[AT] Glow plugs

Dean VP deanvp at att.net
Fri Dec 25 22:37:19 PST 2015


Charlie,

That story reminds me of when I got into a truck trailer rig with a 40' bull hauler trailer on it.  I
was still in high school and had been driving since I was 14 with a farm permit but I must have been
17 or 18 at the time and the local trucking business loaned me a truck to learn how to drive and then
somehow I got that ruck to the place where I had to take a CDL written and driving test. I must have
had some kind of learners permit prior to that. Too many years ago.  But I doubt I had driven that rig
more than 5 miles before I took the test. The brakes were not very good and the clutch was jumpy and
in retrospect I'm surprised the truck passed inspection much less allowing me to use it for a driving
test. But somehow I passed the written test, which I wasn't worried about, but I was absolutely scared
to death about the driving test. I must have done something right as I got my CDL license. I fully had
the same white knuckle sensation you had. I was a skilled farm vehicle, tractor  and auto driver but
that rig with a 40' trailer behind it intimidated the heck out of me.  But now I could haul cattle
which is what my father wanted.  I don't know why he just didn't get the dang license himself but
anyway I was the designated driver. So my first loaded trip we fill the trailer with 1200 lb. steers
to take to the market in Sioux City, IA. This was winter time and the roads were slightly snow covered
and icy in spots. Just to make my first loaded trip more interesting. Well, I got the load to Sioux
City, IA which was about a 40 mile trip one way which I drove white knuckled the whole way, but I had
been on enough icy roads to know how to deal with them and fully loaded I had pretty good traction and
I had been adamant about packing those steers as tight as possible in that trailer so the load
wouldn't shift at the wrong time.  Man I was really proud of myself getting my first load and unloaded
at the second largest Stockyards in the United State at the time, without incident. Then I needed to
get out of the seat to remove the seat from my rear end.  Ok, had to take my hat off since my head was
getting so big and headed back home knowing I really had to be careful driving empty on Icy roads but
at least I didn't have several thousand dollars' worth of cattle in the back.  Everything went pretty
well on US highway 75 on the way back and pulled into Lemars, Iowa to an intersection with a stop
light where Bob's Drive In has been since God was a Kid and diagonally across from where Wells Dairy
has their cream store in a strip mall today. Lemars, considers themselves the Ice cream capital of the
world. Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream. Well I slowly pulled up to the red light feeling fairly comfortable
since everything was going so well and all of a sudden the trailer started sliding on the ice and came
full around into the opposite lanes and was past the 90 degrees from me the driver.  It just gently
slid around like it didn't have a care in the world. I don't know how in the world that trailer didn't
hit any other vehicle in the opposite lanes. The timing must have just been perfect that there wasn't
any other driver there at the time. Man talk about having the you know what scared out of you. Now not
only did I have to remove the seat from my rear end I needed to change underwear. I did finally get
the rig back home without incident and by the time I took the next load in the roads had cleared.
About the third  load I had convinced myself I had had a CDL for 20 years. At that age we are bullet
proof.  Never had any accidents as long as I had a CDL. But the first few trips are really stressful.
Hadn't thought about this experience for many, many years until you told your story. 

Dean VP
Snohomish, WA

If we can employ guards with guns to protect money, we can and should employ guards with guns to
protect people. Bernard Goldberg.

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
charlie hill
Sent: Friday, December 25, 2015 7:54 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Glow plugs

