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Ducati Diesel

I'm just wondering if anyone has come across one of these in their travels. It's a small single cylinder aircooled Diesel of a few horsepower at an almighty 3000rpms. I'm thinking that it's about 20 years old and at the moment is a donkey engine driving a small hydraulic pump for a low loader trailer of mine.

It runs well, but at some point (I suspect) has lost Ducati's official starting gubbins and now one has to wind a rope around a part of the flywheel - it requires a good deal of strength, just about 100% of what's available from me :-) and is time consuming. I'd like to do something about it but haven't the foggiest idea what to, or where to look!

Any ideas? At the moment I'm eyeing up a small aircooled Lister that I know of, but mating the pump to it properly might prove a bit longwinded.

Cheers Julian.

Reply to
Julian
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By "starting gubbins" do you mean the decompression mechanism? My small single cylinder chinese jobbie can just about be turned over via the pull start but thats about all with compression in place. Release the compression you can pull it up to a reasonable speed with a few pulls on the rope then drop in the compression and the inertia of the flywheel takes it through compression fast enough to fire.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

No, I was thinking that maybe once it had some sort of geared starting handle, but that's only a wild guess.

It does have a decompressor, but there's no way you can pull the starting cord and get back to the decompressor in enough time. This is a modern little engine with little in the way of flywheel like the old Lister aircooled ones had.

To start it, at the moment, I feel for TDC on the firing stroke, engage the decompressor then rock the engine several times listening for the injector creaking to stick some fuel in the cylinder, next wind up the cord release the decompressor and pull. Provided the engine is just past TDC I can spin in over with the cord, but it does require an exceptionally enthusiastic pull when cold. (I suspect due to the engine's newness :-) )

Julian.

Reply to
Julian

Reply to
Charles Hamilton

Just out of interest I had the chance of a single cylinder Lister LR that had sat around at my mate's for the last 20 years gathering dust. He said it once powered an elevator.

It was partially stuck (seized) through standing, but a hefty dose of WD40 down the intake and rocking the engine back and forth had it free, cranking it for ages seemed to restore some compression and with the fuel system cleaned through I had it running. Soon it was running smoothly and starting easily, so feeling happy with it I changed the oil.

The morning temperature today was 0.5C as indicated on my van dashboard so I tried to start the LR as a test, no priming, just excess fuel and it started as easy as anything first crank! So, time permitting, the Ducati Diesel is to be replaced by the Lister. If anyone wants it (for a few quid) then I'll maybe part with it - it'll not be for a few months because I've little time to swap it at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestions

Julian.

Reply to
Julian

If it is an OHC 90o vee twin, I'm your man!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

Reply to
kimsiddorn

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