My D4D SN 82J3810 with the 3304 engine has been doing a bit of heavy work for me ripping an area that I have cleared and burnt off and she has been going fine really doing a great job. I parked it up Friday arvo (afternoon for those from the US) and did some other work Sat morn and had a bit of time left in the arvo so I went down to replace a nonfunctional hour meter with a little cheapie I bought on ebay. I needed to start her up to see if the wire coming from the alternator became alive and had to take her up to fast idle to get the ammeter to show she was charging and then I noticed the oil pressure guage was not registering which didn't overly concern me because the tubing to it is very short and with the dash apart it hangs on it a bit and has obstructed it in the past. I probably ran the engine for about 1.5 minutes at a fast idle. I then restarted it a couple of times for brief periods after fiddling with the tube to the guage to see I had it working. I then thought it might be a good idea to check the oil and to my surprise there was none showing on the stick. I was kicking myself as I will never start the engine without checking the oil the first time I start her for the day. So what do you guys reckon, would I have done any damage to the bearings? She did not sound any different to usual though my hearing is not good. On looking underneath there was a thin stream of oil running through the bash plate so there was some oil left in her so may have been still sucking a bit of oil along with air. I took the bash plate off this morning expecting to find that the sump plug had come loose but it was dry around there and oil was seeping from further forward and on dropping the rest of the plate I found a hole that had a conical like thread in it forward in the bottom of the sump. I imagine that there was a bung in it that had come loose and movement with the build up of debris had worked it and flogged out the hole giving a conical shape. The inside diam is 8.6mm and outside is 11.7mm. There was also a piece of flat sheet metal like material on the inside of the hole that was half covering it and is probably what kept the oil in. It moved to the side when I probed the hole. My plan is to drill it out a bit and tap it 1/2 UNC and cut a bolt short and put it in. Would that bolt be holding anything of importance inside the sump like a baffle? How far could I safely have a bung protruding through the sump without interferring with things? Should I drop the sump and fix things from the inside? Looking forward to hearing your replies, many thanks. Ken
If it not a lot of trouble pull the pan and check the bearings & crank, you might get lucky on it and have caught it before it damaged it.
That's what I'd do to. Do you want that loose piece floating around? what was it anyway? You don't have to pull all the bearings apart, but you can at least feel if there's any play or take a couple apart and see what they look like. I'm not so worried about running it for a minute, but getting it back together right. You already have access to the pan right? I'd guess it would run 30 minutes or more at idle. I've run a couple of engines to destruction with no oil, I think a lawnmower went like 5 minutes, and an acura went 20 miles
Ok , thanks guys. It is not exactly the answer I was hoping for but I have decided I will drop the pan tomorrow on your advice plus I am not entirely happy with the repair I made on the hole from the outside, it was difficult to get the tap started exactly square on and the cast material is not thick to be able to get much of the 1/2 inch UNC to bite into and compress a copper washer to seal tight all the way around, I would have to rely too much on the sealant. I will effect a repair by passing a bolt through and sandwiching it, I'll be able to sleep at night then. I might just run some oil in her tonight to give a run and get some oil back into those bearings and drain it again in the morning. I can't see any mention of a hole there in the workshop manual nor the parts manual. I guess it must have been put in by the previous owner for whatever reason. Maybe when I get inside the pan may explain something. Anyone have any ideas. Oh and if I remove a cap or two what should I look for? Ken
Lesson 1, do a prestart before you start any equipment. Lesson 2, trust your gauges and have them working. Lesson 3, don't attempt a bodgy repair. Do it right and sleep tight. Glad you decided to pull the pan and fix it properly and I really hope it works out for you. What you are looking for when you take a bearing cap off is bluing of the crank journal, galling or discolouration of the bearing shell and anything that isn't smooth. If there is a copper colour showing through the bearing material, this is also bad, the bearing shell should be the same colour all the way round. Fingers crossed for you mate, I reckon may just get away with it.
Whatever that hole is/was, it's not standard. The only thing listed in the bottom of the oil pan is the drain plug and that's obviously in a different location looking at your 2nd photo. I wonder if this engin has had problems previously (pan hit from the inside maybe?) and someone tapped a hole in it for a taper-thread pipe plug that has now fallen out due to vibration..? Either way I'd have the pan off and fix it right. It may even pay to have the pan professionally welded at that location, provided the material of the pan is amenable to welding of course, to permanently stop the leak. If you go the route you originally thought of, whatever type of threaded fastener you use to make a repair it's only going to be as good as the thickness of the pan at that location - which isn't much.
I'd be pricing new bearings and thinking about how long I plan to run this engine. Would plastigage tell anything useful at this point? (assuming the crank looks clean)
Yes on the Plastigage. Assuming a visual inspection shows everything in good order taking the time to check actual clearances will pay off in terms of knowing you have hours left in her rather than guessing.
