I have been trying to pin point the cause of oil in the radiator on a Case 580D ackhoe. I drained the oil and did a pressure test on the radiator with 15 PSI. The pressure dropped 1 PSI in 4 minutes. With the radiator under pressure I got a few drops off coolant and oil mix out of the drain plug. Since there is oil in the radiator, and coolant in the oil I think it is a blown head gasket. The only other possibilities is liners, liner o-rings, oil filter heat exchanger, crack head or block. If it was liner related then I think it would only be coolant in the oil, correct? What are the odds that the oil filter heat exchanger is cracked? Overall, the mixing leads me to think the head gasket is blown / warped head-block. Does this sound right?
A head gasket will put water in the oil but not oil in the coolant radiator. Thats probably a heat exchanger or some cover that has both water and oil passages.
A naturally aspirated 207 engine will not have an oil cooler, I think only turbo models have them. Drop the oil pan & lift the tappet cover & do the pressure test again & try to see where coolant is coming from, could be corroded timing cover as well.
I would agree with alrman, but pull the valve cover first and hand pump it to check the freeze plugs, then drop the oil pan and check real good, may need to turn the crank to get a good look at the liners also, note if you pull the rocker arms one bolt has the oil passage hole drilled in it so note where it went. The good news your ahead of most (you have the hand pump) you may find both a liner issue and head gasket with the oil in rad and anti dripping from the drain plug. Their were some super d's that had the turbo and oil cooler here and that is a mix area to, does yours have the oil cooler?
Make sure to check the cup/freeze plugs in the top of the head. First time was one of those. Second time was Liner Orings. Mine doesn't have the oil cooler so I'm no help there.
I think even the naturaly aspirated hand an intercooler even if it didn't have the external oil cooler.
Intercooler on a 580D ????? Turbo 580D's never made it to our shores - so I'm no expert, I could be wrong, but I find it highly unlikely. I have never seen one on a N/A model for sure. Here's a pic of engine oil cooler - turbo model If this had a leak - the rad would have ALOT of engine oil in it & not much coolant would make it to the sump.
All of you were thinking along the same line I was. The engine is a 207D turbo model and is a rebuild with only 500 hrs on it and sat for about 5 yrs not running. I don't know the history of the rebuild though. I bypassed the oil cooler / heat exchanger that the oil filter attaches to. I then applied 15 PSI to the radiator cap via the hand pump. The oil pan was empty and drain plug was out. Within a minute antifreeze started dripping out of the oil drain plug hole. I don't see how it could be a liner o-ring since I have both oil in radiator and coolant in oil. I would think only coolant in oil would happen in this case. How would oil be pumped into the radiator through the liner o-rings? Is the only freeze plug that could allow oil & coolant to mix under the valve cover on the head? What I did notice is that it seems to mix the oil & coolant a lot more once warmed up. The both ways mixing leads me to think it is a head gasket problem and not a liner problem. The oil cooler has already been ruled out by today's test. I was going to just order a top end gasket set and pull the valve cover and head. Do you think it is worth pulling the pan first? The only thing I feel I would gain from that is ruling out a liner, but I don't see how a liner would cause oil in the radiator when the crankcase pressure should be lower than the water pressure. Thank you for the replies. I just got them tonight and all of them make sense. I put fresh oil in it because I was worried the antifreeze would destroy the bearing lead-tin lining. I am going to do the following tomorrow. 1) pull the valve cover and check the freeze plug. Are there other freeze plugs to check? 2) Would it make sense to pull the exhaust manifold, disconnect the injectors, pump the radiator to 15PSI, turn it over to see if it pushes a tiny bit of coolant out of the exhaust ports. 3) Pull the pan, or try something else first? Forgot to add, no intercooler on this 580D turbo. Direct piping from air cleaner to compressor. No external oil cooler either. Also, the machine is not down on power at all. It is much stronger than the 580E with Cummins that I have run. Turbo spools up just fine. It makes me think it could be the timing cover. Where inside the timing cover would it allow water & coolant to mix?
mistake post
Why would a blown head gasket only put water in the oil? Are the oil passages far enough away from the water passages so that this couldn't happen? It seems to put more oil in the radiator when coming up to operating temperature.
