Can't get my 312CL to warm up to operating temperature.

[Nige]

I was simply suggesting blocking part of the rad temporarily with a piece of cardboard, run the test again and see what the temperatures do. In one of his earlier posts the OP indicated he had a direct-driven (as opposed to demand) fan. Running a quick test would show immediately if the issue is being caused by too much cold air flowing through the radiator.

 

[Delmer]

Not much else it can be besides too much cold air going over the engine, it doesn't matter what goes over the radiator with the tstat working right, which it seems to be doing. Engine too efficient? not enough hydraulic drag?

Next time you run it for an hour turn the heater off toward the end and see if it will get into the green. Under some conditions the heater core is adequate cooling... with a diesel and a good heater maybe more than enough???

Winter fronts are usually put on depending on how cold the driver feels, just take a look the next time you're going down the interstate on a 40F day. The trucks with a closed front will all have southern plates. Leave a few inches of all the radiator and oil cooler tubes exposed and you'll be fine at 20F, you're going to be watching the gauge like a hawk anyway, and shooting temps on the engine too.

 

[turfblazer]

shoot the block at sending unit again and the block at the stat ( inside side of stat ) not outside round part they should be pretty close, also the output metal nipple hose at the block going to the heater should be the same also, all at the same time . if all 3 are close your in good shape ( good circulation ) and you most likely have a sending unit thats only off a little . because i'd assume 160f should be the normal ( green ) in your gauge ???? your hitting 154 that would be close to the bottom of the green ??? i agree with the other guy a heater core in fact is a radiator . have you by chance done anything that might of exposed your heater core hoses to air ???? if you need more heat in cab in future put pipe insulation on them. keep useing your infrared and keep a eye on it . i really dont think your in that bad a shape .. you really need another guy with a similar model and year to chime in on his machine ??? ok i'am gone beer and pizza

 

[D3DaveC]

I'm working by myself loading a tandem with my 314DLCR with logs. I leave the excavator running while I drive a mile and dump. Even though I shoved a tarp in the radiator compartment to cover up the radiator I'm lucky to see one green bar on the temp Guage. This is at minus 7 Celsius or so. Even when working steady all day with the radiator covered I have 3 green bars. Stop for 5 minutes and it's 2 bars. I don't like running a diesel cold. Might have to fabricate some covers for the top and bottom of the engine but I'm hoping to be finished my work after another week or so.

 

[turfblazer]

thanks dave its sure sounds like he's running about the same as you are . -7c is about 19f.
so wizz there's a real world compare at least 1 so far. i think your fine if anything just if there was a way somehow to help keep the air off the motor and try the cardboard suggestion but do it in steps according to the outside temp!!! like another guy said if the bypass is letting a lot of hot water into rad it'll never warm up if it gets colder and your gonna have too block rad . you just have to insure those other 3 areas i spoke of before are about the same temp once you fine they stay the same with each other whatever you do with blocking your golden then go back to watching your gauge like a good operator does!!!.

in my opinion only. all diesels have oversized cooling systems mainly engineered for summer work, now we have the reverse situation here , get into the newer diesels the newer emissions they are not going to tolerate running a engine cold so they dumped the fixed fan to stop any cold air from being blown around the engine compartment they let the stat do its job to get the motor up to temp as soon as possible then it lets the rad also get up to temp as soon as possible than the rad coolant temp switch turns on the fan to cool the rad , besides the fuel savings not turning a fan 100% of the time it keeps the engine at a more higher more steady temperature. hell if ya wanted you could retro yours with not alot of bucks. with my loader i have it easy i have a swing gate on the rear and i use the foam from a couch cushion its spongey enough to fill the void in one piece and cover the whole rad when its real cold and when its a little warmer i can fold it down and its compresses enough not to be too tight when i close the gate , adjustments in 30 secs . mines a push fan so warm comes out the rear .

 

[turfblazer]

nige had the right idea so i apologize , i wanted to be positive for wizz that his gauge was reading somewhat correctly before getting ahead of ourselves in the correct diagnosis. d3dave helped sway my vote even more now.
let us know what happens wizz.

 

[srjd]

Who knows these cats are all over the place. Like I said my 320D runs about 160-165f all the time even in the winter just idling but I do have a 160f Stat in which I feel is at least 20deg to cool but cat knows better then me.

