Basic questions from a diesel newbie

ZZ13

ZZ13

Well-Known Member
Nov 25, 2009
5,333
Lady's Island, SC
Boat Info
2001 400 Sedan Bridge
Engines
Cummins 450 Diamond
I now own a diesel for the first time. Cummins 6CTA. I have some basic questions:

1. Do I need to do the blower thing before and start the engines and while the engines are in operation? I did that with my gas engines.

2. Is there any warm up or shut down idle time I should apply like I did with the gas engines?

3. The boat will remain in coastal southern South Carolina and be used year round. Should I use straight 40W oil or use the 15-40w?

4. Should I use Rotella T or Valvoline Blue? Those seem to be the two I read about associated with these engines?

5. Should I alternate which RACOR pulls the fuel through it, each outing? Or do you all just always use the same RACOR and leave the other one as a permanant spare?

6. My main engines have a fuel tank selector. Should I occasionally use all the permutations of the settings to keep fuel lines and valves in working order?

7. Where do you Cummins folks get all your fuel, oil and air filters? Online shopping or local stores?

Thanks.
 
I'm not an expert but can get this started. I don't run my blowers, but do inspect the engine room. You should warm up and cool down before shut off. You should use the oil that Cummings recommends, see if rotella or the Valvoline is ok. I keep the racor as a spare and switch to it 3/4 of the way through my season usually. Maybe someone with a lot of knowledge will chime in now
 
I am by no means an expert either. I do run the blowers to help lower engine room temps. Imdid have to move the blower set up from the original set up. The blowers were down low, as required in gas engine rooms, I raised mine up to help remove the hot air and increase circulation. I use Delo 15w-40 in my mains. I do not alternate the racors unless I have a filter issue or am changing the elements. That way I have a back up filter ready to go should it be necessary. I use the engine fuel selectors to balance the fuel. On my boat the genny only feeds from the starboard tank. From time to time I have found that it is necessary to run both engines from one tank etc. i generally get my gear from ryderfleetproducts.com, but there are many places. I have found ebay to be a food source at times. I use only fleetguard products.


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I use my blower to evacuate heat from under my salon floor but not required.
Start the engines when you are about to leave. Let warm while you untie then idle out till the temp comes up. You would be forever for the temp to come up at neutral idle with no load and could lead to cylinder wall oil wash down.
Use Valvoline Blue. That is Cummins spec.
Use primary filters and the second as backup. You don't want to change filters underway.
Better to move valves from time to time.
You can get Racors on line and use the 30 micron only. The spin on filter on the engine I get at Napa. Oil filters come from Napa also.
Make SURE your aftercoolers have been serviced correctly!!!!!!!! This involves removing the core, cleaning, and installing new O-rings every 2-3 years depending on your water. Freshwater can go longer.
Also keep an eye on the seawater pumps. The Sherwood pumps are crap. Check out this article.http://www.sbmar.com/smx-seawater-pumps-cummins-1730.php. I have these pumps on my 6BTA. They are built much better.
Congrats and welcome to the diesel world!
 
Unlike a gas engine, Diesel fumes are not dangerous and ignition isn't likely but i always run my blowers for 2 reasons. to remove heat from the ER and because they need ALOT of air to operate efficiently. Diesels blowers increase the amount of air entering the engine room to feed the engine. that is a good thing.

As far as Dual racors go, although its not quite as hotly debated as Honda generators, it still seems to stir up quite a bit of discussion from the 2 camps. I personally agree with Franks reasoning and choose to run with both inline vs. One on/one off.
 
I have two Racors for each engine. There is a valve along the fuel line that's between the two Racors. When pointing up, there is a marking stating "all off". I found out the hard way that in that position the fuel is shut off. I am assuming when the valve is turned pointing forward that the fuel is only going through the front Racor. That is the way the valves are turned right now. I also am assuming the valve can be turned in the opposite direction (I haven't tried this) and in that case the fuel goes through the other Racor. Is this correct? Are you saying from your posts that it can be set to run serially through both Racors?
 
If you have the typical dual racor setup, there are 4 valve positions. Opposite the both "off" valve direction is both "on" which means you have both filters inline --twice the fuel flow capacity. The other 2 positions allow you select the filter the valve points to only.
 