Oil goes to the head at the rear of #4 cylinder,their is a water passage close to the oil passage, (oil pressure 50 to 70 hot) and compression at 400-480 running, might also torque the head again, bolts 105-115 ft pounds/ nuts 95-105 ft pounds while your under the valve cover, the coolent system radiator is 7 psi so it does not take much of a leak to put oil in the radiator, but I alway's pull the pan to check the lower end before i remove the head to make sure there is no liners leaking rather than finding later their is also a leak there to. This machine was made around 1980 it's 32 yrs old and could have needed the lower champfer sleeved at the rebuild but only recieved a cleaning and greased orings at the time! thats why you should pull the pan! with no history, been sitting 5+years, if you pull the head it can be checked at a machine shop. Oil pan gaskets are cheap compared to pulling the head twice. Also there is three freeze plugs under the valve cover.
I had thought about it some more last night and you guys are right. I am going to pull the valve cover and check the freeze plugs. If that is fine then I am dropping the pan to see where the coolant is coming from. I thought about getting one of those tiny remote camera things to stick in the oil hole to look around. I don't know anyone that has one so I am going to drop the pan. I might try pulling the front fuel pump gear cover so see if I can get a look in there. I did look at the diagram of the block and timing cover. I see what you guys are talking about with the possible leak there. It looks like the lower heater hose has a port there and would leak internally if corroded. The only thing I don't understand is how oil can get into the water through a liner o-ring or the front timing cover. The oil pressure would have to be greater than 7 PSI. It seems like the oil in the water gets worse as the machine warms up.
Pressure oil is going in rad.but with that said the when you shut it off hot or you start pumping the rad has more pressure and same leak will go the other way ,i know this dosent find the leak but hope it helps. find oil in rad. problem first .Try put air in oil sending unit port see if she bubbles in rad. Good Luck
You will not get oil in the water threw the liner orings, the check is to address the anti under presure that you see dripping out of the drain plug, you still may have a crack in a oil passage in the block or head that could allow the mix to happen. There is a lot of area in the block behind the liners to have oil enter the system if it's a low end crack also. I hope that you can fix it with just a head gasket, keep us updated.
I got some help today taking it apart and we made great progress. A big thanks to all of you that have been helping. Here is what was on the agenda today. First was pulling the valve cover. Then pump radiator to 10 PSI. No leaks at the freeze plugs. Next was checking the head bolts. All were torqued properly. The decision now was to pull the oil pan or pull the fuel injection pump cover to look for a leak at the timing cover. I opted to pull the oil pan because I would end up there either way. After draining the oil I pulled the oil pan. Then pumped the radiator to 10 PSI. BINGO! Coolant started running down from the second liner from the front. It was coming down between the piston skirt and liner. Off came the head. We were now confused because we expected a mark where the water was entering the cylinder on the top of the liner and/or head gasket. There was nothing. It looked perfect on the liner, head, head gasket. So we looked at the head for a crack. There was nothing. The odd thing was there was no coolant in the piston dish. The chamber area looked perfect. So out came the rod & piston. Still nothing. The liner looked perfect as we scanned for a crack in it. I was lucky enough to know someone with a lathe and they cut me a piece of alum to pull the liner. As the liner was about to be pulled we noticed a slight leak of coolant coming through the liner about 3/4 down the liner. At last, the problem was found. We thought it was a cracked liner. With the liner out the problem was apparent. It had three rust pits on the coolant side and one was all the way through the liner. That is how the both way mixing occurred. You guys were right. With the engine running it would push oil and combustion into the radiator. When shut down it would leak coolant into the oil pan. I found a Reliance liner kit someone had sitting on a shelf. The block looked perfect where the o-rings sit. We cleaned up the area and set the new liner in at the proper height. I couldn't find a head gasket. Tomorrow I am going to pick up a head gasket and new rod bearing along with the other gaskets I need. I am hoping the Case dealer will be open with the Holiday and all. Overall, the 5+ years it sat caused the problem, or maybe it was just a poorly made liner. All three pits were 1/4" next to each other. What do you think? Poorly made liner? Overall, it was a good day. The leak was found. If we get the head gasket tomorrow, the plan is to install just the head and put 10 PSI in the radiator to make sure the o-rings are seated properly. Then assemble everything else and install the oil pan.