Good story Cecil.  You learned to drive about the same way I did.
I had driven a school bus in high school (when students were allowed to 
drive for the young guys here).
Then at some point I got a job driving a C65 Chevy tri-axle dump truck with 
a 427 gas engine.
It had a 5 speed with a 4 speed auxiliary transmission.  I never did learn 
how to split shift that thing.
The 4 speed aux. was non synchronized.  Luckily it had enough motor that I 
seldom had to use the aux.
transmission.  Then I got put in a similar truck with a RT 913 road ranger. 
That's the lighter duty 13 speed
roadranger.  I drove it for a month or so.  I was driving for two brothers. 
One ran the dump trucking operation
and the other ran the logging job.  One morning I went to work and Earl (the 
logger) said come on with me.
You aren't going to drive the dump truck today.  You're going to drive a log 
truck.  I protested that I had never
driven a tractor trailer.  He said "doesn't that truck you've been driving 
have a 13 speed?"  I said yes.  He said
"that's all you need to know".   He took me into a timber land tract that 
belonged to The Voice of America radio
network and put me out beside a loaded Brockway 361 twin screw tractor, 
loaded with pulp wood and told me to
take it to the Plymouth NC Weyerhaeuser pulp mill.  Mind you I knew nothing 
about trailer air brakes and had
never pulled a trailer bigger than a single axle wooden bed farm trailer.  I 
had to go over and get one of the guys on the logging
crew to show me how to properly chain up the load.  The timber road was a 
single lane with a wide x deep canal
on each side, clay land and it had recently rained.  I made it out on the 
highway and through the narrow and heavily
truck traveled road to the mill, managed to find the right scale house and 
wood yard for the type of wood I was
hauling and got unloaded.  That was about a 3 hour ordeal from chain up to 
unload.  I think sometime shortly after I drove
out of the mill I took my first breath since the boss put me out!  LOL.  All 
joking aside, I never knew what "white knuckled"
meant until that day.

The cracker box I bought belonged to a small contractor and he used it to 
pull a low boy and a 25' steel body dump trailer.
I went with a friend of mine who wanted to buy the trailer from him.    I 
had no intention of buying anything let alone a
road tractor but the guy wouldn't sell the trailer without the tractor so I 
just blurted out to my friend "I'll buy the truck, you buy
the trailer"  and just that quick I went from truck driver to independent 
trucker.  Luckily it was in good shape.  The only work I did
to it was put some bushings in the generator, yes generator, it didn't have 
an alternator.  I only kept it about a year and sold it
to a friend with a small logging job and no truck.  He needed it more than I 
wanted it.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cecil R Bearden
Sent: Friday, December 25, 2015 8:40 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Glow plugs

Charlie:
We had a friend who worked for Wonder Bread in OKC.  He told Dad about 3
trucks they were going to sell by sealed bid.  They had a 62
Freightliner, a 63 and a 64 GMC all were single axle truck tractors.
We got the GMCs.  I had driven truck tractors before, but they were
gasoline with a 5 & 2, never a real truck transmission, and never a
diesel.    We went to get the trucks during lunch hour, I told the boss
I was going to be back late. The bread plant was one block  off I-40 in
downtown OKC.   The on ramp was the next block over and it connected to
the freeway in a curve....   The driver who normally drove the truck was
off that day and no one knew how it shifted.  I started out in a
gear..which one I don't know.  Hit the on ramp, got up to about 30mph
and was flat out.  twisted the sleeve under the gearshift and nothing
happened.  Hit the clutch and it downshifted!!  Turned the sleeve back
and clutched again. It sped back up to 30 again. Minimum speed is 40,  I
kept looking for something else, a lever or something to move to get
into high gear.  This truck ran from OKC to Dallas....   I noticed a T
handle Near the gearshift.  I think I pushed it in.  nothing happened!
I clutched it and It tried to take off but the engine was really
lugging....  During all this I had to pay attention to traffic on the
freeway!!  I tried downshifting the gearshift and found a gear that
worked better.  I had about a 15 mile trip to a friends place to leave
the truck until after work.  I figured out how to shift it on that trip.
Dad decided to take the other truck later that afternoon as he always
worried that I might know how to do something he didn't. The story he
had about learning the shift pattern even after I told him how it
shifted was even better than mine.   Something about another semi driver
giving him the bird....