What you are looking for on the 330C and the 3304 is usualy involving the balance shafts that spin 2 times crank speed, if there is any trouble with the B/Ends or No1 main bearing (thats the first main to fail) the Lanchester Style balance shafts usualy end up with more lift than is good, to get the sump off (that is the flat plate) involves unbolting the saddle frame and jacking the nose up for clearance, its 1 of CAT's little tricks to make something easy into something hard, you wont need the Plastigauge to see if its a Knacker job, if the B/E bearings are good for colour but a bit of rag on them feels rough just a new set of bearings might do, the top shell on the B/Ends has the most wear the bottom shell on the Main's has the most wear, you should also slacken off you fan belts if you want to roll in new main bearings. tctractors Plastigauge is for Engineers, not rough arse drivers
Thanks for your help all. I have the pan off but as tct has described I still have a way to go to be able to get to the point where I can get to the big end caps and mains. The oil pump has to come off and the plate along the bottom of the block needs to come off and that runs under the cross member. It is getting beyond my physical capabilities. The only metal in the pan was a flake of cast iron that looks like it is from when the hole was drilled and it broke off as the drill broke through and this is what appeared in the photo half across the hole. I have run the engine yesterday after blocking the hole and filling with oil and again this morning for 10 minutes to lift the blade a bit further and the oil pressure shot straight up at idle both times and she sounds like she has always done so I have made an executive decision not to go any further and after fixing the hole I will put her back together and keep working her and hope for the best. Ken
Maybe cut open the oil filter and check for metal. Have an oil analasys after, if you decide to just button it back up . You may not have run it low enough to do any damage. How much oil did it take to hit the dipstick, or how much was left?
Well I found what the hole was in the pan, I would say that sometime in the past the previous owners lost the access plate that enables you to get to the drain bung, they had made up a new one and the bolts that they had used were longer than the original. They must have realised that they could have been a problem so only drilled 3 holes in the plate instead of 4 so that no bolt was over the top of the pan, only problem was the last time they changed the oil they put it back the wrong way and the bolt when tightened was pressing on the pan and pushed through. What appeared to be a thread cut in the hole would have been made by the bolt pressing against the softer cast iron. I have not had this dozer for long and again I broke my normal protocol on a new machine by not changing the oil first up where I would have noticed the problem and corrected it. The machine had been well maintained and I was told had just been serviced and I had no reason to doubt that as the oil was very clean when I took delivery. Anyhow I hope I get away with it. wayne z, I did not fill the oil up when I found the problem, I left it until the next day, I do know there was some in it as it was still dripping out I guess the bolt was sort of blocking the hole. The next morning when I started work on finding the problem she was bone dry. Ken
I've got my fingers crossed for you. I think I would say to pull the oil filter and cut it open now and then again after running for a few hours. If both come apart with no bad stuff in them you may have got lucky.
Nice to know what caused the hole. I would have been a lot more comfortable leaving the piece in there knowing what it was. I don't think you'll have any problem with the bearings, there was still oil clinging to them and they didn't run long enough to heat up any. You could always do an oil sample(s) if you wanted to sleep easy and forget about the whole thing, or the oil filter would show you without the false positives of an oil sample.
we have a d4d 49j, about 30 odd yrs ago during an oil/filter change, the oil filter canister o ring was seated twisted( found later). not long later the o ring blew out with oil spewing every where. problem was fixed and oil level was only down a bit from the loss. about a 100 hrs later during planting motor dropped a liner when the liner lip broke off, upon teardown dropped liner had scour marks in it, mechanic asked if tractor had lost oil pressure once, bingo , so HOPE yours is okay.
I think you will be fine. Residual oil can hangout for quite a while in bearings.
Far be it from me to be the contrary opinion but not long back we had a 3516 that was run without oil (don't ask..!) for about 2-3 minutes at no more than just off idle. It cost us a block, a crank, and a set of new connecting rods ............
Granted a 3516 exerts quite a bit more force than a 3304. Right?
True, but the only difference between the two IMHO is scale. The basic principles of lubrication under which each engine works are to all intents & purposes the same. The fact that one is larger than the other should not matter one jot, unless those white metal bearings on the crank & rods are floating on a sea of oil under pressure bad things are pretty much guaranteed to happen in short order ........
Yair . . . seeing as we are talking no oil stories . . . I once dropped the oil out of a Lister petrol lighting plant engine . . . about 4hp@ 650 RPM or some such . . . irate neighbour charged into yard saying one of our Brahman bulls was in with his mob of little Angus heifers and what was I gonna do about it. A raced down,caught a horse, flogged the bull out of the mob, fixed the fence and got home only to find the bosses Missus had started the engine to do some ironing (32v). The engine had run for at least an hour . . . the journal was hot but not smoking and I let it cool, refilled it and said nothing to any one. I left shortly after but I know that engine ran for another two years or so until they got the power on. Then of course there was the stunt pulled by one of the Moly additive companies that drove a Holden from Darwin to Adelaide some years ago with no sump on the engine . . . there was a lot of coverage at the time and the whole thing seemed to be genuine. Cheers.
