Sorry, I didn't feel like any of the other sub forums would reach the right people. I am dealing with one of these little 3cyl Bota engines in an aerial lift. I am not a rookie with engines but I have never messed with one of these and I cannot even find someone that actually has! I stepped into some forums for Botas but sounds like nobody really has deep engine experience to answer anything about them. I got into this after others gave up on the equipment. I am unable to even get the engine to run to assess it. Plenty of white smoke indicating it is getting fuel, but even after many glow cycles, it will not even start. Enough blowby at cranking for me to know there are issues and bores don't look happy. What I cannot figure out is it certainly does have sleeves, but they are pretty darn thin! And they even sell +.50mm pistons! I don't yet know how the sleeves would come out, or if boring will be a better option. It is hard for me to condemn the engine but I feel certain the pistons have to come out. Anyone have any experience with these, or similar small diesels?
One of the first places I worked most of their fleet was powered by 3 cylinder kubota engines. I rebuilt a tractor engine but I dropped off the long block at a machine shop and picked it up after they'd bored it, lined and installed the pistons. There are a bunch of free manuals online about these engines and they give very good step by step instructions for rebuilding the engines. If youre trying to do the whole thing yourself.
I checked one time, and it seemed a pile of parts to rebuild one would cost the same as a new crate engine with a warranty.
I don't think most Kubota's have sleeves. Maybe some do though. The older indirect injection can be a bugger to start if the glow plugs aren't working properly or aren't left on long enough. Try them for 30 seconds or even longer. In cold temps need over a minute.
Check the glow plugs individually for resistance, is the air intake hose removed? so you know it's getting air.
I was mistaken, Kubota's do have liners.
I think many smaller engines usually work out as replace vs rebuild.
The Kubota dry sleeves are a real pain to pull and reinstall actually all dry sleeves are really. There's a ton of them out there, a lot of time its easier to just go find a donor machine and grab a whole engine and slap it in.