I am using my Caterpillar 963 to tow a John Deere TWA 12-ft disk harrow. It appears a bit hard and heavy on the machine. This CAT 963 is made in 1989, and its serial 21z0267x. While towing the JD TWA 12-ft disk harrow feeling heavy, the coolant temperature meter seems to keep rising, about 1 hour into towing, the coolant temperature meter levels about 180F or closer to 200F, and I then can start to smell some oily smoke from the exhaust. Looking at the turbocharger, it appears to collect some dark deposits and smoke. I wonder if this is an indication of a bad turbocharger that has failed seal? Any comments and suggestions would be highly appreciated. View attachment 237500 View attachment 237500
Judging by all that soot on the turbo and the alternator in the photo you have a significant exhaust gas leak somewhere. I would suggest that you fix that first because it must be affecting the efficiency of the turbo.
As Nige says. The exhaust leak may be also heating the engine compartment if you have it closed, forcing the excess heat through the radiator, causing the slow climb of the temperature guage. It looks like the turbo oil lines are in the leaky exhaust blast, too--heating or worse yet, coking the oil. I pulled a 14' Case disk last year with a D6, the disk at full angling (max cutting, hardest pull) with a 1500 lb steel weight on the disk to add to the digging force. No problem at all. Seems to me I did it in 2nd. Jon.
Looks like the turbo mounting gasket is blown out the left end, and possibly the oil feed line is leaking where it connects to the turbo.
^ what they said, and per @Nige the efficiency is down so there is excess fuel. That just adds to the soot in the exhaust leak.
And excess fuel will elevate the exhaust temperature. If the engine is run at high load for a while then the coolant temp will surely follow the exhaust temp.
A 60 year old 20,000# crawler or rubber tired tractor would have no problem with that disk, so the disk is not the problem. I don't know how that transmission likes a long pull, or if there might be transmission cooling issues contributing, but that would be with the crawler, that disk is a tiny load for that machine. What RPM are you running at? I don't even know if that's a hydrostat or a torque converter, that would make a difference to the RPM you want.
I believe CAT 963 (built 1989) is hydrostat driven. It does not have RPM indicator. Any idea how I could install one or use some type of Tachometer to measure the RPM while operating?
It is hydrostatic. I believe the best way to run that particular operation pulling the disc harrow would be to run the engine at High Idle and control the ground speed using the transmission F->R control. At High Idle the coolant flow through the engine and the air flow through the radiator should be at maximum, provided everything is working as it should.
You can get an extremely cheap photo tachometer these days, then measure engine RPM at different throttle settings, and that's close enough for this. There are diesel tachometers that you can add, also fairly simple and cheap, you'd want something like that if you were concerned with engine performance under load to be able to see actual RPM while working. I was more concerned that you were running the engine just above idle with a torque converter slipping the whole time, because the engine has more power than needed. Even with the hydrostat, probably want to run near full RPM, at least 3/4 if you're concerned about overheating. But fix the exhaust like everybody said first.
I don't see much dust, but do take the time to blow it out. With the hydrostatic adding heat things get out of hand too.
If it’s leaking round the turbo, eventually the soot will build up in the rad core. I’d start by curing the leak round the turbo and pressure washing the rad, and checking the air filter while you’re about it, as that may be beginning to soot up. Start with the basics before going into panic mode. Are you having to top up the oil? If not you aren’t burning much oil.