Good work turbotech! Does piston look like it has been hot? If I were doing the job all 4 liners would be out & all be checked, chances are one or two others will be in simlar condition & job will have to soon be done again. After market rebuild kits are readily available - all depends on owners budget I guess.......
The piston looks perfect. Like brand new. The engine was said to have about 500 hrs before being parked. Since it hadn't been run in a while I kept checking the oil & radiator very often. I caught the mixing early on so no damage was done to the piston. We talked about doing all 4 liners. You don't think it was a defect in the liner metal when it was poured? I planned on picking up a set of o-rings for each liner tomorrow. At a minimum they will get pulled because it is so easy to do with the liner remover tool. I tried posting a picture but they are too big. I am not that great with pictures and stuff. I need to figure out how to make it smaller. It basically looks like a big bushing driver on the top & bottom of the liner with a 1/2" threaded rod. The bottom alum tool is not round, but has two sides flat to fit down the bore and then clear the camshaft. Once installed you just jack out the liner using a nut on the 1/2" rod.
Defect in the liner...... Who would really know? - but then you are the one looking at it..... Usually there is some type of damage to the block - that is unusual. Description of what you found on the liner does sound similar to what I have seen in the past.
A picture of the liner and the liner removal tool. The 3 bad pits are slightly above the upper o-ring. Note the lower o-ring has a crack in it.
liner tool
True, the liner does not look that old, alot of factors to consider, the amount of time hoe spent in storage the condition of coolant/inhibitor the type of water that possibly has been used in it - acidity etc As far as you can see, what do #1 & #3 liners look like? I think I'd still pull all four - Know they are all OK & look after the coolant quality from now on.......
I would agree with alrman to pull the other three up, while you are in it, you will find the same thing on all of them, the coolant/inhibitor did not cloud the lines well.
The interesting thing about the damaged liner is that there is a 1.5" wide strip that runs all the way up/down on that liner where it rusted. You can see it in the picture. It is shinier than the rest of the liner. It is like that portion was not coated properly when manufactured. The other liners look excellent. After I flush the cooling system I am going to put in Prestone antifreeze and distilled water (not tap water). I do think the time timing sitting had a lot to do with this liner failure. I always use Prestone antifreeze and replace with new every couple of years and run quality oil in my vehicles so I will do the same with the tractor. My vehicles have turbo kits on them which is hard on oil so I have to replace oil often. I was happy to find out it was the liner and not the block. It is amazing how well the block looks. There is no rust or pitting on it at all in the o-ring area. I was hoping I could get the parts to assemble it today but all the shops are closed for the Holiday. ------- The next thing to fix is the kingpins in the front end. Both kingpins & bearings had been replaced at one point. It looks like they didn't put the o-rings in on the end caps and water got in there. The right side has lost all of the lower needle bearings with the little bit of time I ran it before the liner problem. It was all rust in the bearing so it destroyed itself pretty quick. I have access to a used front axle so I am going to install that. I plan on disassembling the bad axle and installed new kingpin kits. I need to check the axle king pin bores for roundness and may need to set it up on the Bridgeport mill to repair it. I looked up new weld-on axle ends and they are $300 each plus $100 for the king pin kits. I would rather bore and sleeve it because I could use the $600 for the weld-on ends to buy the tooling for the Bridgeport instead. Playing with the Bridgeport is a lot more fun than playing with the ARC welder. The weld-on ends are cast and the axle is steel so would have $50 in nickel & 1018 rod to weld on the new ends. I always pre-heat and post-cool when welding cast so it would be a project just to set up the heating & slow cooling environment for the weld-on ends.
