So, I got my hands on this 20 horsepower diesel engine a while back. Wasn’t brand new, picked it up used from a guy clearing out his workshop. Looked pretty solid, but you never really know with second-hand stuff, right?
First thing I did was get it back to my place. Heavy beast, took some effort just getting it off the truck and onto a stand. Once it was settled, I started poking around. Pulled the dipstick – oil looked dark, definitely needed changing. Checked the coolant, seemed okay but planned to flush it anyway. Gave the whole thing a visual once-over. A bit of grime here and there, some surface rust on the exhaust manifold, but no obvious cracks or major damage. Seemed promising.
Getting Down to Business
Next step was getting it ready to potentially run. Didn’t want to just crank it over immediately.
- Drained the old oil. Yeah, it was thick and black.
- Changed the oil filter. The old one looked like it had seen better days.
- Flushed the cooling system. Got some nasty looking stuff out. Refilled with fresh coolant mix.
- Checked the fuel filter. Looked surprisingly clean, but I swapped it for a new one just to be safe. Cheap insurance.
- Cleaned the battery terminals, even though I didn’t have a battery hooked up yet. Just good practice.
- Looked over the belts. Seemed alright, decent tension.
Then I rigged up a temporary fuel tank. Just a small jerry can with a hose running to the fuel pump inlet. Bled the fuel lines – cracked the injector nuts slightly and cranked it by hand a bit until fuel seeped out. Didn’t want air locks messing things up.
The Moment of Truth
Okay, time to see if this thing would even fire up. Hooked up a decent battery I borrowed from my tractor. Double-checked everything was clear. Took a deep breath and hit the starter. It turned over… slow at first, then picked up speed. Chugga-chugga… then BAM! It roared to life. A bit rough initially, smoked quite a bit – mostly white smoke, probably just moisture and cold – but it smoothed out after a minute or two.
Man, that felt good. It actually runs! I let it idle for about 15-20 minutes, just listening. No scary clanking or banging noises. Watched the gauges I temporarily hooked up – oil pressure looked steady, temperature started to climb slowly, which was normal. Checked for leaks again – fuel lines were dry, no coolant dripping, no oil spraying everywhere. Success!
I didn’t push it hard that first day. Just let it warm up, varied the throttle a little bit. The response seemed okay. Shut it down, let it cool, checked the fluids again. Everything looked fine.
The plan is to eventually hook this engine up to run a water pump for irrigation out on the back field. Haven’t built the frame or got the pump coupling sorted yet, that’s the next phase. But knowing the engine itself is a runner, and a pretty strong sounding one at that, is a huge step forward. Felt like a productive couple of days tinkering in the garage.
