Of a Deutz restored to life

19th January 2025

Much time this week in the cold on that poor little minilok.

What can I say about this week? Not as much as I would have liked. I have had two days over in Manchester - Longsight to be precise - making some minor changes to L173. They spoke very highly of the cab heater  ( domestic radiator that runs almost the full width of the cab, under the desk, so keeping the driver warm as well as the electrics within the desk itself) - they had turned it on they said, suspecting it would need something else to augment it to keep drivers happy, and found on the contrary, it warmed the cab and kept it pleasant even in the recent cold weather.

I was coming back fom Manchester on Wednesday night - out past Hayfield, down to Chapel en le Frith, A6 towards Dove Holes then left and up to Sparrowpit, through Peak Forest and past Tideswell and then right to come past Monsal Head. On this last section I came up behind a blue Vauxhall, and as it was maintaining a reasonable pace and there are not many places to overtake, I was content to go at its speed down to Ashford-in-the-Water. Here it signalled to turn right, and I thought I would lose it without any effort on my part, only for it to change its mind and signal left. We both therefore turned left, and at 50 yards further on here is another T junction where we would turn right on to the A6020 and then left on to the A6 again for Bakewell. Except the little Vauxhall turned late, mounted the kerb at the far side and came to rest facing the right way but with its nearside wheels over the edge of a bank and thus leaning at 30 degrees or more. I pulled up and walked back to check the driver was OK. The little old lady driver assured me she was, but she had been blinded by a vehicle behind her. Since that had been me I felt a trifle hurt, though my lights had been dipped.

The real culprit, I felt, had been that some other motorist had previously collided with the signpost opposite the turning, and the reflective left-for-Baslow-right-for-Buxton-and-Bakewell which would have given a better indication of how much space she had to turn in was then flat on the grass. I went over and propped it up. I hung around for half an hour while she got through to a manage-my-breakdown service (she was with neither the AA nor RAC) who took ages to answer and then only provided a list of possible recovery companies. As she lived in Nottingham and was on her way back from Stockport their locations meant nothing, and I pointed her to the nearest.

Several other motorists stopped during this period (most seeming to assume it was either (a) my car or (b) I was some emergency services worker (I had had to put my hivi jacket on as the temperature was about freezing). Finally one stopped who took control of the situation and I was happy to let him, I was too tired to switch into crisis management mode.

Andrew was off Friday and had most of the day clear to do a bit of tidying at the shed. In this case it was to sort some of the pallisade fencing material by converting various untidy palletised stacks into one denser stack on a 4 poster stillage which we had freed up a week ago. I was largely able to leave him to it while I carried on with the wiring alterations on the small minilok. By late in the afternoon I had these virtually complete and I looked at the stillage, now 'full' with pallisade fence posts. I asked him if he realised how much weight there was: as a proportion had been loaded by hand he was inclined to think not all that much, but I suggested it was about 2 tonnes. This became apparent when the forklift wouldn't pick it up. He had to use the crane, whose electronics told him it was 2.9t.

Andrew popped in to the Briddon Country Pile on Saturday morning and it was agreed that I would get batteries on to the minilok and he'd appear in time to be a second set of eyes when I tried to start it. So I dug out a pair of batteries that seemed ok on a tester, set it all up (they were too big for the minilok's battery compartment) and when Andrew arrived, I turned the key and hoped all would be well. The good news, the engine cranked: the bad news, it neither smoked for fired. I checked the feed to the stop solenoid - nothing. I checked the new relay I had inserted and proved that it wasn't my wiring at fault - at least not that bit. The relay closed the circuit when the keyswitch was on.

I texted the Deutz man after Andrew had departed, but getting no response, took the batteries off and set them up inside the shed on a charger. Later in the afternoon, the Deutz man suggested I take the stop solenoid off and try again. It was too close to dark and I was getting a bit cold and despondent, so after another tea I decided it was time to have a bonfire. There was a lot of rubbish to get rid off and the sight of the flames leaping up out of the converted oil drum warmed my old bones and improved my mood.

That evening Andrew came on text and asked if I was OK to show some enthusiasts around on Sunday. He'd agreed the date last year but forgotten about it and was committed to his house-improvement programme. They were due between ten and half past. My phone had been acting a bit quirky so I had rebooted it, and was lazing in a nice warm bed Sunday morning waiting for the alarm which was set on the phone for half-seven. Unbeknown to me, the reboot had left the Android clock program - er, app - corrupted and I eventually realised it was 9.20! Quick breakfast and dash down and I was there poring over drawings of the minilok's electrics, trying to understand (a) technical german and (b) technical german abbreviated and handwritten, when the three visitors arrived.

So I did the usual tour, without the need to keep off the running line, and with the usual anecdotes and an (accepted) cup of tea at the end, occupied about 2 hours, which meant as they left I could merge seemlessly into a lunch break. The stop solenoid on this Deutz mounts vertically on to the block between 2 injectors and once extracted, there was a bar visible underneath but little to indicate its role. Thus the question was, if I got it to start, how could I get it to stop? I dug out an old blanket from the shed, ready to smother the air intake if it became neccessary.

At first it clearly wasn't. I cranked and cranked it but it showed no sign of life. Then occasionaly one pot kicked, then for a second or so two or three others, all the time shaking and shuddering. I decided that it maybe wanted a bit of fuel - you could see fuel in the tank by opening the filler, but the desk gauge showed nothing (but there are a number of wires hanging down, disconnected) so maybe it had been largely drained. I broke off, transferred 20 litres into a drum and contributed it to the minilok. A bit more cranking, several half-hearted tries and finally it ran. Since it seemed to be happy just to idle, with no signs of running out of control, I relaxed a bit and let it do so, clearing the blue-ish smoke from the exhaust.

There are a lot of drips from the spill return connections - that was personally disappointing as I went to it on site years ago and re-made these pipes but I used proper (Deutz) clips not the tie wrap I could see here and there. But how to stop the engine? I peered into the aperture where the stop solenoid sits and saw thet the shaft had a machined groove which stopped at a point under the hole. This had not been visible before, the shaft had perhaps shaken along until the fuel pumps opened sufficiently to get it to run. I probed down with a spanner, pushed the shaft to the right and the engine stopped immediately.

Feeling braver I then pulled it back to the left and on cranking it fired immediately. I wasn't going to get much further that day. There was no charge coming off the alternator (I have a photo I took of it back about 2012 and it has had its wiring altered. What I think is the +ve output wire isn't connected and is far too small a diameter anyway so that wants replacing and a charge fuse adding); half the lights are continuously on (the switches don't have any effect); I could hear numerous air leaks as the compressor tried to charge the system and almost all the indicator lights in the desk have lost their legends so I am not clear which is which. Indeed, one of them ought to be the ECU's 'fault warning' lamp - I have traced it by refrence to cable number but although the bulb appears sound it isn't illuminating, which if the ECU was preventing the stop solenoid from energising it surely ought to be - either that or there's another wiring defect somewhere that's upsetting everything.

I had changed another of the emergency Stop buttons on Saturday and connected the other wire ends together so I ought to have got an OK from the minilok's stop loop circuit but that continues to show red - which makes me wonder if someone disconnected them all in an attempt to identify a wire break. All in all there's a lot to resolve but having it start and run was a substantial boost to morale. I didn't think to check the steering (but it has some guide wheels on the ground so those need lifting out the way before that) but two lights that did work showed the parking brake changing from 'on' to 'off' as hydraulic pressure flowed - and, touch wood, no fresh pools of oil underneath..

Sorry no pictures I have just been too busy to think about getting any. Will try to do better next week. See ya then.