 

[Digwizz]

So I believe I have gotten to the bottom of it! I put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator and got the temp to rise according to the infrared thermometer. The gauge still didn't show it. So I called tech support at the local Cat dealer and found out if I grounded the grey wire on the sending unit the temp gauge should spike. And if this were the case, then the sending unit was probably the culprit. Grounding the wire pegged the gauge and they had a sending unit in stock, so I put it in and the gauge jumped right up to where I'm use to seeing it. So it was running at the correct temp all along, just not showing correctly at the gauge. What still puzzles me is the fact that the infrared thermometer still shows the temperature of the casting surrounding the thermostat to be in the 130 deg f range while the gauge shows 4 bars into the green. This isn't enough heat to open thermostat and the top radiator hose is substantially cooler. Hard for me to believe the machine was designed to run this cool. Anybody know what temperatures match up to bars on the gauge?

 

[Nige]

Always nice to hear the solution to a problem. Sometimes the simple things give the best results.
Regarding your temp gun. Are you sure it has a beam that is tightly enough focused to generate a good temp reading...? I've seen some that had a very wide angle sensor that took an average of what it was seeing as a result. As a suggestion try holding the temp gun almost touching what you're trying to measure the temperature of and see if it makes any difference.

 

[kshansen]

Always nice to hear the solution to a problem. Sometimes the simple things give the best results.
Regarding your temp gun. Are you sure it has a beam that is tightly enough focused to generate a good temp reading...? I've seen some that had a very wide angle sensor that took an average of what it was seeing as a result. As a suggestion try holding the temp gun almost touching what you're trying to measure the temperature of and see if it makes any difference.

Also with infrared thermometer the finish or even color of object being measured can make a difference. The term for this is emissivity.

And if you want to get more confused try understanding this:

According to the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, radiant power is proportional to the fourth power of temperature, so when the measurement surface has both hot and cold areas, the indicated temperature may be higher than the actual average temperature, and closer to fourth-power mean average.

But like Nige says, move in close to see if you get a more accurate measurement. Also keep it close to perpendicular to avoid averaging in something cold near by. I think that is what that that quote I posted could be saying

 

[turfblazer]

holy ship batman robin was thinking right from the beginning!!!! glad to here ya got it !!!!
your motor was happy all along and the stat was doing its job just fine . i;am glad cat told you you were able to ground a wire , that makes it very straight forward , sending unit are usually the 2nd place to go , right after the 1st place the stat. happy digging

 

[turfblazer]

one thing i could add , i was doing some duct work on my garage oil furnace today a used one i bought and i could't keep my hand on the sheet metal ( clean air out) while it was running ( to hot) i'am pretty good with guessing temps with how long i can keep my hand on a surface but just to check i got out my fluke and like the other guy mentioned it was all over the place with shinny metal , no matter how close or far i got , so i got the direct contact wire thermocouple for it out and it was running at 175f way hotter then i wanted or thought . after some investigation i found that the fan speed was set to medium , so i reset the wire to med hi and it brought the temp right into 140f (perfect) which happens to be the temp i can keep my hand (palm)on the metal. guess im say wizz if you can keep your hand on the stat houseing your motors too cold , if you can keep it there for maybe 3 sec's it might be 150 , if only 1 sec it might be 170 . ???? we all feel pain different but you get the idea ! give it a try ! keep a cold beer in the other hand just in case !! later have a good day.

 

[srjd]

Does anyone know why these things have 160 stats?

 

[lantraxco]

I have no knowledge of why the manufacturer actually uses the 160's, but if asked to hazard a guess I would guess that it helps lower the heat load to get rid of due to the big oil coolers generally right in front of the radiator?

 

[tctractors]

Best place to spot the I/Red heat gun is on the Engine Oil filter (spin on) this will give a clear indication of the oil and water temps including the T/Stat movement, the water cools the E/Oil giving the heat gun a very easy path to investigate working temperature without any confusing messing about,the temp should go up and down as the T/Stat works all easy to see off the O/filter side, red dotting any part of the engine until this test is done is pointless and only needing further testing if this heat test is out of scope.

don't waste your time. tctractors

 

[Cmark]

Best place to spot the I/Red heat gun is on the Engine Oil filter (spin on) this will give a clear indication of the oil and water temps including the T/Stat movement.

Interesting idea TCT. I'll have to give it a try. Thanks mate.

 

[tctractors]

If the engine oil is water cooled it is going to reach the same temp' as the water that is going to cool it, if the engine is running an 86 or 88 T,stat' the side of the oil filter will show perfectly the water activity and effect when measured with a heat gun, as the stat opens the oil temp drops due to the colder water being pumped through the cooler, the oil temp will usually drop to around 80-82 deg' before going up to 86 -88 deg then cooling again as the stat opens, if this test is within scope then no other heat gun activity is needed other than having a play about??
tctractors