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Diesel engine swapping direction

L

Logan in S.E. Texas

Member
Didn't want to step on run away thread below. We were using rental equipment to run production tubing on an off-site shore drilling rig. Power unit was a Lister 2 cylinder air cooled engine and it swapped direction a couple of times and was shutdown and restarted eventually it swapped and self-destructed.
 
I had that happen to me. I stalled my uncle's 970 JD compact on a hill. It rolled backwards and started itself back up running backwards. I shut it off and started it back up and it was fine.
 
I have an early 80's Mack DM dumptruck that I haul stuff around the farm and a bit of close farm pick up. September long weekend last year I was getting some blast rock up the road about a 1km or 2 from here to build roads. It has a huge box on it ...which is great for sawdust.
The guy on the excavator was pretty careful. There were some big rocks and slabs, he set them in on top of some loose small stuff with dirt mixed so that the box wouldn't get damaged. I had taken the 2x8 rails at the top off so it wouldnt be too full.
As I left the lot with my first full load it started down hill and then quickly turned into right into an uphill grade. I could normally pull this in 3rd as I really had just got moving... but I realized quick I needed to get down a gear. In a bit of a panic I missed my downshift and was slowing down fast. I had the cluch in and as I was slowing to stop I slipped in 1st, I released the clutch but I already had backward motion.
The engine kicked,I kept going backward. Clutch and brake on now with exhaust puffing out of the air cleaner beside the cab.
I rolled back to the dip (still engine running backward) and though I was on fire. Shut it down. Took a walk around, and everything seemed ok... no fire. So I started it up and ran fine. Apparently the Mack engines had this feature...
Needless to say I told the hoe man to put a. It less in and I stayed I second for that hill.
Now if only I can find that electrical short that keeps the batteries dead if I don't use the night switch.
 
REAL easy to do if you stall a 2-cylinder John Deere diesel.

Blows the oil out of the oil bath air cleaner and spews it out the air stack onto the hood.
 
"there are some engine designed to do that"

Yep, the early Lanz Bulldog was that way, so I hear. Had to stop, get off and crank it backward for reverse.

And there were the Mercury outboards, 1950 era. Had a double ended starter drive, check valves in the water pump. To go into reverse you held a button down on the control lever, slowly went to the middle, waited for the engine to die, then pull it back and it would start in reverse. There was no neutral, direct drive. Another one of those "how did this happen?" designs!
 
Can be quite common on older diesel engines,usually if you wait a hair too long before throwing the clutch while coming to a stop on a hill.Because the fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber,and not sucked in through an intake the engine doesn't care which direction it turns.The oil pump care a lot though.it won't suck oil up turning backwards.I saw it happen a lot on Macks running on rough ground.The guys would pull up,come to a stop and throw the shift levers to get reverse. They would sometimes do it so fast they wouldn't have the clutch all the way down,and if the tires hit a frozen rut at the right time it would try to turn the engine backwards.Smoke would blow out of the air filters,(oil on the B models)and you would have no oil pressure.
 
Did they have check valves on the oil pump too? I would be concerned about running without oil pressure for even a few seconds.
 
The Mercurys were 2 cycle oil mix, no oil pump.

Don't know about the Lanz, but assume they use crankcase pressure for scavenging, so maybe they use oil mix too.
 
I had a retired river boat worker who rented a trailer lot from me. He said that the engine on the towboat that he worked on would be shut down and re-started in reverse rotation in order to reverse the prop. He said they were supposed to leave it stopped for a specific minimum number of seconds before re-starting it in the opposite rotation, but sometimes entering a tight bend on the Mississippi would get the dead time shortened dramatically. I think he said the Mississippi current runs around 8 MPH, and you have to either power faster than the current or reverse prop in order to steer. Sounds exciting.

Second hand story from 20 years ago, as I remember it.
 
I saw a 900 Case diesel that the owner lugged it down so far and clutched it but it started to run backwards so he panicked and hit the starter. It blew the starter about 10' from the tractor and needed a new clutch housing plus the starter.
 
I had a retired river boat worker who rented a trailer lot from me. He said that the engine on the towboat that he worked on would be shut down and re-started in reverse rotation in order to reverse the prop. He said they were supposed to leave it stopped for a specific minimum number of seconds before re-starting it in the opposite rotation, but sometimes entering a tight bend on the Mississippi would get the dead time shortened dramatically. I think he said the Mississippi current runs around 8 MPH, and you have to either power faster than the current or reverse prop in order to steer. Sounds exciting.

Second hand story from 20 years ago, as I remember it.
Click to expand...

