Diesel History and Inventors
He is credited with inventing the diesel engine in the late 19th century.
Who is Rudolf Diesel?
This part acts like a high-pressure squirt gun, spraying the diesel fuel directly into the engine cylinder at the exact right moment.
What is a fuel injector?
If you look at the pump at a gas station, the nozzle for diesel fuel is almost always color-coded with this bright color.
What is green?
In fleet maintenance, the abbreviation PMI stands for this proactive process of finding and fixing truck issues before they cause a breakdown.
What is Preventative Maintenance Inspection?
This vital liquid keeps the engine parts lubricated, and it must be changed regularly along with its filter.
What is engine oil?
In 1925, Swiss engineer Alfred Büchi revolutionized diesel performance by introducing this component, which forces extra air into the combustion chamber to boost power.
What is the turbocharger?
This component uses a paper or mesh element to trap dirt, rust, and water before they can reach and damage the expensive fuel injectors.
What is a fuel filter?
This colored fluid keeps the engine from overheating in the summer and freezing up in the winter.
What is coolant (or antifreeze)?
This type of inspection is considered a light inspection.
What is a Type A inspection (or PM-A)?
These heavy metal parts move up and down inside the cylinders to compress the air and capture the power of the explosion.
What are pistons?
Rudolf Diesel designed his engine to be much more efficient than this dominant 19th-century engine type, which powered trains and ships using boiling water.
What is a steam engine?
This heavy-duty pump pushes diesel fuel out of the fuel tank and sends it forward towards the engine.
What is the lift pump (or fuel transfer pump)?
Off-road diesel fuel is distinctively dyed with this color to show that highway taxes have not been paid on it.
What is red?
This simple tool is inserted directly into the oil tube to visually check if the engine oil level is full or low.
What is a dipstick?
These metal gates open and close at the top of the cylinder to let fresh air into the engine and let burnt exhaust gases out.
What are valves (or intake and exhaust valves)?
This massive American engine manufacturer, famous for heavy-duty truck engines, was founded by Clessie Cummins in Indiana in 1919.
What is Cummins?
These flexible lines carry unused, extra fuel away from the injectors and send it right back into the fuel tank.
What are return lines?
This fluid is often abbreviated as DEF, and is injected into the exhaust stream of modern diesel trucks to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.
What is Diesel Exhaust Fluid?
This safest part must be checked for minimum thickness during a PMI to ensure the truck can stop safely.
What are brake pads (or brake shoes/ linings)?
Unlike gasoline engines that use spark plugs, diesel engines rely on this method to ignite the air-fuel mixture.
What is compression (or heat of compression)?
The first diesel engines were originally designed to run on alternative sources, including coal dust and this plant/animal product.
What is vegetable oil (or animal fat)?
Modern high-pressure diesel injection systems share one single, continuous high-pressure tube that feeds all the injectors, known by this "shared" name.
What is a common rail?
When a DPF filter fills up with trapped soot, the engine initiates this high-heat process to bake the soot down to tiny amounts of harmless ash.
What is regeneration (or regen)?
Technicians check these rubber bands on the front of the engine for cracks or fraying because if one snaps, the alternator and water pump will stop working.
What are belts (or serpentine belts/ drive belts)?
This component inside a diesel engine converts the linear, reciprocating motion of the pistons into rotational motion.
What is the crankshaft?