1000 Pounds of equipment loaded on the pallet

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Opening up the diesel engine container

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On the Shop floor

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Parts and Assembly

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The engine comes with a complete tool kit, which seems to include everything you would need to disassemble and rebuild the engine while in remote areas. It includes a variety of hand tools, a flywheel puller, spare fuel injector and fuel filter, piston rings, cylinder head gasket, valve lapping tool and 2 grades of valve grinding compound, and various seals and o-rings. The kit also includes a surprisingly well wrote manual, with specifications for all the diameters and clearances for the internal parts, which I assume is there just in case you need to fabricate a replacement item. I hope I don't need any of this stuff any time soon!

Assembly of the engine is pretty straightforward. Install the air cleaner, exhaust manifold, muffler, and belt driven water pump, add Oil, Water, and Fuel and it started right up! Here's a link to a low quality video of the engine during start up and shutdown. 800KB MPG Video. Surprisingly, the largest contributor to engine noise is the air intake thru the air cleaner, which produces a very loud low frequency rumble. Some modifications are definitely due here!

The only item not included with the engine is a 12vdc charging system for the starter battery. Oddly, the engine does include what appears to be a voltage regulator, but no alternator. I'll probably add a good old Chevy alternator to create a 60 amp charging system, or once the AC generator is installed, add a simple 110v battery charger.

Oddly, one item that IS included with the engine is a hand crank to manually start the engine. The theory is you flip a lever to keep the intake valve open on the compression stroke, while at the same time hand cranking the engine over like a mad man to gain enough momentum in the flywheel so as to carry it thru a compression stroke and start the engine. Well, even with $20 on the line, no one in the shop could hand start this engine! Currently, I call the hand crank a "Shoulder Dislocation Tool" as no amount of effort will create enough momentum in the flywheel to overcome the compression stroke! Perhaps once the mass of the generator is added, it might be doable.

The Generator Head

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The 15KW generator head can be summed up in three letters "BIG"! Cast Iron must be really cheap in China, as they do NOT hesitate to use it in quantity! This thing is HUGE, but appears well built and easy to maintain. It as two slip rings and 4 brushes to power the stator, which are easily accessed thru a removable cover. The 48mm Diameter shaft spins very freely by hand. I haven't yet examined the voltage regulator box, or its connections, so we'll have to wait for later to see how all that works out.

That's all for now, tomorrow I'll fabricate an engine / generator frame, a Flywheel adapter, and hopefully get everything mounted into position. All in all, I'm pretty excited and look forward to seeing this project up and running!