Mike L
Senior Member
Finally got the duetz finished for the manlift. Installed it this morning. Now before I tell the rest of my story I’ll tell you the failure. It is an oil cooled 4 cylinder engine. Head gasket failed and was dumping oil into the exhaust. I drained it as best I could before starting it. It didn’t turn over 3 times before it fired… and went right to wide open oh s*** high rpm’s. Hit the E-stop. Nope. It ain’t happening. Unplugged the shut off solenoid. No. Now this old girl is screaming and burning out all the oil in the muffler. Rolling coal! I’m hiding behind my truck wait for the block to ventilate. a guy that stopped by backs his truck up so the connecting rod doesn’t clean out his grill when it comes loose. It is glorious. And horrifying. Now we’re 2+ minutes in. And she’s just roaring. This old girl doesn’t have an ounce of quit in her. I’ve got to do something. Finally I grab my extended handle cutting pliers (because the extra 3” handle will keep me safe) and cut the fuel line. It takes another 30 seconds to run itself out of fuel. All told it probably ran 3 minutes at I’m guessing 2500 rpm’s. Somehow when I put on the shut off solenoid I forced the rack as far open as it would go. Corrected my mistake and started it back up. Purred like a kitten. How long will it last? Who knows but in a manlift it’s either at low idle or maybe 1500 rpm’s. I screwed up. It could have been much worse. I’m telling on myself because even though HEF believes I’m perfect and I’ll admit that I’m close to perfect but not quite there. Yet.