The 64 model had some noise in the rear end.  When I opened it up I
found a broken pinion cage.  I brazed the pinion cage back together and
installed a new bearing on the end of the pinion. The engine on this
truck was better, but I worried about the rear end.  Dad wanted to get
his money back so I did not have time to swap rear ends.  Drove the
truck to our farm down south and took it to the spring farm equipment
sale there.   A big farmer bought it to pull his dozer around and wanted
me to teach his son how to drive it.  I showed him how it shifted during
the 20 mile trip to his place.     Would you believe that 20years later
he was still using that truck and never did anything but change the oil
in it!!!!
I built a pintle trailer that had an old truck axle at the rear and
would lay down at the front.  Then took the cylinder out of a dump hoist
and some 4 inch I Beam, and a 12volt forklift pump  and built a
hydraulic gin pole on the back.   We would pick up the trailer and put
the pintle over the ball on the truck drawbar, then bolt a 1 inch strap
over the top of the pintle eye and the ball.   There was no way it was
coming off.   For10 years we used that truck hauling equipment from
Chickasha to Piedmont OK.  Never was stopped!  No brakes on the trailer
either....   It was safer that a lot of trucks and trailers on the road
back then....

Things sure are different now.....

Cecil in OKla


On 12/24/2015 7:26 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> You have to be kidding me Cecil!  My first truck
> was a 63 GMC, aluminum cab, (cracker box) COE with a 8-71 Detroit and
> a 10 speed road ranger.   I think we might be talking about
> the same cab?  Mine was a twin screw.  If it is the same truck I might
> have a brand new grill insert for it.  I had one,  don't know if it's 
> still
> over at the farm or if someone has walked off with it.  I sold mine
> to a friend who had a small logging operation and needed a truck.
> It got wrecked not long after he bought it.  I'd like to restore one of
> them myself but haven't seen one around here in years.
>
> Merry Christmas
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cecil R Bearden
> Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 10:59 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Glow plugs
>
> My first diesel truck was an old 63 GMC pancake cab single axle tractor
> with a 6-71 Detroit and a 12 speed Spicer behind it ( 2spd input, 3 spd
> trans, 2 spd output).  We hauled equipment and cattle between 2 farms
> about 70 miles apart as the route required.   It served us well and I
> did a lot of equipment hauling with it.   The Spicer gave out and we
> tried to install a RT910 and never got the linkage right.  I sold it to
> a neighbor last summer.  He wants to restore it.
>
> Merry Christmas to all
> Cecil in OKla
>
>
> On 12/23/2015 8:01 PM, charlie hill wrote:
>> You sure are right about them being a different animal but I'm very fond
>> of
>> the old Detroits.    I have seen two of them come completely unglued with
>> parts flying.  One was a 3-53 in a log skidder and it was inside a shop
>> with
>> people working all around it.  They were running for cover.  It had just
>> been
>> rebuilt and they test fired it forgetting that they had not hooked the
>> governor
>> linkage back up.   The other was a 6-71 in a concrete truck.
>>
>> Merry Christmas to all.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Cecil R Bearden
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 1:02 AM
>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>> Subject: Re: [AT] Glow plugs
>>
>> Detroits are another animal when it comes to gassing the intake.  I was
>> on a site one time clearing an old house site where there was an old
>> Hough loader with a 3-53. The operator was going to pick up an old 250
>> gallon propane tank and move it.  Like the idiot he was, he tried to
>> scoop up the tank in the bucket.  The tank turned over and broke off the
>> liquid valve.  It started spewing and the detroit started revving up in
>> about 30 seconds.  He baled off the loader.  I ran over and plugged the
>> air intake with my coat.  It was a heavy Carrhart and it shut it down in
>> a few seconds.   The boss asked me if I could drive the loader, I said I
>> had been operating equipment since I was 6 years old.  I was about 23
>> then.  Boss fired the idiot operator on site & I got a raise!.   Worked
>> all Christmas vacation and weekends for the guy driving anything he had.
>>      I got $12/hr whenever I had time to work for him.....   If I had
>> stayed I would have had my own construction company.  Oh Well!
>>
>> Cecil in OKla
>>
>> On 12/22/2015 11:22 AM, charlie hill wrote:
