Turbodiesel Suicide

[Miffy964RS]

Here's an interesting phenomenon that I remember a friend telling me about as it happened to him in a turbo-diseasel work van.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmI7Nx026jU

I believe it is caused by turbo bearing failure. The engine then sucks its own engine oil from the turbo oil feed up the inlet manifold and runs flat out on it till all the sump oil is gone and then seizes and/or blows up.

For some reason all the images and references you find for this on the web are for BMWs.

[Mr2Mike]

Not an uncommon failure mode. Even non-turbo diesels can run on their own oil if the bores/rings are worn enough.

[liner33]

We had a forklift truck do it at work, ran until the sump was dry more worrying was the rpm , it just kept going up and up

[That Daddy]

Seen this happen on a VW Golf mk1 1.5Diesel(friends sister),excess crankcase pressure blowing loads of engine oil into the air intake manifold(knackered piston rings/bores)dident know this engine revved to 10k RPM on its ownlondon buses with the Gardner180 motor done this regular,so i am told.

[Mikey-S]

Surprisingly, these can run for a while at max revs before letting go. TIP: Best way to stop one... discharge a CO2 fire extinguisher into the air intake...

[agent006]

Mikey-S said:

Surprisingly, these can run for a while at max revs before letting go. TIP: Best way to stop one... discharge a CO2 fire extinguisher into the air intake...

A block of wood or similar over the end of the intake will have a similar effect.

[That Daddy]

No, throwing the rods out the front of the engine stops things pretty quickly(thats what the Golf did)valve bounce dident get there 1st(doubles)a lack of rapidly diminishing oil dident help matters

[Trooper2]

Commonly referred to as a "runaway". Someone at UTI in Phoenix tried to stop a runaway in the Diesel Lab by putting a Masonite clipboard over the turbo inlet and it sucked a perfect hole the size of the inlet out of the clipboard and just kept running....

[Mikey-S]

Co2 works safely without fail, it just starves the engine of Oxygen. I jumped into a runaway Audi A4 a few years back and was about to stall it, it was then that I found out the car was automatic... nice! I instantly remembered what the Audi training guy in Nottingham told me about the Co2, and it worked a treat... just make sure it's not a water type extingiusher... or it'll go bang bang bang...

[ELAN+2]

I witnessed a huge Leyland (IIRC) engine do this in the back of a bus at a bus depot, the noise and smoke was incredible, the mechanics tried 'feeding it' with a huge lump of rag, it spat the remains out of the exhaust!, it didn't stop till a couple of rods let go and showered lumps of crank case all over the apron area outside the work shop!! Impressive to watch!!

[Pigeon]

Had an AD1 do it... flipped the decompressor with a long pole, that stopped it.

[Howitzer]

If a diesel engine is running away, just walk off, when they let go, they'd easily take your head off with it.

Dave!

[liner33]

Howitzer said:

If a diesel engine is running away, just walk off, when they let go, they'd easily take your head off with it.

Dave!

thats what we did , it would have been a brave person who got near to this forklift

[ridds]

To any not so clever people do NOT use you hand!!!

[That Daddy]

ridds said:

To any not so clever people do NOT use you hand!!!

Why

[qczhao]

Interesting phenomenon.

Why does the revs keep going up and up though? I don't understand that part.

[Holst]

qczhao said:

Interesting phenomenon.

Why does the revs keep going up and up though? I don't understand that part.

If I understand correctly you control the speed of a diesel by altering the fueling.

When it starts burning its own oil it has loads of fuel avalable and will just keep on reving as there isnt anything to stop it.

[That Daddy]

Holst said:

qczhao said:

Interesting phenomenon.

Why does the revs keep going up and up though? I don't understand that part.

If I understand correctly you control the speed of a diesel by altering the fueling.

When it starts burning its own oil it has loads of fuel avalable and will just keep on reving as there isnt anything to stop it.

especially on the older diesels the air intake is open(no throttle butterfly/restriction)more fuel = more revs

[cossiemetro]

look up chalwyn valve they stop that sort of thing happening