My D8H 46A has an oil leak on front cover. I noticed it when I was replacing water pump. I have never been into the front of a 342 and my manual is missing a couple pages. Is this cover directly removable on its own. What’s behind it? Just don’t want to go in blind without manual to check.
Paging d8 gurus ?
I believe it is the pto cover, you can take it out although it looks like the fan pulley might interfere. The shaft will stay put. Here are some pictures of what's in there.
Thank you very much. Exactly the info I was looking for. I assumed I would have to disassemble fan assembly and/or pulley but the leak has to be fixed. Oil is making its way to radiator and slowly plugging it. Thanks again
You bet, I happened to see that at the cat dealer here and snapped those pics for you, that one had a window in the side of the block so they were dismantling it to salvage some of the parts for another block. He said the cylinder packs were 1,200 bucks a piece.
Hi. Your fan pulleys and radiator looks pretty dry to me at this point. I’d just keep an eye on it and give it an occasional blast with the steam cleaner once in a while.It’s unlikely ever to leak that much oil from that pto area and its a lot of effort to get at it properly. If your fan assembly starts to appear worse and worse with oil,then it’s likely to be crankshaft seal or the little cork strip gasket at the point where the fuel pump bolts onto the timing case(they allways leak there and the fan sucks it in.A grass sod cures that). However,if you want to replace that weeping pto gasket,the radiator needs to come out,then all the pulleys.You MUST do the crankshaft seal while you’re in that deep and it’s wise to replace all 3 pulleys with cheap non genuine Cat ones the same time.Non oem pulleys are a few hundred quid as opposed to Cat ones costing thousands and are very suitable for your machine.But genuine Cat fan belts though. My thoughts are to just let it develope.It will only ever weep from that gasket on the pto housing,not leak heavily.If you’ve oil flying about the fan,then check for obvious hyd hose leaks,then fuel pump dripping down into the belly plate,then brace yourself for the enevitable crank seal
Thanks for the reply. It is a large enough leak that it’s running down front cover into belly pan and when it’s drips off front cover it’s being pulled into lower right corner of radiator. This is where it appears to be coming from but machine will need to be washed well to confirm. It’s coming from higher than crank seal I do believe. I’ve debated pulling the belts and running it just a minute or two from a cold start so I can get in there and look without fan running. Are these front covers prone to cracks? Thanks for your help
Good morning,I’ve never seen any of mine crack in 30 years fortunately. I’ll bet it’s the crank seal even though it appears to be coming up higher. I’ve had 10 D8H/K’s over the years and it’s allways been a crank seal and never the pto cover. It’s also worth looking at the pump/governor gasket where it fits onto the front cover.You may see oil running at a fair pace from the cork gasket down over the sump.This is easily picked up by your fan and walloped all over the place,especially if your pushing down hill all day. That can easily be cured with a lump of grass sod that soaks the drip up and directs it into the bottom of the belly plate. It can be happy to have a layer of muck in the belly plates of those old tractors rather than have them too clean. Clean means puddles of oil that get picked up by the fan. If it gets really bad,you’ll need that radiator out to really clean it in the corners and I’d be resealing the crank seal.
I’d also check that your 2 hydraulic feed pipes aren’t sweating at the front,but I doubt it. I’ve kidded myself over the years and allways ended up in that crank seal. Sometimes the crankshaft is scored and you have to fit a seal path on the end to make it work.Other times,when I was younger,I’d just ram 2 seals on the end of the crank and pray one worked