71 Series Air Heater

[Nova Eona]

I was flipping through my enormous 71 series maintenance manual (the one that covers everything up to railcar engines and industrial quad units) and stumbled across an interesting thing I'd never heard of before.  Looks like there was an intake air heater option for cold starts which functioned like a mini oil burner.  I imagine there's a number of reasons why these weren't standard equipment on buses, but it does look cool.  Anyone know more about these?

[richard5933]

The Perkins that spins my Kohler generator has one of those. Makes me nervous every time I use it, but it works great. Didn't know they made one for the 71 series.

[dtcerrato]

Now I'm brainstorming a way to plumb a Chinese diesel air heater into the 671 air intake system for cold start, sounds crazy cause we already have a 2000W block heater & ether injection! I can imagine some 671 extreme arctic condition where that air heater has been a requirement that has been found in the DD service manual has been used...COOL!
I mean really cold... 

[luvrbus]

Those  are common on military 71 engines ,Detroit used the single glow plug on the intake too like Cummins ,then the 8v53 Detroit for the Navy had glow plugs like a lot of diesel engine 1 glow plug for each cylinder in the heads 

[Coach_and_Crown_Guy]

Back in the day when the 220 Cummins was the only Diesel engine available for Crowns, I'm talking the 50's into the early 60's, before the Detroit 6-71's were finally engineered to fit into the Crowns, I remember that all the 220's came equipped with a very similar cold weather starting aid. There was a panel with controls and a small primer pump for injecting fuel into a chamber in the intake manifold where a glow plug lit it off and became a small contained open little fire. I never used it and always thought it was a great way to burn a bus.

But the 220 also came equipped with a compression release lever that was very handy to reach when starting from down below in the engine compartment where Crown provided remote start switches and safety starter cutoffs much like any coach would have. You could manipulate the compression release lever and spin the starter while starting and slowly release the compression release and ease the start in really cold conditions. Adding some magic ether starting fluid also aided the procedure. Living as I do in So Cal this wasn't usually needed except a few times a year around New Years and the Parade, or when we did mountain trips to the snow and all.

The 220's were interesting in their features but not my favorite. I'm a total Detroit fan, but I admit that my Tandem and it's fantastic Cummins 300 hp 855 Big Cam III is working to make a convert out of me. Hard to argue with all that raw power and Torque, very seductive.