ZZ,
1) Not needed, but what others have said about heat makes sense
2) Yes, a few minutes before and after
3) use what is in the manual for your climate
4) It doesn't matter in the Cummins, both are good oils, cummins likes Valvoline Blue because they have their logo on the bottle. Both are usually within a dollar or 2 per gallon price wise.
5) Do not alternate Racors with each outing, you will gradually dirty up BOTH of them and then when the bad load of fuel comes, you won't have any reserve, . Always carry spares on board, buy your racors by the case.
6) Won't hurt
7) depends...If I need one of something, I buy local, If I need a lot, It may be worth paying for shipping, or it may be over the threshold for free shipping
8) Have fun
 
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Thanks everyone. Big help.

So if I am only going to be running fuel through the forward Racors do I still change the back Racor filters when I change the forward Racor filters?
 
No, If you are going to run one at a time, then what most folks do is switch to the other filter, then change the dirty one and
leave the set up to run on the one you haven't been using and the new filter becomes the spare. Alternate.
Keep an eye on the settlement bowl, and periodically check for water (pull the plug and run a little fuel out). Do this more often in the beginning until you get a feel for the boat. Watch the vacuum gage to indicate when the filters are plugging. If your tanks are clean and your fuel source is good, you wont have any trouble getting 50 hrs per filter or 100 hrs on the set, or a season.
 
I am watching this thread and wondering which filters i need ,and how many.I will be doing the frank webster fuel treatment as soon as i can get to the gas dock in the spring.There is a little bit of algea in the port bowl.
 
Just for giggles, I have not changed my Racors since 2010 just to see how long they would go before clogging using the fuel treatment method I outlined in the article on the home page. I'm right at 3 years and 350 hours and they have yet to clog. I found out all need to know. I"='m going to change them now because the box of Racors in the storage closet is too dusty.
 
Keeps both racors in-line, never changes filters, cockpit carpet doesn't have snaps...living on the edge Frank. You're probably the guy who orders the ribeye at the local Mexican place too I bet ;)
 
Bill, see my responses below in blue.

ZZ13 said:
I now own a diesel for the first time. Cummins 6CTA. I have some basic questions:

1. Do I need to do the blower thing before and start the engines and while the engines are in operation? I did that with my gas engines. - As others explained it on diesel boats the blowers are there to remove the heat.

2. Is there any warm up or shut down idle time I should apply like I did with the gas engines? - My procedure hasn't changed from gas to diesel. I always warm up the engines and let them idle enough to cool down.

3. The boat will remain in coastal southern South Carolina and be used year round. Should I use straight 40W oil or use the 15-40w? - As far as I recall 15W-40 will perfectly fit within SC climate, but take a look at the label on the can for temp specs.

4. Should I use Rotella T or Valvoline Blue? Those seem to be the two I read about associated with these engines? - After confirming with few folks on CSR and my Cummins tech, I've been using Shell Rotella T from day one. By me WalMart has the best price on it.

5. Should I alternate which RACOR pulls the fuel through it, each outing? Or do you all just always use the same RACOR and leave the other one as a permanant spare? - I have have only single Racors. But, if I had dual I would run only one at the time leaving the other as a spare. I always have few spare sets on board, which includes secondaries.

6. My main engines have a fuel tank selector. Should I occasionally use all the permutations of the settings to keep fuel lines and valves in working order? - I would have marked them as primary and secondary. Use primary at all times and exercise secondary to make sure they function as expected, in case you'll need to use them.

7. Where do you Cummins folks get all your fuel, oil and air filters? Online shopping or local stores? - There's no one stop shop, at least in my case. So, I use couple of online sources and my Cummins tech.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
I am on to the filters now. I have five total filters on each engine. 3 canister and two air intake filters. I have the canister stuff figured out and the big air intake filter. But what's the little air intake filter (about 2-3 inches in diameter) above the big filter for (on a Cummins engine)? Do I need to change that periodically?
 
That filter is for crankcase return air/oil separator. Do you have Walker AirSep intake filters? If so they are reusable.
 
If you could post an overview picture of your engine that would make it easer to help.
 

This is my engine room. It may help.
 
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