Gardner ENGINES

[zb_anorak]

newmercman:
[zb] I am led to believe, by those that should know, that you should never run coolant in anything other than a 50/50 mix of water (distilled) and Glycol, if you are going to change the mixture it should always be the water that is increased rather than the Glycol.

The thing with increasing the pressure (and raising the boiling point) is the extra pressure only comes from working the water pump harder, thereby increasing the parasitic losses of the engine, which will help neither power or economy. The waterless coolant runs without any pressure and the operating temperatures and fan on parameters are only changed by 10-15deg, not a huge difference, but every little helps, if you’ve made all the other modifications then it would make sense. It is a lifetime coolant too, so you could just leave things as they are and settle for the better protection it is claimed to offer. Have a look for yourself at http://www.evanscooling.com/ see what you think.

Can’t think why they are saying a 50% solution is the maximum, although this spec sheet tends to suggest that the minimum freezing point is achieved at about 75% glycol to water: meglobal.biz/media/product_g … al_MEG.pdf

Increasing the overall system pressure will not affect the power requirement, since the pressure drop across the pump remains the same. Meddling with glycol/water ratio and radiator cap pressure (without going mad) is a valid method of fine tuning marginal cooling systems.

Of course, there are downsides to everything- specifying a 50% glycol mix as a minimum may cause problems with ignorance in service; higher cooling system pressure means more leaks, all other things being equal. Etc etc.

[newmercman]

I don’t understand that 50/50 mix ratio myself, the subject of coolant is not one to set the pulse racing so I haven’t paid it much attention. I have discovered that different engines require different coolants though, the additive packages in the coolant are tailored to the different alloys used in the engines, which makes sense.

I don’t get the claims for lifespan of the extended life coolants either, a bit like oil drain intervals, how can you put a random mileage figure on something that will have to work in different conditions in different engines? A high hp tractor unit on parcels trunking on flat ground and a Concrete Mixer in a big city will place very different demands on oil or coolant, there cannot be a one size fits all solution.

Of course, this is all nit picking, you can fill your rad with ditch water and your sump with any old oil and the lorry will still go to work

[trev_h]

Cooling system on my bike calls for a 50/50 mix of glycol and distilled water, don’t know why but I’ve always stuck with that.

[zb_anorak]

25-50% seems to be the norm. What did Mr. Hugh recommend?

[bewick]

harry_gill:

Bewick:
If you look closely at the fron’t of this Seddon you can see the grille is “stood off” with spacers to accomodate the Dynair fan.

hiya,
Loved these Seddons Dennis but only drove them with the Roller engines
flying machines they was too.
thanks harry, long retired.

Great motor this one “H”,smooth as silk to drive,10 speed box,higher geared diff,power steering ! If you ask me,this spec (■■■■■■■ 220) was far superior to the Roller engined tractors,now they were (IMO,only) real bags of ■■■■ !!Obviously you had more “street cred” sat behind the wheel of a Borderer but this Seddon worked just as hard and reliable as our Atkis did in the '70’s.We ran this Seddon on double shift for two and a half years without a “hitch” then we repainted it and put it on the Mill contract.All our other Seddons and Big J’s had the Gardner 6LXB engines,Oh! apart from the sole Big J that had the 8LXB engine !!!

[windrush]

[zb]
anorak:
25-50% seems to be the norm. What did Mr. Hugh recommend?

Dont know about the Gardner factory spec but we ran EVERYTHING at 50/50 antifreeze/water mix. That was Rolls diesel spec and it certainly cut down on corrosion internally, when my 10 year old 265 Li expired the internal waterways and cylinder liners were spotless whereas the 'replacement ’ engine which was a lot newer looked like it had spent 10 years in the North Sea! The water jacket was absolutely solid with rust. I always run my vehicles at 50/50, it cuts out a lot of rad blockage etc.

Pete.

[bewick]

windrush:

[zb]
anorak:
25-50% seems to be the norm. What did Mr. Hugh recommend?

Dont know about the Gardner factory spec but we ran EVERYTHING at 50/50 antifreeze/water mix. That was Rolls diesel spec and it certainly cut down on corrosion internally, when my 10 year old 265 Li expired the internal waterways and cylinder liners were spotless whereas the 'replacement ’ engine which was a lot newer looked like it had spent 10 years in the North Sea! The water jacket was absolutely solid with rust. I always run my vehicles at 50/50, it cuts out a lot of rad blockage etc.

Pete.

Same as with regular oil changes Pete,cheap maintainence in the long run keeping a good strong mix of anti freeze in the engine,the ■■■■■■■■■■ course,all had that inhibitor canistor on the engine as well.Cheers Dennis.

