Crazy turbo diesel save

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NRaqgab0_w&app=desktop#t=105

Quick thinking with the cloth. Could have ended much worse!

Not sure how to embed youtube vids...

One of the 'quirks' of these boards, I'm not sure you can.
Quick thinking though.

There is a rail yard near a place I used to work.

I watched a diesel locomotive have a runaway in the yard while I was sitting in rush hour traffic.

Guys were running from that thing as fast as they could and the sound was incredible.

A couple crazies jumped on top of the thing and started emptying fire extinguishers into the vents, it shut down after a couple minutes, I don't know if it was mechanical failure or the fires extinguishers that stopped it.

when I was a wee baby, my Father was stationed aboard the USS Holland, a Sub tender in Rota Spain. While there, one of the new guys in his engine room overfilled the upper crankcase on a "rock crusher" and when it started, all the excess oil drained into the cylinders and they had a runaway. Nothing they did stopped it, so everyone had to evacuate the engine room until it blew..

Crazy. Those older engines usually have a manual fuel shutoff on the pump/distributor manifold that you can hit to kill it in the event of a runaway... Many that operate in environments that could have combustibles in the atmosphere also have air shutoff valves that can be switched or automatically triggered if something like that happens.

Problem is with some of the runaways, is it isn't always the fuel system causing it. Like Mad machine said, it can be the oil as well. Blow a turbo oil seal and even a modern diesel can runaway. Killing the air flow into the engine works, probably why the fire extinguishers worked. Some of the older Detroit Diesels had a plate to close off the air intake in case of a runaway. Those old 2-stroke diesel were prone to do it.

Here is a good video of a Detroit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M1o2rpO_JY

I love how calm the older gent is about it, compared to his younger helpers.

We always had an air cutoff valve on the big diesels. When they can't get air in, they don't run any longer.

also if it is in a vehicle with a manual you and put it in the highest gear and dump the clutch to kill the engine

Any time I'm playing with fuel on a mechanical injected diesel, I keep a 2x6 handy to slap over the inlet. His cloth idea was good, but I have heard horror stories about people getting their hand sucked into the compressor.

I don't think the compressor wheel appreciated the cloth, but it probably saved the engine.

81cpcamaro wrote: Problem is with some of the runaways, is it isn't always the fuel system causing it. Like Mad machine said, it can be the oil as well. Blow a turbo oil seal and even a modern diesel can runaway. Killing the air flow into the engine works, probably why the fire extinguishers worked. Some of the older Detroit Diesels had a plate to close off the air intake in case of a runaway. Those old 2-stroke diesel were prone to do it. Here is a good video of a Detroit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M1o2rpO_JY I love how calm the older gent is about it, compared to his younger helpers.

This, the air shutoff is the answer.....you do away with that and you're an idiot.

81cpcamaro wrote: Problem is with some of the runaways, is it isn't always the fuel system causing it. Like Mad machine said, it can be the oil as well. Blow a turbo oil seal and even a modern diesel can runaway.

I used to amuse myself by looking for runaway Diesel videos. It would usually be some crapbox in Europe, billowing incredible amounts of smoke as it ate its own juices, with white-gloved police officers directing traffic away.

So what exactly is happening there? I am guessing that since there are no spark plugs, the combustion cycle can just take off unregulated somehow? Why doesn't that happen all the time? And why are there no spark plugs?

I just realized that I don't know much about diesel engines.

In reply to pinchvalve:

Diesels are also known as "compression ignition" engines. The high compression ratio makes the air-fuel mixture combust due to the heat of compression. Some engines have glow plugs to assist in heating the mixture under cold conditions. The 12V uses a heater plate in the intake.

When the shut-off valve on my Cummins 12V failed, I had to shut it off by putting it in 5th and dropping the clutch. Nothing quite like turning the key and removing it with the engine still running.

The engine is getting an unregulated supply of fuel: diesel, crankcase oil or something else

Sucks. That engine just ate half a compressor wheel. Lucky he didn't blow off any of the charge piping.

81cpcamaro wrote: Problem is with some of the runaways, is it isn't always the fuel system causing it. Like Mad machine said, it can be the oil as well. Blow a turbo oil seal and even a modern diesel can runaway. Killing the air flow into the engine works, probably why the fire extinguishers worked. Some of the older Detroit Diesels had a plate to close off the air intake in case of a runaway. Those old 2-stroke diesel were prone to do it. Here is a good video of a Detroit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M1o2rpO_JY I love how calm the older gent is about it, compared to his younger helpers.

was going to post that one, it's a fav of mine.

pinchvalve wrote: So what exactly is happening there? I am guessing that since there are no spark plugs, the combustion cycle can just take off unregulated somehow? Why doesn't that happen all the time? And why are there no spark plugs? I just realized that I don't know much about diesel engines.

It looks like he was making adjustments on the injector pump. The way you increase performance on diesels is to basically add more fuel, which makes more exhaust, which spins the turbo faster, which adds more air... obviously within the limits of the airflow.

What happens when you go too far on the injector pump, it reaches a point where it continues to inject fuel regardless of accelerator position and it runs away.

Diesels don't use a throttle to regulate air. They are open to atmospheric all the time. They "throttle" up by adjusting how much fuel is injected. If you go too far with the injector pump, it injects too much fuel and it runs away.