>>> Cecil I've seen that done a few times too but be careful.
>>> One day I was on a logging job when the loader ran out of
>>> fuel.  The 4 53 detroit wouldn't pick up the fuel and the very
>>> experienced mechanic used the red rag soaked in gas trick.
>>> Unfortunately he used a bit too much gas on the rag.  The
>>> detroit fired and sped to an RPM way beyond what it should
>>> have been turning.  We all headed for safety expecting it to come
>>> apart.  It didn't but it did blow the tip off of 2 injectors in the
>>> process.
>>>
>>> Charlie
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Cecil R Bearden
>>> Sent: Monday, December 21, 2015 8:34 AM
>>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>>> Subject: Re: [AT] Glow plugs
>>>
>>> I have an old trick that was showed to my by a OK Nat Gas company
>>> backhoe operator back in 1975.   I had rented a JD crawler that was worn
>>> out, and a tree had toppled over and broke the fuel filter bracket.  I
>>> had it welded and mounted it back with a new filter and could not get
>>> the system complete bled.  He took an old sweatshirt rag and soaked it
>>> with gas, held it over the air cleaner and I hit the starter.    The
>>> engine would run on the gasoline with a little knock, until it picked up
>>> fuel and started running.
>>> I have used that trick many times since, even in cold weather on Perkins
>>> engines without damage to the engine.
>>>      I ran out of fuel in one side tank on a semi on the side of the 
>>> road
>>> about 1/4 mile from the T/A truckstop.   I switched to the other tank
>>> but the engine would not pick up fuel.   Hiked over to the truckstop and
>>> bought a gas can then back to the gas station for a gallon of gas also
>>> bought a pack of red rags.  When I got back to the truck I did not want
>>> to ruin my pack of rags, so I just poured gas on the air filter.  It
>>> started and ran fine.  I went on in to OKC...
>>> I had an 1155 Massey that had a V-8 diesel with the inj pump in the V of
>>> the engine.   It was a bear to pump.  I would use the gas on a rag trick
>>> to get fuel back into the pump.
>>> My 7.3 powerstroke will lose pump pressure after sitting for 6 months.
>>> I disconnect the glow plug and use the gas on the rag to get it to start
>>> without running down the batteries.
>>> I have started my 930 Case a few winters with the gas on a rag as the
>>> glow plug does not work.
>>> My Belarus tractors have a glow system that drips fuel into the manifold
>>> and lights it off to create a small fire to warm up the air in the
>>> manifold.  I have never used it as they start fine as long as the
>>> batteries crank fast enough.
>>> Cecil in OKla
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12/21/2015 12:54 AM, Greg Hass wrote:
>>>> I have a 715 IH combine that I used until last year. It had a 706 or 
>>>> 806
>>>> engine with glow plugs. The guy I bought it from said even at 80 
>>>> degrees
>>>> it would not start without the glow plugs and I found out he was right.
>>>> Even if it had been working hard, after 5 minutes you needed the glow
>>>> plugs. The guy who owns the coffee shop I go to has a IH compact of
>>>> about 35 hp. Last spring, if it was below freezing it would not start
>>>> unless he warmed up the air cleaner with a hair dryer. It is a four
>>>> cylinder engine of some foreign make, but although he has had it for 10
>>>> years, only has 400 hours. Two weeks ago he replaced all the glow plugs
>>>> and brought the old ones to the coffee shop and I tested them; all 4
>>>> were bad. Years ago we had a 930 Case wheatland diesel and it had a big
>>>> glow coil in the intake manifold. It never worked so the few times we
>>>> run in cold weather we towed it or used a little starting fluid. It too
>>>> had the warning label on it saying not to use starting fluid and the
>>>> glow coil together.  A neighbor told us a friend of his had the same
>>>> set-up and the tractor wouldn't start with the glow coil so he heated 
>>>> it
>>>> up and gave it a shot of starting fluid. When it sucked it in it blew
>>>> the manifold right off the tractor. A  cousin of mine (years ago) told
>>>> me his neighbor had a IH 560 and was pulling 2 loads of hay up a hill,
>>>> on the road, and it lugged down. He reached down and pressed the ether
>>>> button and blew a rod out the side of the block. From what I have seen,
>>>> if your engine has glow plugs and the temperature is around freezing, 
>>>> it
>>>> is probable  a good idea to us them for a few seconds at least. If it
>>>> starts without the plugs I don't think it hurts anything, but using 
>>>> them
>>>> when cold gives it a little boost.
>>>>           Greg Hass
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