Sd22 diesel engine issues

[wayno]

Ok, some background info, I had this block rebuilt last year, meaning I bought a kit from a company named "Falcon", and took the kit to my machine shop and had them install the sleeves into the block, and check everything else to be sure everything was in spec. They also went threw the head, there were very small cracks in the head between the intake and exhaust valves, after I checked into this, I was told that these cracks were normal, and nissan had a sort of gauge of how bad these could be before the head was bad, what I got out of it was, if the head didn't leak water it was good, as it wasn't leaking water. I found a better head anyway. So I put it together last year also, and it sat In my dining room on an engine stand looking pretty for a year, I used assembly lube on all the vital parts such as the cam and lifters, bearings, ect. The kit came with everything including the oilpump. So now I finally got around to installing it into my 720 dually truck, and this thing smokes like a forest fire on start up, I thought it might be a bad glow plug or two, so today I pulled all of them and tested them and they are all fine, I also took the injector lines off and turned it over and they all squirt the same, after it warms up it doesn't smoke a bit, but it is gutless, worse than normal in my opinion, this is a weird also, when cold it starts very roughly, as it warms up it smooths out, also before it warms up I can bleed the number three injection line and it changes nothing, no differance in rpms, but after it is warmed up, bleeding that line does make a differance, it creates a miss, so #3 misses when cold, but the miss goes away as it warms up. Keep in mind here, that each piston has 5 rings, of which 2 are oil ring sets. So does anyone here understand/know the SD22 diesel engine enough to venture an educated guess about what is going on here. I don't have a compression test guage at the moment, but it looks like I will be investing in one soon, at the moment I have the valve clearance gapped at 13 thousands of an inch, I just looked that up, and it supposed to be 14 thousands, so that is not the issue.

[Uncle Laulau]

Wayno I am not smart enough to even look at this thread. Hope you get it going smooth again.

[datzenmike]

You need a compression tester that reads in thousands of PSI.

 

White, black or blue smoke???

[Master-O-Turbonics]

You need a compression tester that reads in thousands of PSI.

 

White, black or blue smoke???

 

It shouldn't be that high, should it? Its only like 20:1 compression isn't it?... so maybe 350psi cylinder pressure?

[wayno]

You need a compression tester that reads in thousands of PSI.

 

White, black or blue smoke???

 

It's white smoke Datzenmike, unburnt fuel. I am not real happy about this development, I just don't see a positive end to this issue anymore, I thought this was a bad glowplug or two, as that would have made sense to me, but they are all fine, and as it starts so easily/clean after warm, it is not a compression issue after warm, but it might be a compression issue cold.

[wayno]

It shouldn't be that high, should it? Its only like 20:1 compression isn't it?... so maybe 350psi cylinder pressure?

 

SD22 is 22 to 1 What's funny is it is so easy to turn over by hand, a lot easier than a 9 to 1 gasser is.

[datzenmike]

It shouldn't be that high, should it? Its only like 20:1 compression isn't it?... so maybe 350psi cylinder pressure?

 

Diesels don't have an ignition system and rely on compression heat to fire the fuel. If it's 60 degrees out and you compress any volume of air roughly 22 times you would have a temp of over 1,300 degrees. (there would be some losses past the rings and the cylinder walls and head surfaces would absorb some of this heat but it does get hot enough to ignite fuel. All you do is direct injection into the combustion chamber and the fuel explodes. This is very simplified.

[datzenmike]

Wayno, unburnt... could it just be over rich?

[Cahoon520]

Hey Wayno,

Did you bleed the injection pump? Did you adjust the the valves when it was at running temperature? Is the air throttle diaphragm is good shape? Is the glow plug controller working pre and after glow? Are the fuel filters both the primary and the secondary good? Your rebuild kit must of bee for a forklift or gen set because the the truck sd 22 is a three ring piston.The sd 22 does normally smoke a bit when its cold.

[wayno]

Hey Wayno,

Did you bleed the injection pump? Did you adjust the the valves when it was at running temperature? Is the air throttle diaphragm is good shape? Is the glow plug controller working pre and after glow? Are the fuel filters both the primary and the secondary good? Your rebuild kit must of bee for a forklift or gen set because the the truck sd 22 is a three ring piston.The sd 22 does normally smoke a bit when its cold.

