Maintaining Your Diesel Engine
Proper maintenance of your diesel engine is not only good for your vehicle, or your wallet, but is also good for the environment. It is important that you always put safety first when performing maintenance on any vehicle.
You may already know how to change the oil and air filters and why they are crucial in the regular maintenance of your diesel engine. However, to further increase the life of your engine, you can incorporate some other common processes yourself by following a few simple tips regarding your diesel engine.
Engine & Transmission Tips
- Allow your engine to warm up for at least five minutes before you begin applying a load to your engine.
- When loads are applied to the engine without allowing it to first warm up, engine seizures, premature wear and failures could possibly occur.
- Allow the transmission fluids to warm up before you begin operating in cold temperatures.
- Cold temperatures will increase the viscosity of oils. This could cause delayed oil circulation and cause increased wear.
Precautions for Overheating
While you want your diesel engine to be running at a warm temperature, you do not want it overheating. Should you experience engine overheating, you can try some of the following procedures.
- Stop your vehicle in a safe place and allow the engine to idle without any load.
- Avoid stopping the engine suddenly. You should allow it to run an average of five minutes while under no load, then shut it down.
- Stay away from the vehicle for about thirty minutes to allow the engine to cool down. Allow the steam to stop before doing anything else.
- Do not, under any circumstances, remove the radiator cap while the engine is running, or just after stopping. If you remove the cap, hot coolant will be forced out from the radiator and you could suffer serious burns.
- Only remove the radiator cap after the engine has cooled enough to touch with your bare hands. Loosen the cap to the fist stop and allow the pressure to release slowly before completely removing the cap.
- Determine what repair is required and complete it if you can, then refill the radiator with the correct mixture of coolant antifreeze. Check the temperature of the concentration with a temperature corrected hydrometer.
- Ensure the radiator cap is tightened securely. If the cap is loose, coolant may leak and your engine could overheat again.
- Ensure that you dispose of used coolant-antifreeze mixture in a safe way. It is poisonous to people, wildlife and plants. If you are unsure of the correct methods for disposal, contact your city or county government and question them on proper disposal methods.