I started cleaning up what I thought was light rust on the other three liners. As I dug into the rust I found it is worse than I thought. All 4 liners are bad. The pistons are perfect since it didn't run long with the bad liners. It needs all 4 liners replaced. They all rotted in the same spot that faced toward the camshaft side of the engine. You guys were right. If one is bad then check them all. Luckily, the block is perfect when checked after cleaning the o-ring area.
If all four are similar and the damage is on the camshaft side, it has been caused by "cavitation". Poor coolant with depleted inhibitors is the most likely cause. A lot of engines are famous for it. 855 Cummins comes to mind. I would be utterly amazed if there were really only 500 hrs on that engine. Was it just a re-ring job 500 hrs back maybe? http://www.advantageengineparts.com/pdfs/CavitationErosion.pdf You should be able to pick up an inframe kit with all liners, pistons, etc. for a decent price. Google should come up with lots of options.
That is an interesting article. I found out the history of the engine. The tractor sat for 12 years after the engine was put in it. The pistons have zero scuff marks in them. The head has a fresh valve job. The bearings are like new and are cut .010" / .010". The hone marks in the cyl look just like the new liner. The measured bore diameter shows that the liners that were in it were brand new. Overall, it looks to have low hours. I think it was just poor water, poor coolant, and the amount of time it did not run that caused the problem. The water is very hard around here so that is likely the cause along with sitting so long. It is getting distilled water this time along with some SCA type antifreeze.
I'm sure you don't need one now, but I got a "deal of the day" email from Amazon this morning about this. http://www.milwaukeetool.com/tools/...lithium-ion-digital-inspection-camera/2310-21 This is not the Amazon link, as it was for a kit for the unit plus a drill driver for $143.99. I wonder if any of you has tried one of these tube camera deals. I can't tell for sure if it has a light for dark places. If it would work there might be several uses for a camera like this, IF it actually take pictures. I see no mention of an SD card..? Amazon calls it a 2310 M-Spector.
Agree with you completely that if hard water was mixed with anti-freeze it could have given the symtoms you experienced, especially after it sat so long. I would personally use a pre-mixed low-silicate coolant, then you don't have to worry about the SCA recharge every few months. Plus it protects things like liners against cavitation even better than a conventional glycol coolant. In the long run it works out much cheaper.
Thank you for posting the link. I will take a look. In this case it was the camshaft side of liner #2. I am not sure that I would have saw the leaking between the piston skirt and liner with the camera. Dropping the pan was easy and the gasket is cheap, but I know I will want that camera again someday for another project I come across.
It is also highly likely that the antifreeze that was put in it with the new engine was used. I think their shop has a drum of used antifreeze that they keep from engine changes. I am going to put in Prestone Heavy Duty that has an initial SCA charge in it along with distilled water. It is too bad this engine had to come apart. Everything looks brand new except for the liners. The turbo is tight and the injection pump was rebuilt. The parts should be in by Friday so it may be running again by the end of the weekend. We are working outside and it is supposed to be 45* F on Saturday, and today it is 10* F. I really hope that parts are in on Friday.
I called VIP Auto that is listed as a seller of the Prestone Heavy Duty antifreeze. Of course, they never heard of it. I decided to just go with regular Prestone antifreeze / distilled water, and add NAPA Kool 4056 treatment. The NAPA stuff is DCA2. The machine takes 3.5 gallons of coolant and the NAPA bottle says add 1 pint to 4 gallons. Thanks for the coolant info. I never knew about cavitation erosion in them and how important the coolant is.
