

 

[RonG]

If you expect to be working in freezing temps you might consider a reverse flow fan for the duration of the cold weather.They are a big help in keeping the filters thawed and the operator toasty as well.That was a bigger deal when we were out in the weather but nowadays many machines have cabs on them.
If your machine has a sediment bowl it helps to drain it often but that engine heat from the radiator fan blowing back under the dozer warms up everything on the way back,even the fuel tank itself.
The only problem with this is that the manufacturer may not make a reverse fan for your application,in fact Komatsu is one brand that I have had a problem with.They said that the D21 I was running shouldn't be working in freezing weather!!.LOL.Ron G

 

[EZ TRBO]

Every machine we have has a gallon jug of Power Service on it to aide in the cold weather, carry spare fuel filters and ALWAYS top the tanks off each night. When we were still crushing lime(family biz), it was done mostly in the winter months and everything was sealed and covered up best we could. Quick tatch lines were installed on two of our trucks so when we pulled into the quarry in the morning you could run the warm water from the truck to the cold engine block on the machines. Your truck sure got cold in a hurry but once it warmed up it was like starting an engine on a warm day. One downside to that is that all your other fluids are still cold as can be and still very stiff. When it was too cold to even go crushlime usually ment we would be getting calls for frozen water pipes and a day would be spent in the service truck going around all day thawing water pipes(glad we are done with that).

I think the more northern guys(canada) would agree that working in the cold is tough but when you have the knowledge and equipment and proper cold weather gear its not as bad as a guy might think. Its a matter of just getting used to the enviroment you are in.

Trbo

 

[ronnie]

the d 39's have a door at the back with 2 drain's 1 is the tank the other is a clear filter sediment bowl i guess you could say i drain mine everyday just to make sure myself and i carry fuel conditioner yr. around off road fuel is full of trash and every little trick helps . as far as keeping warm they make a blower bag to go on the front of the machine with a tube coming back to the operator they been around for yrs. they work. cat made a suit yrs. ago for the 8l the only thing that was out in the cold was your face and hands it had a heater in the floor it was a crazy looking thing but it worked

 

[N.CarolinaDozer]

Yeah we have installed silt fence and pipe for heat. All of you operator up north have to realize that our equipment in the south doesn't see much cold weather like we have seen lately. I would have worked if it would have been up to me but the call came from our head office in Asheville, NC, so what they say goes.

 

[milling_drum]

Its always a good idea to keep a few containers of fuel treatment around for winter. Here in the south I've seen plenty of good operators that do not know what a machine from the northern areas goes through or how the cold can directly affect a machines operation.

In 2000 while working for a large milling contractor in Atlanta, They had a mill sent to them from the parent company in Canada. It was a few years old and had a Mercedes V-12 in it. Upon starting it in any weather, hot or cold, the motor smoked lots of blue smoke. I had no idea the southern boys didn't know what that meant.

I noticed in the Yard they would start it up and bring it to full RPM in under a minute. Not giving it time for the block to get some temp into it. Sure enough about a week later while running it the temp guage starts to climb, not to slowly either.

I made it through the intersection I was going through and didn't blow the motor up completely but a cylinder head crack had developed and a rebuild was needed.

Lots of things to consider in the extreme cold with heavy equipment. If you cannot get a reverse fan system set up, try to put something across the rad to keep air flow minimal while getting warm or to stay at a decent operating temp.

 

[roddyo]

Cold Weather

Anyone ever try one of these?
My toes get cold down in the teens.

Also a couple of pictures of my Filson's. They work Pretty Good.

 

[srs_mn]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned fuel heaters; I used to put inline fuel heaters on all my equipment like the Artic Fox units on this page:
http://www.arctic-fox.com/pdf/Data_Sheet_In-Line_Fuel_Warmers.pdf
Mine were homemade as they are pretty simple to make; really just a tank heater with the fuel line running through it. The only downside is that they don't work until the coolant temp gets up a little... mine had shut off valves so I could shut them off in the summer.
In my part of the world you don't run a diesel very long without some kind of fuel line heater, whether it is in-line, in-tank, in-filter, or a combination of all of those PLUS using Power Service and/or winter blend fuel.
Steve in MN

 

[mikey531]

we worked Friday ... this was taken at 7:20 am