Very likely a true story. Old Atlas marine diesels were made to run in either direction to provide forward and reverse power.
 
most modern day snowmobiles have a button you push to run the engine backwards--they eliminated the transmission for reverse travel
 
My old 1969 Mercury snowmobile started backwards once, don't remember the circumstances, think I shut it off, changed my mind and turned the key back on and it lurched backwards running. It didn't have reverse but read somewhere that if it did it was started backwards/ shut off/ lever flipped???/ restart and go. The old sled was a sharp looker and good runner but top heavy and built like a tank. Hood was shaped like a train locomotive with one big headlight in a chrome oval bezel, five ply track, went 45 top end up hill/down/on the level didn't make any difference. The big seat was hinged on the side with an aluminum compartment about 4 or 5 Inches deep and dual exh. mufflers in there. Everybody I was riding with kept their extra gloves in there plus the beer didn't freeze.
 
Yes it's more common than you think, I've had a couple guys do it with Belarus 825 type tractors they phone and say they near stalled it and it started to blowing smoke out the air cleaner and the gears were working the wrong way. They needed new air cleaner insides as thats oil bath and originally horse hair in the old ones that burned, but now synthetic materials that melts to a solid mass when it cools .

The older 1952 or so English diesel fordson major would do it, on the later tractors they altered the angle of the injector pump mount from vertical to an incline to stop it. from what I understand it can be timing related on some engines.

Also the English field marshal single cylinder 2 stroke tractor would start backwards if you didn't get it over compression on the starting handle. I remember dad saying about those. They would run backwards inhale the oil in the air cleaner, rev to the boards. Then fire a rather large starting handle about 80 ft in the air, with a random landing spot when it came off the crank shaft. As the thing won't disengage properly going backwards.

One did it in a sale yard, from what I heard about it guys watching heard something like a load of !@#$%$#@! words and RUN!. 50 guys had never been seen to leave an area that fast before the handle came in to site, before landing from what was said about it.

Regards Robert
 
(quoted from post at 14:54:06 02/22/18) most modern day snowmobiles have a button you push to run the engine backwards--they eliminated the transmission for reverse travel
Click to expand...

Both of our Polaris Sleds reverse the engine .
 
Those Field Marshall / Fowler (tracked version) crank handles are the biggest and heaviest I've ever seen. Long enough for two men. And around here it was reckoned that if you didn't have two men and tried cranking you stood a fair chance of being killed.
 
Diesel engines which are lugged down can do this. Happened to me one time when I was a kid with an Oliver 88 diesel. Scared the devil out of me. That was one of the reasons for putting rain caps on diesel engine exhaust stacks.
 

I remember that happening to my dad once with an Allis WD45D....he was pulling a steep hill. I remember the mess it made on the hood....
 
(quoted from post at 17:34:40 02/22/18) No uncommon on a 2 stroke diesel. Short there are some engine designed to do that like in some of the old golf carts
Click to expand...
Big Fairbanks and Morse used on some older tugboats were designed that way. When I was on them in the Navy we had reverse clutches but the old boats the army ran didn't. You had to shut down the engine and turn the cam a quarter turn or something and restart. It's been a while and I could be foggy but I think that was how it was explained to me...
 
You have a 220E? How much do you want for it? Name your Price. Money is no object. Plus a 12 pack of that cheap beer you drink
 
Hi Ian I was born in the U.K where they were common at shows when I was younger. I have seen one guy crank them a few times, The only thing was if i was ever in a bar fight I'd want them on my side L.O.L. Yes it is usually a 2 man handle. Where I lived one of the tractor collectors daughters had one, she was big enough to not be messing with in a bar fight to, and would swing the marshal on her own !!!!!!!.
Regards Robert
 
I had the 3-71 Detroit in my Oliver 990 running backwards once, got it shut down quickly, no damage done.

Also had a Caterpillar 3406B in a Ford LTL9000 running backwards too. Really weird feeling when you have it in a forward gear, let out the clutch, and start backing up! Again, shut it down, fired it up the right way, no damage done.
 
(quoted from post at 13:26:51 02/22/18)
I had a retired river boat worker who rented a trailer lot from me. He said that the engine on the towboat that he worked on would be shut down and re-started in reverse rotation in order to reverse the prop. He said they were supposed to leave it stopped for a specific minimum number of seconds before re-starting it in the opposite rotation, but sometimes entering a tight bend on the Mississippi would get the dead time shortened dramatically. I think he said the Mississippi current runs around 8 MPH, and you have to either power faster than the current or reverse prop in order to steer. Sounds exciting.

Second hand story from 20 years ago, as I remember it.
Click to expand...

Very likely a true story. Old Atlas marine diesels were made to run in either direction to provide forward and reverse power.
Click to expand...

Don't know anything about the Atlas engines, the river barges I worked on in the mid 70's had EMD's (Electra Motive Diesel), they ran in one direction with a max speed of 825 rpm, a combination reduction/reverser box behind the engine controlled rotation direction and reduced prop shaft speed to around 250 rpm max.
 
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