Howdy All, D6T, C9, ZJB00289 Its been warm and rainy lately, and we have been praying for an end to the mud. Finally today, it dropped to -10C. So we can finally work. Today on startup we got a high crankcase pressure fault. Pulled the dipstick. yep pressure, Pulled the oil fill plug, lots of pressure. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided something must be frozen. So we let the machine idle for an hour or more, and I would have thought that would be enough to melt anything frozen, but problem didn't go away. Called CAT, waiting for Tech. While I waited, i took a look at the parts breakdown, and decided that, with a lot of clothes, I could try opening the ventilation system and look for ice. Sure enough, the 1" hose between the breather and filter was filled solid with ice. What I don't understand is why that would happen. Can anyone shed some light? There is a coalescing filter after the breather. I thought i would replace that. TIA Ken
Too much idle and not enough load like torque stalling to get everyting up to 200F including the Transmission oil. When there is a tremendous amount of heat around the engine compartment the pipe and filter will let the water out.. Just so you know I have seen vents from furnaces freeze over here in winter because it was a day with way more moisture in the air versus the minus 30C or more. Unless if you are dumping coolant in the pan and the evaporation is faster than the vent can handle. Is your radiator down in coolant, and I mean the main radiator not an overflow bottle if it has one. Simon C
Coolant level is right up like it should be. No pressure in the rad. It has been soaking wet, warm/cold/warm/cold lately. Lots of rain, snow, and everything in between. And we have been doing a lot of service related idling the last couple months. Its winter...service season.
Need to warm the machine up to close to maximum temperature once in a while to get rid of the water. Plus not good for your machine to idle a lot in winter, hard on cylinders that don't burn clean. And might want to change your oil as it will have lots of garbage in it. Simon C
Question about that coalescing filter. Is that supposed to be a maintenance item? I am reading it can plug and then won't let water through. I didnt even know it was there until today.
Have never changed one my self, but be glad you did not blow a front or rear crank seal. They are usually on 500 or 1000 hour maintenance intervals. Your operators manual should specify and give part number possibly. Simon C
Yeah, the fault code came up while we were just warming up at idle. We never ran it under load until we found the cause. So I hope we are good. Time will tell. Right now we are doing a parked regen to try to clean up the dpf. That triggered a fault after we ran for a while today. Hopefully that cleans it out. Never had to do that before either. So its been an interesting day.
New motors will not tolerate idling for long , start it get it warmed up and if not going to run for couple hours get it all to full temperature and warmed up oil and shut off. At least the oil does not get contaminated, and the DPF is not getting plugged. The batteries will be recharged and ready for another start in the warmer part of day. Simon C
Is the hose from breather to the belly pan clear and is the breather it’s self clear?
Yes. 2000hr maintenance interval
Which in the OP's work schedule I imagine would be recommended anually. Of course in the good old days it was a metal mesh screen that was washable in diesel or paraffin....... EDIT: Now here's a weird thing. It's not even included in the Maintenance Interval Schedule for the OP's tractor Serial Number, not even as a "When Required" item.........!!! How does that work.?
Yes. So on this tractor you have the breather which is simply one of those course mesh screens, no moving parts. From there, a 1" hose leads to a filter housing which separates the oil mist from the rest of the gases and vapours. The oil coalesces in the bottom of the filter housing, and drains back into the oil pan from what I can tell. The vapours are discharged out another hose into the belly pan. It was the first hose was blocked 100% with solid ice. Filter housing had a good amount of ice in it too.
Ill have to get a new one tomorrow.
I think you missed this my friend
Yep, i checked the manual this morning on my machine, and there it is. 2000 hours. The parts guy laughed when I said i found out the hard way it exists, he said nobody knows about them. They get that call all the time. The shop techs change them routinely.
I stand corrected. I think I may need to schedule a visit with my optician.
So, we are a day on now, and it looks like the dozer is happy as ever. I was really worried because the machine put a ton of oil out the exhaust for whatever reason. The inside of the exhaust stack was soaked in engine oil. All that from sitting there idling for an hour. Once we got it running and heated up, the smoke coming out of the stack was impressive. Eventually it tripped a dpf fault, and insisted we do a parked regen. That's never happened before. So we parked it for about 45 mins and let it regen as it wanted. Now shes burning clean, making full power. So I think we got through without too much expense. I have a new filter and canister coming tomorrow. Im going to take a look on the rest of the fleet to make sure we don't run into this again.