If there is a John Deere dealer near you they could supply you with some low-silicate coolant like Nige is recommending. I suppose 12 years is a long time for nasty coolant to do its work. What caught my eye was the pitting on the thrust side of the liner; a sure sign of cavitation to get those pits off to a good start. It's a real shame when something easily preventable takes out a good engine like that. At least the block survived.
The Prestone Extended life FAQS page http://www.prestone.com/learn_more/frequently_asked_questions says the following: "Prestone® Antifreeze/Coolant is completely safe for use in both foreign and domestic vehicles. For those consumers who would feel more comfortable using a phosphate-free antifreeze, our Prestone® Extended Life 50/50 Antifreeze/Coolant is phosphate, silicate, and borate free." I can get the non-mixed Prestone for $10 per gallon and the NAPA 4056 is $11 so it would be about $33 total. I called a local diesel shop and they have low silicate 50/50 with SCA for $13 each so it would be 4*13 = $52. The cost really doesn't concern me. Which is the better stuff? I was really surprised when I saw the oil/combustion start to form in the radiator after running the tractor a short time. I know any vehicle that sits usually has sealing problems, tire problems, brake problems. This liner problem was a first for me. I agree that cavitation erosion occurred that started the pits and then the poor coolant sitting did the rest. Overall, I don't mind. I am just really happy to have a tractor for doing work around the house. It is no prize, but with some work over time I can get it back in great condition. I looked up the HP rating was surprised that this turbo 3.1L makes less power than the 580SE and up with the Cummins. I read the 207D makes SAE 55HP, the 207D turbo makes SAE 60HP, and the Cummins 4B makes SAE 63HP. Anyone know how much boost the 207D turbo makes? The power is only 10% more than non-turbo and that works out to less than 2 PSI of boost. Prestone Extended Life Antifreeze specs Base: Ethylene Glycol Concentrate / Ready To Use: Concentrate Freeze Point (Deg): -34 Nitrites: No Phosphates: No Poisonous: Yes Recommended Automotive Application: Cooling System Anti Freeze/Coolant Recommended Dilution Ratio: 50 to 70 % Silicates: No Size: One Gallon Standards: ASTM D-3306, D-4985 Type: Universal/Global Coolant Type: Plastic Bottle
Turbo, check out this thread. Photos look familiar ..? From their web site I would say go with the Prestone Heavy Duty Extended Life 50/50 Prediluted Antifreeze/Coolant http://www.prestone.com/node/418 That's what I would refer to as a "genuine ELC" type coolant as not only is it premixed but it also ticks all the right boxes. I personally wouldn't go for a concentrate. Mobil Delvac 50/50 Premixed Extended Life Coolant is another option. There is a Texaco Product but I am not sure of the name. Another thing to look for in an Extended Life Coolant is the acronym OAT (organic acid technology). A lot of ELC coolants are advertised using that name.
Thank you all for helping with this tractor. The parts came in on Friday and we started at 8:30am Saturday morning installing all new liners and bearings. Cleaning everything was the longest part. We had the liners and rods in around lunch time so we went out for a nice long lunch. We then put the head, rockers, etc on the top end. Stopped for dinner and started again at 8:30pm. By 11pm we fired it up and it ran beautiful. We knew we had to get it done because having a 45* F day like it was doesn't happen very often in January around here. The job was done outside in front of the shop. I put it back in action this morning and checked the oil and coolant every so often. Both are clean as could be.
Always nice to hear the results of a success story ...........
Any chance this pitting was cause by electrolis?(not sure of the spelling)
if the pitting was caused by electrolysis the base of the "pits" are usually a "rainbow" colour. If base of the pits are rusty in appearance then the root cause was good old-fashioned cavitation IMO.
Both the regular Peak and Prestone ELC coolants say low silicate on the back of the bottle. I thought they would still need the SCA recharge. Am I misunderstanding what type of low-silicate coolant you are referring to? The tractor has been running great and both the oil and coolant are nice and clean still.