I have an IR SPF-56 roller compactor with a Detroit diesel 4-53. When I bought this unit, seemed to work pretty well for a few hours and then oil started to leak out of well… just about everywhere. I did an oil change and put in Straight SAE 40 Weight oil. Found a few seals that I needed to replace and that fixed some of them. Then I sent the air compressor out for rebuilt due to the extreme amount of oil it was leaking. I also noticed that it was using a lot of oil in a fairly short time. I observed oil leaking from the connection between the exhaust manifold and the block. I took off the valve cover and timed all the exhaust valves. Then I bought the special tool to time the injectors. I ended up noticing that the control rack could use at least one new bushing, so I replaced both. Then I proceeded to adjust the rack and set the timing for the injectors. I pulled off the intake and noticed the rotors or compressor fins on the blower were covered in oil and debris. Ugh. So I sent that in for a rebuild/swap. I noticed a large amount of oil and debris inside the engine intake and I tried to clean that the best I could. Ended up rebuilding the top part of the governor too and setting the low and high idle correctly after all the adjustments. She starts up even on cold days with no issues and seems to run great. However I noticed the oil leaking out of the exhaust manifold again. I have also noticed that when the engine is under load it lets off a hint of white smoke. Not sure what is normal and would love some help and suggestions at this point. Thank you!
Does it use any coolant? If so, pull off the air box covers after sitting, pressure up the cooling system to about 10psi and check for coolant leaking down from above the liner ports
I will check, but it doesn’t seem to use coolant as far as I can tell. It seemed like the debris in the piston towers was all oil based.
Sounds like it could be a stuck piston ring. You can check them by removing the air box covers and looking through the cylinder liner ports. Poke them with a screw driver and the oil ring should “ bounce” back.
Sounds like a detroit. 40weight comes in a barrel for a reason.
If your under 1 gal per 8 hours your fine.
I could be wrong as it's been years since I've worked on these, but I think the 53 series had dry liners unlike the 71 series that had liner o-rings between the coolant jacket and the internals.
IIRC--53's have two seal groves in the block liner bore. The liner from airbox to crankcase is dry. I pretty sure early 53's had a grove at bottom of bore to keep oil from air box then it was omitted. * Big question when was the last time this engine was worked hard--probably slobbering from lack of strain. Got to keep the balls on a Detroit two stroke under strain--veins popping out.
53’s and 92’s had the upper part of the liners above the ports wet. The 71’s were dry
Sorry but you have that backwards! I did many 71's over the years from 4-71 to a good number of 16V-71's.
If you have oil on the blower rotors, then you have leaking rotor shaft seals. Bad leaks from there can flood the airbox and cause oil burning in the combustion chambers. If you only have a single port showing an oil leak, you more than likely have severely worn oil control rings on that cylinder.........or broken ones.
Yeah, I was going on memory, which I admit is very vague since it's been years since I've worked on these engines. Thanks for the correction. But I will say, and my memory is firm on this, I've never been a fan of the 53 series. When running they have no sound, no tone, nothing but noise, whether inline or V configuration, just noise. But the 71 series, the tone they have, two stroke music.
I think the 53's revved higher too. I knew a guy that had 6 P&H excavators with 6V-53's. 2650 RPM and of course he wore a hearing aide. They were the real screamers! He went to Hitachi's, 1750 RPM, a radio in the cab and partially reclining seat.
Yep one of the reasons I often wished I could have made off with the 3-53 gen set the company had, just to annoy a certain neighbor when power went off. Actually was the last Detroit I worked on.
Here are some pictures of the leak… The machine was worked hard(ish) for a few hours and that’s when this showed up. I noticed the smoke is pretty clear until I put it under load. Then it has a slight white amount of smoke. I have zero experience with DDs so I am not sure if this is normal or not.
Hard to tell from that picture but kind of look like the wetness starts at the head to block joint. If it is dry from under the valve cover but the wetness starts at the joint to the block I would be thinking the seal ring around the outer edge of the head is damaged or just dried out from age. Before getting crazy I'd also look real close at the block-off plated where the governor would attach on some versions. Forget if there are just two or maybe four. Always check up hill from where you see wetness and keep in mind air from fan can push oil to places that make the leak is some place it's not. Also if not working hard with good thermostat it could be "wet stacking" and making a mess from a bit of seepage past exhaust manifold gaskets. That little genset I posted above was used for some time just running the block heater on a 3412 genset and looked like someone mixed used oil and fuel oil and dumped a quart of that on the engine once a day. I don't know anything about a roller compactor but seems like a 4-53 is more power than you might need. One thing a Detroit mechanic suggested when one of our quarries had a bad wet stacking problem on a 6V-53 in a IR truck drill due to it never had to work just moving the Drill rig around the quarry. It was to remove the exhaust manifold and install a 1/8 think resistor plate with double gaskets between the manifold and head. He suggested maybe starting with 6-8 1/2 holes per port then add or subtract the number to see what still gave good power but slowed up the wet stacking. Don't recall how that worked out as I seldom got to work at that quarry. If it is smoking black under load add holes to let more air through
Thank you for the great info. I think since I will likely use this machine 10-20 hours a year, I will ignore the problem since it doesn't seem super bad and revisit this later if it is more significant.
We don’t call’m DRIP-TROITS for nuthin..
It would be convenient if you could just pour oil and diesel over the engine and it would leak into engine enough to run and lubricate it.
I see a fire I the future
That picture makes my ears ring!
Before I changed the blower, it went from using a gallon or so of oil for a few hours, down to no noticeable usage. That's why I will call this one a win!
I run Detroits in my American cranes. Over the years you would get a diligent operator that kept the oil level right on the full mark of the stick and the engine would leak and slobber all over to the extent of black rain out the exhaust or chimney fires in the muffler. Keeping the level lower on the stick generally relieved a lot of that. You just need to find the sweet spot on the oil level.
Detroits I always leave half gal low, they seem to last till a change that way if they don't leak.
Between the cylinder head and block there is a neoprene quad rubber ring that sit in a groove all around. The corners are held in place by paper matches with cumbustible broken off and the paper folded in half holding the quad ring tight in the groove. The quad ring will often jump out when lowering the head down if the matches are not used, with a lot of subsequent oil leaking . I have done it this way probably 40 times with zero leaks. Still have a 1985 version Series 53 manual and all the Detroit tools if you know any one who is interested. Simon C
Wow, this is all great info everyone. Thank you!