 

When I first started it, I did crack the side screws on the pump, I ajusted the valves at 13 thousands warmed up. I don't know about "after glow", but the light/glow plug timer seems to work properly, I beleave that the second pre-filter is new, the first pre-filter worked fine before the engine change, and the main filter is new. When I bought the kit, it was supposed to be for a 720 diesel truck

, but I have been wondering about the ring thing, but even cold diesel forklifts don't smoke like this, it drifts all the way across the street when the wind is not blowing. I have had several 720 diesel trucks over the last 5 years, only one smoked like this. I have also drove the truck for at least 100 miles now, and it has been going down hill since the first start.

[wayno]

Wayno, unburnt... could it just be over rich?

 

 

After it warms up, and gets done puking white smoke, it doesn't puke any black smoke ever, I actually thought it might be lean, considering how gutless it is. It slowly cleans up(white smoke) as it warms up. I am used to seeing it kinda miss and a puff of white come out the exhaust every miss when it is cold on my other diesel engines, but this is something else, it lasts quite a while. The guy down the street says it is a fuel related issue, and thinks an injector is plugged, so I will pull the offenders apart again tomarrow, it seems to be injector 3, and maybe right at first 2 is also acting up, I beleave only 2 cylinders are hitting the first minute. My issue is that it has never started clean. I have had several engines rebuilt over the last 20 years, never had any problems except for that head bolt stripping out on the LZ23, but my jury rigged fix is holding up fine, I will fix that as soon as my work season winds down. I generally find people around me that know what they are doing and stick with them, that is why I usually don't have issues, but I put this one together, so I guess I am going to have to fire myself. :blink:

[Dguy210]

Ok, some background info, I had this block rebuilt last year, meaning I bought a kit from a company named "Falcon", and took the kit to my machine shop and had them install the sleeves into the block, and check everything else to be sure everything was in spec. They also went threw the head, there were very small cracks in the head between the intake and exhaust valves, after I checked into this, I was told that these cracks were normal, and nissan had a sort of gauge of how bad these could be before the head was bad, what I got out of it was, if the head didn't leak water it was good, as it wasn't leaking water. I found a better head anyway. So I put it together last year also, and it sat In my dining room on an engine stand looking pretty for a year, I used assembly lube on all the vital parts such as the cam and lifters, bearings, ect. The kit came with everything including the oilpump. So now I finally got around to installing it into my 720 dually truck, and this thing smokes like a forest fire on start up, I thought it might be a bad glow plug or two, so today I pulled all of them and tested them and they are all fine, I also took the injector lines off and turned it over and they all squirt the same.....

 

This definitely sounds more like an injector issue than anything else. Are you doing a visual inspection of the injectors squirting or a pop test? Ideally, you'd want a pop test, ensure the injectors are balanced across the cylinders and hit the right pressure (pop-off pressure I believe is around ~1600psi). Ideally, you'd also want to make sure the spray pattern is correct. An ultrasonic cleaner helps alot here. There is also a one time use crush washer installed that should be replaced every time the injectors come out. However, the Ratsun method on that is just heat it to anneal it.

[oakrun]

is that old fuel in the tank?

 

The sd22 has a pneumatic governor. If the diaphragm becomes torn the governor will over fuel the engine, possibly enough to cause lots of white smoke.

 

try this website these guys live and breathe... cough cough..... datsun diesels

 

 

nissan diesel link

[datzenmike]

You have a second engine you can swap injectors or other things to find the problem?

[Cahoon520]

Wayno,

You should get a bottle of Sea Foam. Warm the truck to running temperature then take off your secondary filter and drain it refill with the sea foam. Start the truck its going to smoke like crazy now take it out for a bit drive to work the sea foam through the engine. I did this before and it worked great, but the guy who had the truck before me liked to use vegitable oil or anything else he could thought might burn in his truck so the injectors were pretty gumed up. If that doesnt work I would swap out the injectors like datzen mike said, or at least that number 3 injector.

[wayno]

I did forget to mention that the injectors are basicly new, and I have taken them apart once because of this issue. The fuel isn't that old, as I recall I had to put some fresh stuff in just before I changed out the engines, and I have bought trucks that sat 2 years that ran better than this one. And yes datzenmike I do have another engine with new injectors in it, but it is a SD25, brand new one at that, and I don't think the injectors are differant than the SD22, but I am not quite there yet, as these are new injectors also, so I will pull them apart again, and clean them, but at the moment I have something better to do, a round of golf, but there is room for improvement there also, as my last game was a 98, which sucked bigtime.

