DEF diesel engines

Wow, lots of great info here ! Thanks everyone. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with this diesel thing. I have worked on almost all of my gas engines over the years but never even looked at a diesel engine.

mpierce wrote:
az99:

So true! The company I drive for, over the road, has had MANY newer trucks into the shop, for days at a time, trying to trace down emissions/DEF problems! Waaay more than normal engines. Eventually, they will get the problems sorted out, but by then, NEW controls will be called for, and the problems will start all over again!

Mechanics are human afterall and need time to learn new technology.
Just in time when I transfer my favorite music from cassette tapes to CD, the CD become obsolete.
Darn technology.
But on positive side, software become more and more user-friendly.
I still have customers who call my service only to reset garden sprinklers timer.

Oh I think most of that is hoopla complaining from the peanut gallery. If there weren't federal mandates, there probably wouldn't be any effort to clean up emissions by the manufacturers because there is no profit or glitter associated with it. We would still have crankcase blow down tubes dropping oil on the ground.

If you ever want to remember what it used to be like, watch an old 60s movie and see the smoke coming out of the tailpipe as well as the drivers nostrils. I would never wish us to go back to that. I have a 1952 Cushman Eagle at home the puts out more pollution through that 1 cylinder aspirated engine than my Cummins, and that was normal.

Mile High wrote:
Oh I think most of that is hoopla complaining from the peanut gallery. If there weren't federal mandates, there probably wouldn't be any effort to clean up emissions by the manufacturers because there is no profit or glitter associated with it. We would still have crankcase blow down tubes dropping oil on the ground.

If you ever want to remember what it used to be like, watch an old 60s movie and see the smoke coming out of the tailpipe as well as the drivers nostrils. I would never wish us to go back to that. I have a 1952 Cushman Eagle at home the puts out more pollution through that 1 cylinder aspirated engine than my Cummins, and that was normal.

Maybe "hoopla" to you, but I know, by personal experience, of a number of independant truckers that went broke because their new trucks spent so much time in the shop, working on the emissions systems.

Cleaner air is fine. It is good. But, the EPA forces the changes so fast, that technology cannot keep up, and the mfg's do not have enough time to work the kinks out. So, the poor buyers have to do it, in the shop.

mpierce wrote:

Mile High wrote:
Oh I think most of that is hoopla complaining from the peanut gallery. If there weren't federal mandates, there probably wouldn't be any effort to clean up emissions by the manufacturers because there is no profit or glitter associated with it. We would still have crankcase blow down tubes dropping oil on the ground.

If you ever want to remember what it used to be like, watch an old 60s movie and see the smoke coming out of the tailpipe as well as the drivers nostrils. I would never wish us to go back to that. I have a 1952 Cushman Eagle at home the puts out more pollution through that 1 cylinder aspirated engine than my Cummins, and that was normal.

Maybe "hoopla" to you, but I know, by personal experience, of a number of independant truckers that went broke because their new trucks spent so much time in the shop, working on the emissions systems.

Cleaner air is fine. It is good. But, the EPA forces the changes so fast, that technology cannot keep up, and the mfg's do not have enough time to work the kinks out. So, the poor buyers have to do it, in the shop.

Well that could be - or it gets procrastinated by the manufacturer.

NOx is EPAs current attempt to justify it's existence... actually expansion. Guess they do not know they cannot stop lightning. CAT did not procrastinate itself out of the Diesel engine business... trying to meet the ever increasing 2010 requirements did.

Ivylog wrote:
NOx is EPAs current attempt to justify it's existence... actually expansion. Guess they do not know they cannot stop lightning. CAT did not procrastinate itself out of the Diesel engine business... trying to meet the ever increasing 2010 requirements did.

CAT apparently does not have good engineers. Cummins, Detroit Diesel, Volvo and other engine manufacturers got it 'worked out'. CAT will be up a creek without a paddle when emission requirements are put into place for off-road equipment.

I agree that the emission requirements cause the engineer's to scramble but we would be in a mess if we didn't have pollution controls. As I've mentioned in the past, Los Angeles has such thick smog before catalytic converters that you could almost cut it with a knife.

You couldn't even see the houses just off of the freeway it was so bad. It's probably 90% better.

After seeing what the 'lack of' pollution controls looks like in India, I like where are are today, the pollution was awful there.

Safe travels,
MM.

Coming from an era of no smog equipment and the first smog pump introduced for California back in 65 or so, I'm really pleased to see how the new cars burn. There used to be a sweet spot on the carburetor mixture to keep the emissions test happy between CO and Hydrocarbons but the car ran terrible, then you richened it back up when you got home from your test defeating the whole purpose. Today, cars barely read anything in CO and hydrocarbon, and high performance has improved!

Cat tried to save money by claiming that their ACERT technology cleaned up the exhaust so they didn't need after engine cleanup. In order to pass EPA mandated testing they cut back on power and fuel consumption. This worked on the dyno but not in the truck. By the time DEF was used by Cummins and Detroit in 2010, emissions were mandated in off road machinery. Cat was fined millions of dollars for falsifying their truck engine tests so they stopped production of on-road engines. Cat then sold their truck engine manufacturing to Navistar who produced Cat C-13, C=15 engines under their own name for several years until the EPA forced them to stop. Cat still makes off road equipment engines that meet EPA regulations but I don't know how they do it. Incidentally, DEF is so good at cleaning up diesel exhaust it allowed engine manufacturers to raise the horsepower by adding fuel and letting the DEF clean it up.

I agree that the emission requirements cause the engineer's to scramble but we would be in a mess if we didn't have pollution controls. As I've mentioned in the past, Los Angeles has such thick smog before catalytic converters that you could almost cut it with a knife.

You couldn't even see the houses just off of the freeway it was so bad. It's probably 90% better.

After seeing what the 'lack of' pollution controls looks like in India, I like where are are today, the pollution was awful there.

I agree 100%. I went to riverside ca NASCAR race in 1975. the air quality was awefull compared to today.I just cant imagine what the world would be like today without controls put in place
people scoffed at 1966 fords with California mandated air pumps but now we see the reasoning behind it