Yaivenov wrote:Real_Ale_Act wrote:I saw a diesel with an hydraulic start once. (a Detroit 4-71 on a stand) The reservoir was only about 8"dia by 18", and had a hand lever to pressurize. I didn't think that 4 pulls on the lever would be enough to start the motor, so I pressed the start button. Boy was I wrong! (sometimes it's good to be wrong
This would only work on diesels that are compression started, not those with glows. I'd rig it with a PTO so that it could build up pressure while running for use the next time I started it, but put the hand lever behind the passenger seat so that if it didn't start the first time and used up all the reserve pressure, I wouldn't have to get out of the vehicle to repressurize it. Much better for personal safety that way.
That's pretty slick and sounds like it would work well on my M35A2. It's kinda neat that once running that truck doesn't actually need its electrics to be functional.
Another option that hasn't been mentioned yet is using an air starter on the class 8 trucks. If you have air you have a starter, and most trucks with air start have a separate tank just for the starter.
