Hey guys! I recently bought this '11 D5k2 with about 3,400 hours on it. Recently it has been smelling like coolant and I think I found out why (see photos). I can't tell for sure if the leak is between upper tank and radiator or if it might be leaking from the upper radiator hose at the tank bung. My plan is to replace the upper hoses and clamps to see if this takes care of the leak (I hope it does!). My old 416C tlb had a common leak that would be at the upper hose/thermostat junction. Is this a common issue for the D5k2? If it turns out to be radiator, how hard is it to remove so I can try to have it repaired? S/N: www 01390 Thanks!
I would say try double-clamping the hose at your photo location as a first step using the same type of constant-torque clamp. The second clamp needs to be at 180 deg from the frist, in other words with the bolt at the bottom. Clamp P/N is 214-7457. Have you tried tightening the existing clamp yet.?
Isn’t there an expansion tank right above that hose on those? Highly known for cracking around the bottom bolt holes due to excessive vibration on the D5K dozers. According to the given serial number, this is a D5K XL, the D5K2 machines had an updated bracket for extra support for the coolant tank. Not sure if it’s adaptable to the older machines or not
You mean this one.? And yes the expansion tank iis right above where that damp patch is.
Thanks guys! The tank in the service bulletin doesn't look familiar to me. In fact, the pictures don't show the hose routing that I see in the bulletin either. I'll be near that dozer tomorrow. I'll take a look and see if it's there, and check the clamp while I'm at it. If that's the source of the leak I'll replace the tank and see if my fabricator can build the bracket from the bulletin. He's supposed to come out Friday anyway to make some window guards for the new 325.
Here is a better photo showing hose routing.
You guys are correct....That does look like the catch tank that is on my dozer. I was confused by the hose routing. The hoses in my photo do not go to the tank. They go to the engine. As it relates to the tank leaking, that is not the issue. The tank does not have the indicated service bulletin upgrade, yet the tank is not leaking coolant. It looks to be in fine shape. More on that below. The original clamp is tight, yet we installed another one closer to the tank of the radiator. While clamping we noticed that coolant was forced out of the hose/nipple interface. This leads me back to my original assessment...that the leak is from the upper hose. We did this work at the end of the day so I haven't determined whether, or not, the leak has been resolved with just the addition of the second clamp. Regardless of this, I am of the mind to replace the hose as well. It will, at least, give me better peace of mind. As we most likely all know, choosing when to make a repair is usually better than repairing it when you have to (which is often after component failure). The cost of the new hose is easily worth it (to me anyway) to have my confidence restored in the reliability of the machine. As it relates to the catch tank mounting design (the "more on that later" part), do the newer D5s come with this modification as standard (can one now buy the part shown in the bulletin from CAT)?....Or does one still have to make the part? I would guess that another possible option would be that CAT has a new design, and if so, would it be better still just to go with the newer design?
Just FYI. The OEM 330-5410 Part Number of the large hose is an assembly with insulation on it, not just a plain common-or-garden coolant hose.
At one time you could order the update bracket but it is no longer available and must be fabricated.
Thanks for the information! Item #1 is the suspect hose. I intend to purchase it at CAT. The hose in my picture does not appear to have any insulation (that I can see anyway) on it. I've taken a picture of your post and will be sure to take it with me when ordering in order to aid my parts gal in getting me the correct parts. Do you have any comments regarding the tank mounting?
It seems weird but apparently there is no newer design of tank for the D5K, although there is one for the D6K. The D3K2, D4K2, & D5K2 expansion tank Part Number remains as 247-1385. However just because the Part Number has remained the same does not necessarily mean that the design was not changed at some point along the line to address the cracking issue. Unfortunately the system contains no information to either confirm or deny this. If you ask for the 330-5410 assembly Part Number you should get the whole shooting match, insulation and all.
I "liked" your post because I appreciate that you provided valuable information...Thanks! Unfortunately my reaction to the news you gave is a big fat FROWN!
No changes that I’m aware of, if I owned one I’d probably be looking into some isolators or something because these hard bottom dozers beat themselves to death. After 7-9k hrs, about every bracket, door latch, hood panel, etc is cracked and worn out. I don’t know how they stand to run one all day.
You may have a point. I was thinking that tank cracking might well be down to the terrain in which a particular tractor was working and not something that was an endemic problem across the board. Second your comments about hard-bottom vs suspended undercarriage tractors.
I have to agree with regard to the poor ride quality of this dozer. This was already in my thoughts when you mentioned the catch tank. With all that vibration, combined with the heat generated in the engine compartment, I had no problem imagining the tank getting cracked. It will likely be a while before we get to that many hours on her. Most of our work is with excavators as it is usually pretty rocky ground. When we do use her it's for pushing out fills for crushed material, and when we work down in the valleys where it is mostly clay soils and often little or no rock. What size machine is it that there is a suspended undercarriage?....D6 (R/T), or is it even larger than that?
d6K has the equalizer bar and pivot shaft mounted roller frames. D6N and D6T as well. Or as we now know them D4-D6.
Bogie suspension doesn’t come into play until you get to the D8 dozers. That’s where the ride quality really changes on heavy rock terrain. But so does the cost of ownership as far as undercarriage goes.
As a poster on another thread is finding out to his cost.
Sorry for leaving this thread hanging for so long guys. As I said before we don't really use this dozer very much right now and I wanted to give it some time before I made any conclusions. To this point it appears that we have fixed the leak with only a new constant clamp (it did already have one of that type on there) on the existing upper radiator hose. So far there has been no new leaking of coolant (YAY!). I did buy a new upper radiator hose but we have not yet bothered to install it. I probably won't unless the leak returns. Regarding the hose itself, CAT tells me that the hose assembly (P/N 330-5410) is no longer available, and one must buy both the hose (P/N 255-1343) and the insulator (P/N 326-3563) separately. No big deal except that one must buy the insulator in bulk, not in the amount that is appropriate for this particular hose. In many cases I would be willing to spend more money on a part (then I believe might be reasonable) if it would likely be a one time purchase, or for convenience, to have some piece of mind. But in this case the required amount of insulator that one must buy costs several times that of the hose that it would be insulating. Making the purchase price even harder still to swallow is that I see no obvious reason for the need of the part. I believe that it has been like this for a while because the hose that came on the dozer (when I bought it) does not have this insulator on it. This leads me to believe that the previous owner didn't want to pay for a bunch of this insulator when they only need a couple feet of it either. Maybe some other dealer (that goes through a bunch of it in their parts dept.) would be willing to buy this insulator in bulk, and then sell it to their customers cut to the required length of the customer's application. If anybody out their has a dealer that will do this I would love to know about it and would likely purchase it from them. Another thought I have is to maybe see if NAPA has some of this insulator for sale. Hopefully they have a cross-over number for the insulator, or the hose assembly. Again, if one of you reading this thread has such apart number, please share it here. If neither of those options are possible, I will likely leave it as-is. So far, I see no imminent doom for the hose without the insulator on it, and I don't think that he dozer is running particularly hot either.