[newmercman]

Oil and antifreeze are always cheaper than engine parts

Detroit’s run a similar set up with the canister topping up the additives in the coolant. How often did you have to change the canister Dennis

Did you always run a coolant year round, or just make sure the anti freeze was up to scratch in the winter and just top off with water the rest of the time

That was the method most places I worked at used, obviously they used to suffer from cavitation problems and sludge/rust in the water jacket as a result of the water in the system, but I don’t think that much attention was paid to cooling systems apart from making them leak free until the last few years, not in my experience anyway

I can remember a salesman from a lube company trying to promote a year round coolant to an old boss, being a nerd my ears pricked up and I remember hearing about the corrosion inhibitors and suchlike that would increase engine life, I was intrigued, the boss man less so, no point paying out good money for stuff I can get out of a tap was his response, as the fitters replaced another set of liners that had gone porous in a 3yr old F10

[bewick]

newmercman:
Oil and antifreeze are always cheaper than engine parts

Detroit’s run a similar set up with the canister topping up the additives in the coolant. How often did you have to change the canister Dennis

Did you always run a coolant year round, or just make sure the anti freeze was up to scratch in the winter and just top off with water the rest of the time

That was the method most places I worked at used, obviously they used to suffer from cavitation problems and sludge/rust in the water jacket as a result of the water in the system, but I don’t think that much attention was paid to cooling systems apart from making them leak free until the last few years, not in my experience anyway

I can remember a salesman from a lube company trying to promote a year round coolant to an old boss, being a nerd my ears pricked up and I remember hearing about the corrosion inhibitors and suchlike that would increase engine life, I was intrigued, the boss man less so, no point paying out good money for stuff I can get out of a tap was his response, as the fitters replaced another set of liners that had gone porous in a 3yr old F10

Hiya NMM,we always kept a bulk tank of mixture all year round by the Bulk derv tank,I always bought the 45 gal drums of either Shell or later on BP product in the summer when there was “a deal on” From memory we changed the canisters two or three times a year on the ■■■■■■■■■■■ only times we suffered from pourous liners was on the odd secondhand motors that hadn’t received the same “standard” of service as those tractors we had from new.Cheers Dennis.

[wrinkly]

Trev_H:
Cooling system on my bike calls for a 50/50 mix of glycol and distilled water, don’t know why but I’ve always stuck with that.

The antifreeze has corrosion inhibitors in and also distilled helps stop corrosion as it has no impurities.

[gingerfold]

Didn’t the WW2 RR Merlin engine in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters et al run on 100% Glycol coolant?

[zb_anorak]

gingerfold:
Didn’t the WW2 RR Merlin engine in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters et al run on 100% Glycol coolant?

There you go chaps, a proper diagram. The optimum mixture for antifreeze is 65% ethylene glycol by volume. For raising the boiling point, use 100%. Presumably the aeroplanes had a smaller-than-ideal cooling system capacity (maybe to save weight?), so they needed to have as high a boiling point as possible.

NB The curves are at 1 bar, assumed absolute pressure. At 2 bar absolute (typical radiator cap at about 1 bar gauge), it may be different of course!

That’s enough schoolboy physics for one morning. I’m off to do something useless.

[carryfast]

[zb]
anorak:
Presumably the aeroplanes had a smaller-than-ideal cooling system capacity (maybe to save weight?), so they needed to have as high a boiling point as possible.

It wasn’t the cooling ‘system’ capacity it was the radiator capacity because they operated mainly in very cold air temperatures so even the relatively small rad they had needed a shutter on it to stop overcooling of the engine.But idling on the ground for even short periods could be lethal to the engine because of the small rad.As those immortal words of Micael Caine in the film Battle Of Britain rightly showed.

youtube.com/watch?v=Fu38XSMwGPs 0.0-0.26

[valkyrie]

[zb]
anorak:

gingerfold:
Didn’t the WW2 RR Merlin engine in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters et al run on 100% Glycol coolant?

0
There you go chaps, a proper diagram. The optimum mixture for antifreeze is 65% ethylene glycol by volume. For raising the boiling point, use 100%. Presumably the aeroplanes had a smaller-than-ideal cooling system capacity (maybe to save weight?), so they needed to have as high a boiling point as possible.

NB The curves are at 1 bar, assumed absolute pressure. At 2 bar absolute (typical radiator cap at about 1 bar gauge), it may be different of course!

That’s enough schoolboy physics for one morning. I’m off to do something useless.

The Cooling of Rolls-Royce Piston Aeroplane Engines.

Rolls-Royce Kestral-F had a pressurised water cooled system that maintained the boiling point of 150 *C altitude. From 1926.

Rolls-Royce R, that powered the famous series of Supermarine S-Series Schneider Trophy winning Aeroplanes,was watercooled,but the Supermarine S6 was known as the Flying Radiator on account of it’s large cooling surfaces for the radiator. From 1929.

Rolls-Royce Goshawk and a special Kestral-F had steam-evaporative-condenser cooling systems. From 1933.