OM, how long after running it dry did the **** hit the fan? I have been running it very hard all day yesterday and so far today doing some root ripping on recently cleared land and so far all seems as normal. I realise things may lie dormant for a while but other than replacing the bearings which I have decided against, all I can do is use it and hope for the best. Ken
I would try it , but being careful to keep an eye on the oil pressure and listen for any suspicious noises.
Did you replace the engine oil filter and cut the old one open to check for any signs of bearing metal fragments..? That should give you a good idea of the condition of the white metal.
Running out of oil in use and starting it up low are completely different situations, especially with regards to the piston/cylinder scoring. No way to guess what happened to the bearings without any evidence... If we're making guesses as to how long it lasts, I'll say it lasts long enough that this will be mostly forgotten. Easier to say now that it's run two days.
If it's run 2 days with good oil pressure and no ugly noises, I'd quit worrying much, but I'd watch it careful. Back in 1991, I was in the sawmill business, just barely. I'd just had a major customer go under, almost taking me with him. One Sunday my father wanted to use my single axle dump truck to haul sawdust from my mill to his garden. I told him to take plenty of engine oil, because my loader was losing it quickly (turned out to be through the hyd pump). The loader had a Ford 175 ci Diesel in it that I had completely rebuilt a year before. Monday morning, he told me he was sorry he had screwed up. He had driven to the mill (10 miles of dirt logging road) and forgotten the oil, so he didn't even check it, he just loaded. Every trip, he forgot the oil until he got to the mill. Halfway through the 7th load, the oil light came on. He figured he'd finish loading and then shut it down! It locked up in a couple more buckets. I put 5.5 quarts in a 6 quart pan, then had to hook 2 trucks to it to get it to turn fast enough to crank! When it started, it had a terrible knock. I left it idling at about 550 rpm. He asked what I was doing, I said, "I'm going to sit here and watch a rod come through the block, then I'm going home and change clothes and look for a job!" After about 10 minutes, it seemed like the knock was lighter, after 20 minutes, it definitely was. After an hour, you couldn't even hear it. It ran another 3000 hrs with good oil pressure, and is running still, but I don't know how well. So, you may have my father's luck, and have dodged a bullet!
I've ordered a new filter just waiting on it to arrive. I'll let you know when I cut the old one open. Ken
I got the new oil filter today and replaced it. I cut the old one open and to my eye could not see any sign of metal just oil soaked cardboard, actually to me the filter looked very clean. Hey Nige, can you look up what oil filter should be on my CAT, the one I took off was a IR-0739 and they sent me a IR-1807. From the outside they look identical, which one is correct. The S/N is 82J3810 and it has the 3304 engine S/N 78P9498 arrangement 4N3803. Thanks Nige I took some photos of the filter how does it look to you. Ken
Ken, The only difference between 1R-0739 & 1R-1807 is that one is designed to be used with an aluminium filter base, the other one with a steel filter base. As filters they are identical internally. The fact there are no large particles of white metal in the filter is a good first indication. For your filter inspection, try this. Cut out a section of the filter media about 40mm long and about 60 degrees of the filter circumference with a sharp knife. Put that section of filter in a vice and squeeze it tight until it squeezes all the oil out. Then open up the pleats and look carefully right in the bottom of the them where the filter media folds. This is the location where the metal will accumulate if there is any. Then when you take photos take them from really close up to the creases in the filter media.
That is a great story Mitch. Glad to hear it worked out for you.
Try these photos Nige. If I go closer it becomes blurred. There are a few small black flecks on the paper but they don't seem to be metallic, they look like carbon particles. It surprises me just how clean this motor is, my diesel Toyota Landcruiser the oil would go very black as soon as it was run in the motor and it was indirect injection some other diesel engines I have keep the oil fairly clean but they are direct injection. Which of those two filters is the one for an aluminium base? Thanks Nige. Ken
A 1R-1807 is a advanced efficiency version of a 1R-0739, Nige just made up the part about the aluminium base. Bob
wbvs58, when our d4d dropped it's liner from grabbing from low oil pressure, it was about 100 hrs later after the lost pressure incident, a big puff of white smoke (coolant in the exhaust) young fella driving it shut it down instantly, so saved the block, towed it back to our workshop ,mechanic did a midnite job replacing liners pistons bearings, to get us going again (planting) many thanks to mackays diesel tractor service at dalby, tractor is still going strong after this event 30 odd yrs ago , worked hard ever since. hey scrub got a lister that broke off it's oil splash spoon on first run pumping water after o/haul, started it up not knowing and drove off leaving it pump , came back end of the day to a motor smoking hot and labouring, on pull down crank had chewed down to 1/2 its diameter AND WAS STILL RUNNING .
