Buda diesel starting habits

Mine takes quite a bit to get started but once it starts it runs great.

I have a D-15 and two D-17 with Buda diesels. It's normal for them to need some preheat in the manifold and some cranking to start. They will also run a little rough for a minute or two. I never use ether to start because of the indirect injection design head. A Buda engine will give lots of good service if you follow the rules; Leave it warm up before putting it to work, Leave it cool down before turning it off, Don't turn up the pump.

If the rings are sealing really good giving the cylinders good compression the engine will start with less revs than one with poor rings and lower compression.

Better compression makes more heat in the cylinder than an engine with lower compression.

Edited by Jeff Z. NY - 28 Sep 2010 at 9:05am

My 7060 and D17D always start hard below 50,but my 1962 Case Diesel TLB will fire right off at 20 degrees with no heat or ether.

The thing to remember about the Buda diesels is they are based on the Lanova head design which has indirect injection AND the power cell. Since the power cell bleeds off a small amount of compresion it makes for a somewhat tempermental engine to start when the temps take a dip. The power cell is designed for torque and high efficiancy as the late model diesels were designed for easy starting.

My dads starts hard below 50 degrees also. We NEVER, I repeat, NEVER use ether to start it. Too much time and money wrapped up in the engine to possibly do damage with ether. What we did was remove the pre-heater from the pre-heater chamber (it didn't work any way), and use a small propane or mapp gas torch, stick the tip of the torch in the chamber for a minute or two and allow the torch  to heat the air in the intake manifold. Fires up every time. On really cold days though, we have to hold the torch there for a couple of minutes until the engine warms up.

On the 45 or early D17 diesels we used a milk strainer pad and just put a whiff of ether on it and then opened up the plug on the side of the manifold and started cranking the engine and just brought he pad up to the hole and it just sniffed the ether off the pad and that was all it would take to start it down to -20... winter weight oil and good batteries of course. Below that, you better have it close to electricety to plug the tank heater in for an hour and put a blankie on to keep the warmth in.  But was best to just use the 170, D17 or the 45 gas for choring instead of trying to wake the diesels up.

Calvin, I have used that method on my 45 diesel before, but now I do what Jason says.   I just pull the plug out by the manifold heater, and put a propane torch in the hole and then start cranking it over.   It will start up and depending on how cold it is, you might have to hold it there for 10-15 seconds until the engine will run on it's own.   I then let it warm up good before I do anything with it.