Have problems with old 871 in a piece of paving equipment. Diesel fuel is leaking into bottom end. (Crank case). Wonder if anyone can steer me in the right direction. The guys who worked on these are getting few and far between. Any help or advice would be appreciated
Pop the valve covers off late at night in the dark . Then use a flashlight & hold a piece of notebook paper at each base of the cross over lines . The diesel will flow visibly over the paper in the dark with the engine running . You got a line or a fitting leaking under the valve cover .
What he said.
I got one Detroit that don't leak under the valve covers ….LOL
I agree with TD, you have a line or a fitting leaking under the valve cover, that's the only place where fuel is being moved inside that engine, through the lines that feed or return fuel for the injectors. And I've preached it here before and will do it again at this thread, don't use 15W/40 oil in that engine, use only SAE 40 Delo 100 oil in that engine.
It’s the granddaddy of hot rods
Hell yes ! Detroit diesel has forgotten more about engine building then the competition will ever figure out .
The green leaker, the engine you love to hate but at the same time you love every nuance about them.
More than likely its an injector feed tube cracked at the flared end. that will be patently visible with the engine running. Normally there will be oil puddled on top of the flare nut around the tube, if its leaking fuel it will be clean on top. Also check around the fuel connectors that screw into the head. They use a special seal washer that should never be re-used, and torqued to 40 lb ft. I use a little blue Loctite to help seal them when I install them. I'm betting a fuel tube on an older engine. Oh, 12 lb ft on the fuel tube nuts, no more, no less.
Those were my bitches for a long time.
Absolutely. I can look out my back window at two of them
Not long ago at my former job my boss purchased a Deere scraper. It came in on a lowboy, no one wanted to off load it. Me, hell yeah! Much to my delight it had a 6-71. Oh yeah, after tossing it from the trailer I indulged in numerous laps around the yard at full governor while swapping gears. Prolly my last trip in a 6-71. Of that I shall sorely miss.
Don't forget about the seal in the supply pump fellas.. BUT.. your probably right.. injector feed line leaking..{MOST COMMON} Best way to find is, as stated, remove v. cover & LOOK.. OR.. ya might be able to shoot it w/ a temp gun & find the "cold" cylinder.??
The supply pump has a weep hole between the fuel side seal and the oil side seal, a leak will make a huge external mess. Unless an injector feed line is completely broken off, a heat gun check wont show a cold cylinder, but that would fill the oil pan pretty fast.
Got my b*****d child 6V92T done yesterday. Im sick of Detroits right now. What everyone else said X100 ^
That JD scraper was a real sweetheart of a machine !
There is always the chance someone saw those threaded holes and decided it needed a plug! Also some rare cases they had a drain line hooked to one of the holes in the supply pump and that got plugged. But I'd agree that 98% chance it is a loose or cracked line under a valve cover with a slight chance it is a bad injector.
Thanks for all the good advice. Took valve covers off and can certainly see the potential for leakage at those tubes. However cannot see leakage around any of these tubes. Used brake clean to dry area up. Ran it both hot and cold. Could not see any leakage. Used heat gun on manifold. No noticeable difference on any of the cylinders and seems to run fine. On face of injector there is a frost plug and below that the throttling rod. Can it leak around this rod? Rod so very close to the bottom of the injector housing and very difficult to see if any of them are leaking there. Thanks
Has anybody used UV dye in a diesel tank? It would be the cat's meow for one of these I should think, but not sure how many gallons of dye you would have to dump in to make it strong enough in the diesel fuel.
What we do for a dye test is run the engine from a small fuel tank (5 gallons or so) so that it doesn't take a gazillion gallons of UV dye to get a concentration that will show up under a black light.
Did you find the drain hole in the fuel transfer pump?
I still have my old MAC fuel line socket. It is easy to over tighten the fuel line cross over nut. As stated above; the right tight is good, too tight is bad. If you don't have the socket, tighten the nuts by hand, use the wrench to make it just snug, then give it a little more. You are pulling down on brass against steel so gentle is the word.
Delmer. I did find the hole and it is dry!
Yes, you can have a leak from the plunger that will drain out through the control rack holes. One thing I have done with hard to find leaks on Detroits is to plug the return line and pressurize the inlet line with 70-80 psi of air and watch all the usual suspect areas without the engine running and splattering oil everywhere. Sometimes you will actually see bubbles, That trick has found many a leak in series 60 engines for me.
