Hello Gents, We have a 330D on site here, its showing a high temp alarm as of a few days ago. We've replaced the temp senor, We'll run it for 30mins or so and the temp climbs into the red. We're cleaned the radiator. We've not replaced the water pump, so I'll need to look at this, but it will be two weeks before it arrives on site. You can remove the coolant cap after 30 mins of hard work with the alarm on and it doesn't react like an engine which is boiling over... no third degree burns.... It kicks out a little coolant, but no more than I would normally expect. In the mean time is there anything else you'd recommended checking ?
Caterpillar made around 50 versions of the 330d excavator, a serial number with the prefix would go along way for troubleshooting purposes. Look for it on the exterior of the operator's station in front of where the boom is mounted. If the plate is no longer legible then try pulling an engine SN off the top of the valve cover. Thanks!
Vin plate attached, Many thanks for the reply
This excavator has a demand-controlled fan on it, so the problem could be nothing more than a fan that's not receiving the required signal to speed up..? Attached the testing procedure. Next point - It's kind of a recurring theme over the years on these excavators. The only guaranteed way to clean the radiator is to pull the whole cooling package out of the machine and split it - external cleaning and pressure washing won't cut it. Once that's been done the next thing is to turn your attention to all the sponge strips that are supposed to surround the radaitor and "plug all the holes" so that the fan blows air through the cooling package rather than round it. I wouldn't recommend doing this until you have verified the fan speed. Once you've ticked all those boxes, move on to the fan drive and water pump. I would say the fan speed test ought to throw up something interesting. Do you have an infra-red thermometer available that you could use to shoot the temperature of the top radiator hose (from the thermostat housing to the radiator) and the bottom hose (return to block)..? If so run the machine, see what temps you measure, and post back.
If it is a demand cooling system the hydraulic oil cooler will be mounted just behind the cab and the radiator and intercooler will be in the normal position. Nothing to split as I recall. One item I always argued with the trainer about was the differential pressures between the load sensing line and the pump outlet. He kept saying it never needed to be checked according to the trainers at Cat. I allowed that I hadn't seen any load sensing system that didn't need to be checked at some time, especially when there were heating problems on the machine.
Gents many thanks, I've check the speed sensor and its damaged, the sponge strips are also pretty much non existent now, so we've replaced these. I hope we'll have a replacement speed sensor on site with in the next 2 weeks, we'll fit this and then re check. I will check temp with the gun and let you know - at the time a checked by hand and both the top and lower hose's seamed to be at the same Temp - thanks again, have a good weekend.
Thanks for the update. Be sure to let us know how it all turns out with a replacement sensor.
FYI the temp difference between top hose and bottom ought to be somewhere around 10 DegC if the radiator is cooling as it should.
Hello gents, apologies for not getting back to you sooner - fitted the new speed sensor yesterday and so far so good. We worked this machines for 2 hours yesterday and the temp didn't rise above normal. Fingers crossed this has resolved the issue - thank you for the help on this.