wisconsin v4

MF294-4

Member
I have a Wisconsin v4 on a generator. Generator is several years old. It is in a metal cabinet large enough that you can look over the engine. The problem is, it is getting water in the oil. Only two penetrations to the cabinet are the intake and exhaust. Exhaust goes straight up then turns 90 deg to a 3 ft long muffler with a vertical output with a rain cap on it. Intake goes up at an angle to the wet air cleaner outside. Engine is never hydro locked with water on top of a piston. If water is getting on top of the engine, can it get into the crankcase somehow? My last resort is to build a roof over the generator. Thanks for any opinions.
 
How much water are your talking about???? Those old cast iron blocks can gain water through condensation real easily. They stay cold much longer than newer thinner cast blocks. The real new aluminum block follow the ambient temperature much faster so they have little condensation. Also if you not running the generator very often you are not heating the oil up to evaporate the water out either.
 
Look the exhaust and air intake connections over carefully.

Water can track down the outside of the pipe and go inside at a connection, especially exhaust that slips together with the female connection pointing up.

Yes, water getting in the cylinders will get by the rings and into the crankcase.
 
By "wet" air cleaner I assume you mean oil bath? If water was getting in there, you'd know it pretty quickly, as the water would be displacing the oil.

Some years ago I had just bought an AC "C" tractor to run grain auger with. It was corn harvest time, and the tractor sat in the yard hooked to the auger. Somehow, over night we had an unusual deluge. It wasn't predicted, and it didn't wake me. Yet in the morning there were signs of a lot of water. The tractor muffler had been covered. It wouldn't turn over as there was water locking it up. And there was plenty of water in the base! I couldn't believe that much water could work it's way down around the muffler pipe into the manifold. I have to believe it because it happened to me!
 
Those Wisconsin engines are notorious for valves rusting to their guides if the engine sits for a long time.

Condensation is the usual culprit.
 
Some are. Replacement engines only in some cases, a couple of models can be installed in new equipment, like the V465D, now fuel injected.
 
Those engines all can take on water in a number of different ways.They have 4 little valve spring cover plates under the manifolds.The cork gaskets can crack,they won't leak oil,but will let water in.The fuel pump on the rear of the engine,in the valley,can let water in if it has the primer lever on it.The oil fill tube can take water in where it fits into the block.The worst thing about leaving a Wisconsin out in the weather is that water will sit in the angled joint between the head and gasket,and rot the head gasket out.Then people complain about their Bobcat blowing head gaskets every year,it ain't the gaskets,it's the owners.I'll bet I put a couple dozen head gaskets on a Bobcat I owned over 20 or so years.One side or the other was always blowing out.
 
How much water?

Is there any chance its just water condensing in the crankcase from changes in temperature? Lots of tractors have that problem.
 
I have drained about a 3 oz Dixie cup out twice since the first of the year. Power went off the last of the month in 2017 and it didn't start because of a bad battery. I got the battery fixed and started it two or three times and it ran away and shut down. Figured out it had water in the oil and it must have ran sometime and now the governor was frozen. Lucky nothing was hurt. Put the pan heater on and a milk house heater on and got about a pint of water. This was when it was 0 deg. Changed oil and filter. This is a propane engine. I have sprayed wd40 around the intake connections inside the cabinet with it running with no effect. Can't really find any leaks in the exhaust either. We had a 966 pulling tractor and it rained over night and the next day at the pull it would not start from being hydro locked. I don't know how long this engine sets after a rain before I get there but it has never been hydro locked.
 
Did not know water could get in. Friend has one uncovered that sets outside all the time on an old street sweeper truck that twice a week in good weather he uses to sweep mall parking lots, When weather is not fit to sweep it sets out all the time in any rain-snow possible and he has far as I know has never had a problem like that. Just hit the starter and it is running.
 

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