No brass in those tubes... all steel with a copper flash plating.
Off road fuel stands out under my black light.
First of it's somewhat of a pet-peeve of mine not liking the terms "frost plug" or "freeze plug" so I won't even go into that right now, Google it and do some reading! Any how is the "plug" you are referencing the one that is marked "N65" in the picture below? If that is what you are asking about the easy answers is no, that is just a tag snapped into a bore in the body to let you know what "size" the injector is and that is it's only function! Maybe it is just the angle of the picture but that one does not look right as the spring is way too compressed for an injector that is out of an engine! I do like the idea of hooking air pressure to the line or fitting that comes from the secondary filter and plugging the line that is the return to the tank and putting some pressure in the system. You don't want to put pressure into the fuel pump but the rest of the system would be fine. Only thing is if you have an air system that has a lot of water in the lines you don't want to fill the injectors with water. Water in the injectors can cause tips to fail and if it is in there long enough to start rusting the next start up could get a bit exciting to say the least! Just thought of something else. Don't forget to be looking for leaks at the bottom of the adapters the lines to the injectors hook to in the head!
RZucker>> Excellent idea.. Diesel fuel WILL shine under a black lite.. Good idea..
What is the diffrents between a 6v53 in a truck and a piece of equipment? A buddy died and i got one he had it has a flexplate on it also the manifolds are pointing to the front but he had a flywheel and clutch seting by it. Also if its didnt come with a turbo what would it take internaly to make it work?I have worked on 2 cylinders,v12s and every thing in between but dont remember every think.
Not sure there is an easy answer to that question. The first thing I would expect to be different would be the type of governor they have. Instead of me trying to explain and make a mistake read this: http://www.waybuilder.net/sweethaven/MechTech/Automotive01/default.asp?unNum=4&lesNum=4&modNum=5 Not too familiar with the 53 series but in the 71 series turbos often had the two piece cross head pistons where the rods were actually bolted to wrist pins. Again more familiar with 71 and the turbo models of those had blowers with piston ring type seals in place of the rubber lip type seals on the ones I worked on. Also some of the turbo engines had by-pass blowers where boost pressure could go to the cylinders without going through the blower. Then some turbo engine had an inter-cooler under the blower. I know not much help huh? Detroits are kind of like the stuff in you kitchen, just depends on which ingredients you pull off the shelf and how you mix them together to get what you want. While this is also true of other engines I think the 2-stroke Detroits carried it to the extreme! About the only thing I don't recall seeing or hearing about with a Detroit is an airplane but even that would not really surprise me, they did make some aluminum block engines!
That would be my guess as well . Speed limiting vs variable speed governor ? Have a 4-53 in the #2 Grove crane house unit set up with " speed limiting " governor . Have to drive the winch drum like a truck with the foot throttle . Ya get used to it .
I thought about useing this engine in one of my f 600s but thats another prodject.
You can certainly use an engine with a variable speed type governor in a truck though, in fact from what I have tried I prefer it to be that way. So if that is the only hangup with a 6v53 that you want to try I say go for it anyway with the variable speed governor intact. So long as the max RPM is not set too low.
Good point Birken . Variable speed governor would almost be like a mechanical " cruise control " in the truck .
I drove a 12V71 powered Peterbilt Cabover with the Variable speed governor, The hand throttle was just like cruise control, But you had to make sure the booster spring was set to the max or she would bend throttle linkage parts.
Any idea where to install the governor on an 8 - V 38 Ford application ?
You have the wrong front cover on that blower, I'll see if can find the right part number. You probably need a 6V-71 front cover with the proper fuel rods to the heads, you might want to look at using a yield link in the governor too... Wait wut? Now you gotta change the heads too? You are just too confusing for me.
That's what I tolled the Pioneer Seed feller . We need you guys to find us another set of heads & rods before race day …. LOL
I think you should put a vacuum governor off a older Fordson Major Diesel tractor on it. Put a reversing bell crank on it. The more boost you make the more vacuum it will think it sees and open the throttle more. You won't even need a throttle pedal. I think it may be perpetual motion for a short while. OOPs, Back to topic
Now that everyone has thrown their ideas at this smoker here is mine. Do you like smoked salmon if so stuff the stack in the salmons mouth and let it rip. Now truth- fully at the price I have seen 2 strokes going for just have one as a stand-by that runs out good. The engines complete are cheap but parts are not so run it til it grenades. Truck Shop