[wayno]

Well, my game of golf turned out better this time, 46/42 for an 88. So my last 4 games have been 80(best ever), 86, 98, and an 88. As for the diesel truck, it smoked the block up saterday morning warming up after I cleaned all of the injectors again, this time I took my time. So I popped the hood on the diesel 521 kingcab which don't smoke at all, and looked at everything in general about the two, and decided that the injection pumps were at differant angles, so I pulled out the measuring tape and looked/measured the distance between the top back of the pumps and realized/decided that they were timed differantly, so I loosened the nuts holding the pump in position, and made it the same as the 521 diesel. It didn't seem to make it start any differant, but the engine was warm now, it did sound a little better though, more peppy, it did seem to rev a little quicker. So I left it alone for the rest of the day and night and slept on it. This morning after doing some laundry, ect; I went out and started it up, no smoke at all, none. It sounded way differant also, no misses to speak of. I thought I put it back the way it was supposed to be as there are timing marks for the pump, but I guess I didn't get it right. This is good news for me, as I was very unhappy about the issue, but I still do not understand why it ran good on two of the cylinders, it would seem logical that it would have ran bad on all the cylinders if it was timed wrong. I am learning all the time. wayno

[Cahoon520]

Good fix. Wayno

[wayno]

I am still unhappy with this engine, even though it doesn't smoke on start up, it still has no power, I have tried playing with the pump timing a little, no more power, I played the the smoke screw ajustment(richer/leaner), I actually turned it several turns, and no differance, didn't make it smoke black either(to rich), I put castor oil in the pump where it is supposed to be after checking that air diaphram(leather membrain) for any holes, I actually filled it up before putting the rear housing back on with the return spring, just to see if it leaked any fluid, it did not. So are there any recognizable signs of a bad injection pump, low pressure, ect? The thing just has no power, and I realize that they only have 61hp to start with, but I would guess this engine is only pushing 40hp if I am lucky, it has no power at all, when I rev it in neutral, it's a slow rev. Do you understand what I am saying guys?

[wayno]

I think I fixed the problem with the engine this time, I have been unhappy with this engine since it was installed, it either smoked up the block, or had no power and ran weird/funny, sounded wrong. So after messing around with the pump timing, and the smog screw trying to find some power, I gave up. This morning after looking around Ratsun, I went outside, lifted the hood and yanked out the injection pump, I tried putting this one in,

But it would not fit, it looks like a inline injection pump, but it is not, it would be easy to turbo charge the engine with this pump, but it seems that it will only fit on one of my SD25 engines, the one in the truck is a SD22. So I went back to the datsun parts shed and found the tub labled "gaston diesel engine parts",

as I bought a blown up diesel truck from a guy there, he must of ran it out of oil or something like an over rev, because the cam broke into 3 differant pieces, i put that injection pump on, and now the engine runs like I remember, it's still gutless, but it is a 61hp gutless.:lol: At least now I beleave that I can richen it up a little, and find a few ponys.

[wayno]

I am wondering if Cahoon520 might be able answer this question, or any other datsun diesel savy folks, I have these wires coming off the positive battery terminal, are these fueable link wires? I smoked one and the glow plug warmer power went away, but i did not know it was bad, but I remembered seeing some smoke breifly once in that area, but I turned the key off, then lifted the hood, but was unable to determine where it came from, as the engine was already warmed up, it started easily with out them(glow plugs).

[Cahoon520]

they are fusible links I replaced mine with 50 a circuit breaker.

[wayno]

they are fusible links I replaced mine with 50 a circuit breaker.

 

 

Thanks, did you wire them all to one 50 amp circuit breaker? The photos are of the bad wire, you can't even tell one is bad until you feel the wire itself, one has nothing inside it.

[Cahoon520]

I put two breakers on one is for the glow plugs and one is for ignition power

[wayno]

I put two breakers on one is for the glow plugs and one is for ignition power

 

Thankyou, Question, there are 4 wires, all go to differant places, glow plugs, ingition, alternator/fuse block, and the light switch(lights), you put the breakers on the glow plugs and ignition?, You left the other two wires as they were? I lost one of the black wires, the glow plug relay one, and I beleave I just now figured out why, that's freaking weird, it took days for my brain to work. :lol: At least now I can fix the problem.