Morning gang.
I have four diesel engines, that I have maintained but I have never had to tear into one for any serious repairs, thank goodness. Anyway, just another maintenance question on the Perkins diesel genset. The Perkins is a smallish 3 cylinder diesel engine that is our off-grid ‘generator’ that powers our house and recharges our 24v battery bank.
The Perkins has 900 hours on it after almost five years of full-time off grid living. It really only gets used when we don’t have enough solar power, which is mostly the winter season here on the coast of BC. I change the oil, oil filter and primary / secondary fuel filters religiously. However, I have not dropped the antifreeze yet and am thinking it may be a worthwhile thing to do at this point. The diesel is not subject to dirty / dusty / or a hostile environment. It is housed in a building that has good air flow etc, so not even sure if the antifreeze really needs changing, just thought it couldn’t really hurt.
Anyway, the radiator shroud that came with the Perkins set up (Hardy Diesel) is not going to come off easily as I have the front of the rad quite close to the vent in the wall. I would need to unbolt the generator from the concrete pad I poured for it and roll / lift it back a bit. So in short I can’t get to the petcock on the bottom of the rad nor the bottom rad hose.
The Perkins manual shows what appears to be a ‘drain plug’ on the right side of the engine block, just in front and a bit higher than where the oil filter is housed. It has an inset ‘allen bolt’ head, if I have the bolt identified correctly. I see it has a blue teflon (guessing) sealing compound on the allen bolt. I suspect the blue signifies water/coolant? Is backing this allen bolt out a recommended way to drain the antifreeze? If so, does it cause any grief in trying to get air out of the block/system, being that getting at the hose to burp the system is not going to be easy?
Advice appreciated.
I have four diesel engines, that I have maintained but I have never had to tear into one for any serious repairs, thank goodness. Anyway, just another maintenance question on the Perkins diesel genset. The Perkins is a smallish 3 cylinder diesel engine that is our off-grid ‘generator’ that powers our house and recharges our 24v battery bank.
The Perkins has 900 hours on it after almost five years of full-time off grid living. It really only gets used when we don’t have enough solar power, which is mostly the winter season here on the coast of BC. I change the oil, oil filter and primary / secondary fuel filters religiously. However, I have not dropped the antifreeze yet and am thinking it may be a worthwhile thing to do at this point. The diesel is not subject to dirty / dusty / or a hostile environment. It is housed in a building that has good air flow etc, so not even sure if the antifreeze really needs changing, just thought it couldn’t really hurt.
Anyway, the radiator shroud that came with the Perkins set up (Hardy Diesel) is not going to come off easily as I have the front of the rad quite close to the vent in the wall. I would need to unbolt the generator from the concrete pad I poured for it and roll / lift it back a bit. So in short I can’t get to the petcock on the bottom of the rad nor the bottom rad hose.
The Perkins manual shows what appears to be a ‘drain plug’ on the right side of the engine block, just in front and a bit higher than where the oil filter is housed. It has an inset ‘allen bolt’ head, if I have the bolt identified correctly. I see it has a blue teflon (guessing) sealing compound on the allen bolt. I suspect the blue signifies water/coolant? Is backing this allen bolt out a recommended way to drain the antifreeze? If so, does it cause any grief in trying to get air out of the block/system, being that getting at the hose to burp the system is not going to be easy?
Advice appreciated.
Perkins 403D-11 Diesel Genset - 10kW
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