Ok thanks, I fell into that one, sort of like the difference between right and left handed screwdrivers. Ken
Ok thanks Bluox, I fell into that one, sort of like the difference between right and left handed screwdrivers. Ken
Yeh d9e, I realise I'm not out of the woods yet but so far there is not enough evidence to justify me doing something. Thanks. Ken
Ken, it's not you its Nige,he's one of those wanabe experts who makes things up.I'll bet he's never seen a D-4. Bob
That's a little harsh about Nige , he has helped me as well as many others in the forum. I am glad he takes the time to help people. There are a few others that are helpful as well. If I had a tally on what the forum has save me , it would be at least a couple thousand dollars. Once the bridge is burned , its hard to cross it.
I wouldn't bet on it. He saved me much headache and heartache when my D4D tranny stopped working by telling me exactly where to look for debris blocking the brake valves from releasing before pulling filters, pressure checks ect. and he nailed my problem. 5 munites and $0 later tranny was just fine and I had the warm fuzzies! Also gave me excellent advice on removing the corroded manifold bolts that worked.
I bought Nige's "aluminum base" explanation hook line and sinker, that #$%! old coot. Of course it is funniest when you've believed the story for a while
Of course I haven't heard back from Nige yet so his explanation could be correct. Yes I agree in the short time I have been on here he has been very helpfull and generous with his time. I appreciate his contribution and I appreciate the laugh. Ken
On the equipment Nige works on they use D-4's to clean out the cabs!
I will go along with that kshansen, hook line and sinker! I wouldn't question anything that Nige says about heavy equipment trouble shooting and repair.
I have the same trouble with my metric and SAE crescent wrenches
I used to have a left handed crescent wrench. Really. The adjuster worked backward to every other adjustable I owned,. drove me nuts, lol :tong
It would seem that some people love to cause troubles,as for picking on Nige who is about as good as it gets at his Trade takes some understanding, credit to the Man (Nige) he has been off the clock helping myself and many other members of this Forum, I feel sure a little D4 would NOT make him struggle, anyhow Bluox for those that dont know is an engine brake/retarder so it might be fitting to keep the crap brakes on or pick on someone that is a bit more of a Dog like me? On this engine oil issue I was expecting someone to post the fact about the rack control lock pin that needs oil pressure to lift allowing full movement of the rack (scroll) anyhow this thread has lost its steam some due to someone talking through their seat area. tctractors p.s. little D4's are no trouble for me.
Bluox, This statement is an INSULT to Nige, he has spent countless hours to help anyone with issues on this forum, from providing parts breakdowns and excellent information & advice on many pieces of heavy equipment. You OWE HIM AN APOLOGY, so man up and do it..
Hey tctractors, what is this rack control lock pin? And what is he significance with running without oil? Thanks, Ken
Ken, its a simple device that will not let the fuel rack to travel above the low idle spot until the oil pressure is above a pre-set psi, if the oil pressure drops below this pre-set spot even if the engine has been running at full speed on the next movement of the fuel control rack (throttle) it will peg up the rack in the low idle position,D8'sand 9's run at around the 30 psi spot, the 33oC and 3306 will run O.K. without damage in the low 20's psi, the oil pump on the 3304-6 has a pressure control valve built of hard domed washers, these washers are known to crack resulting in the oil pressure dropping quickly to usualy just above the 20psi spot, I have known Turbo D6's to suffer this sudden drop on the gauge and continue to work hard for some months without spitting the dummy out, on pulling the engine down I have found no damage to the engine innards and just simply fitted a spare prv to the oil pump, and checked out the oil filter head valves (alloy filter head) hope this helps some. tctractors
Hi tc, I'm finding the 82J3810 uses the sleeve metering pump on its 3304. No low oil pressure stop pin that I am aware of. Good point on the oil pump prv spring washers.
As always O.M. on this rock we never see 82J chariots, the U.S. built D4/5/6/8 tractors are not the common thing to find (rare) I did put in the Scroll thing just in case Bluox was on my case??? I have probably 500 CAT parts books going back to the early iron 5 ton, Sixty etc upto the High Drives but nothing to much on the Non European D series tractors as we just dont see them, I would have about 100+ CAT service books and product change sheets from the 50's through to 80's plus about everything from filters through to track group and service tool books, but stuff on U.S. built tack in this zone 0, so I cannot check out things simply. tctractors
Hi tc, This might be a handy chart for you.