Well here's my problem, I recently had my grader looked at for a miss fire, thinking it was an injector. I got a field tech out to have them changed, after plugging in the laptop figured out 5-6 and something funny in cylinder 4. After opening the cover off 5-6, I had a few loose piece on top, bent push tube on the machine, the tech showed me where the rollers on the cam shaft were bad, possibly grooving out the shaft, couldn't tell for sure it was a pretty tight stare down there. Now the head of it has to come off and be repaired. The grader is an 01 with a rebuilt motor 400 hrs on it. I also had an oil sample done at 350 hrs, it came back, all good. No metal fillings. My questions... What could have caused this? Untighten valve? Bad products when rebuilt or they did a crappy job doing it? When going in to fight about this massive bill is there anything I should ask, as to what was done to the grader that mechanically failed. Any help would be a great help. Thanks in advance. Kidd.
Its hard to say what cause the failure without removing the head and inspecting the engine. Maybe something came loose and the push rod fell out and got snagged then bent. or did the valve contact the piston. Whatever happened it shouldn't have. How long ago was it rebuilt? Was it rebuilt, short blocked, patched? What prefix is the 140h?
the model is a 3176, japm. The motor has about 1100 hours since major rebuilt. I've bought it and put 400 of thoughs hours on, rest was on rentals from them. The motor was striped and gone right through, they claim it's is a " **new motor**" by there add, it's what got my attention, that and rebuilt diffs and transmission.
I haven't worked on one of these engines before but does it have four valve heads? Is it possible one of the valve bridge lock nuts weren't torqued after setting the valves? Are there any dropped valves? I have also seen soft cams. Whatever went wrong, the builder is on the hook ethically and most likely legally. Good Luck!
Cam Lobes are made of Plasticine........ Wear Pads on the Rockers are made of Butter! You will see more in a a Filter Cut with a Loupe than you will in Oil Analysis.
When you say "they" - was the motor rebuilt by a Cat dealer..? If it was rebuilt by a dealer and they used genuine Cat new or Reman parts there will be a warranty relating to the parts from Cat. If it wasn't rebuilt by a dealer, did whoever rebuilt the engine use Cat parts or did they use "will fit" replacements..? Do you have a list of the parts that were fitted during the rebuild, or indeed any paperwork relating to the rebuild..? Post the Serial Number of the machine and the engine and I'll tell you straight away if the engine is the original one from the machine or one that has been installed at some later date.
The motor was rebuilt by a John deere dealership, bought one of the 15 graders traded off for John Deere grader. Yes I do have the paper work of the parts they put into the grader, and there were straight from finning, not jobber parts. It's definilty a rebuild, with them claiming it's " new motor" by there add, most likely do to them doing the bottom and top ends of the motor.
Offer still stands. Either post here, PM me, or e-mail me at nigel_994 at manx dot net - I'm sure you can figure that address out. I'll tell you the engine's history straight off. Was it dyno tested when it was rebuilt by the way..? Sounds like it needs a million photos of all the bent iron (especially anything that's broke like valves and bridges) and a good failure analysis to get to the root cause of what failed first. When the head comes off take photos of the #4 piston and also all the others. Often the key to detecting what failed is not the cylinder that failed but one of the others.