Rolls-Royce Vulture X24 had a 70%/30% water/glycol cooling system.From 1937.

Rolls-Royce Merlin:-PV-12,Merlin B,Merlin C,Merlin E,Merlin F - Merlin I ,Merlin G - Merlin II had 100% glycol cooling systems.From 1933.

Rolls-Royce Merlin XII,Merlin ■■, Merlin 28,Merlin 32,Merlin 45,Merlin 47,Merlin 50.M,Merlin 61,Merlin 63,Merlin 66,Merlin 76/77,Merlin 130/131,Merlin 133/134,Merlin 266,Merlin 620 all had 70%/30% water/glycol cooling systems.From 1939.

Packard Merlin V-1650-1.
V-1650-3.
V-1650-5 Experimental.
V-1650-7.
V-1650-9.
V-1650-9A.
V-1650-11.
V-1650-21.
V-1650-23.
V-1650-25.
All the above American Packard Motor Car Company-built versions of the Rolls-Royce Merlin Aeroplane Engine had 70%/30% water/glycol cooling systems.From 1941.

Rolls-Royce Griffon:All fifty variants of this aeroplane engine had 70%/30% water/glycol cooling systems.From 1939.

Most if not all of the above aeroplane engines had somewhat special exhaust valves:The early engines had salt cooled exhaust valves,and the later engines had sodium cooled exhaust valves,and in each case the cooling material resided in the stems of these valves.
Other aeroplane piston engine manufacturers also employed salt and sodium cooled exhaust valves,and sodium cooled exhaust valves are still used in certain modern engines,including some engines in certain Audi motorcars.And water/glycol is used in modern piston aeroplane engines.

Rolls-Royce also built aircooled piston aeroplane engines.

VALKYRIE.

[5valve]

Saviem, Bonjour Matelot! (That’s the marine bit out of the way)

Regarding your comments about Bus Engineers capabilities I would suggest you are definitely on the money.

I could go on ad infinitum, regarding Gardner’s bus/coach business vs the truck, marine and loco business, should you so wish, but, this is a truck based forum.

Suffice it to say that as a basic example, LTE (London) in the mid 80’s operated 2800 6LXB’s out of a total fleet of approx 5500 buses. As Bewick, and, anyone who has had to put their money where their mouth is concerned, fuelling up a run out of circa 5000 vehicles wonderfully concentrates the mind of the incumbent who has to pay the bill, day in, day out! Any additional positive features like better fuel cons, lighter engine weight, longer engine life, cheaper parts costs, lower driveline costs and greater end of life vehicle value made the decision even easier to go Gardner.

Bus engineers have “Costs” down to a fine art, purely because their fleet sizes are so great, and, deriving the optimum efficiencies for absolutely anything peripheral to operating a bus pays dividends for the bottom line.

My new Hip ball joint needs a lie down, I can only sit up for an hour at a time, so I’ll leave you all in peace!

[gingerfold]

There were several Gardner powered (6LXB) double deckers operating in Las Vegas when I was there last September. Came as quite a shock to hear that distinctive Gardner sound. Don’t know what the Yanks made of the Gardner engine but they seemed to operate without problem in temperatures exceeding 38 degrees centigrade.

[zb_anorak]

Carryfast:
It wasn’t the cooling ‘system’ capacity it was the radiator capacity because they operated mainly in very cold air temperatures so even the relatively small rad they had needed a shutter on it to stop overcooling of the engine.But idling on the ground for even short periods could be lethal to the engine because of the small rad.

Is this why they had such a large fan?

[trev_h]

[zb]
anorak:

Carryfast:
It wasn’t the cooling ‘system’ capacity it was the radiator capacity because they operated mainly in very cold air temperatures so even the relatively small rad they had needed a shutter on it to stop overcooling of the engine.But idling on the ground for even short periods could be lethal to the engine because of the small rad.

Is this why they had such a large fan?

Yes , Don’t switch the fan off !!!

I think the raised pressure played a big part at altitude as a bullet in the cooling system and loss of pressure brought an instant boil to the cooling and certain engine failure.

[cav551]

Funny stuff Ethylene Glycol. It has three effects on the cooling system if mixed with water.

It raises the boiling point.
It lowers the freezing point.
It alters the heat transfer ability of the coolant.

It cannot achieve its best ability for all three at the same temperature.

[retired_old_fart]

[zb]
anorak:

Carryfast:
It wasn’t the cooling ‘system’ capacity it was the radiator capacity because they operated mainly in very cold air temperatures so even the relatively small rad they had needed a shutter on it to stop overcooling of the engine.But idling on the ground for even short periods could be lethal to the engine because of the small rad.

Is this why they had such a large fan?

Fell about laughing at that one, matey! Don’t you find that the simplest jokes make you laugh most? Maybe it’s an “age” thing.