par john » 07 Juin 2007, 14:59
Sorry JC, I completely missed this question. Ki-gass is for easy starting as you know and it was fitted originally to some light aircraft engines and still is today. "Ki-Gass" was a fluid that ignited easily for cold starts although Ferguson never said use that, only to use diesel in the Ki-Gass system which would be safer and it will ignite if the Heater works, so the end result is the same. The original TEF 20c engine didn't have any Ki-gass equipment and I suppose when it was on test in various parts of the world they found that it didn't always start like it should. The first engines used a blow lamp into the inlet manifold if it was really cold, this was done through a large blanking plug, of course this isn't really practical and could be dangerous, so they had to find something that was safer which 60 years ago wasn't easy. The TEF is a reasonably good starting engine and just using the cold start button is usually enough, when it does get colder use the heater and if it gets really cold then use the Ki-gass, you shouldn't need to use it each day, very rarely in fact....John