Hi there! I am rebuilding a 3306 engine from a D6C. The liners need to be shimmed and we are having a hard time finding shims in the size we need. I got the information that one has to counterbore the deck to the next thickest shim, which would be .030". I am trying to avoid the machining and was hoping to find shims in thickness .005" or .006" and .008" or .009" I was lucky and found some shims ind the .008" and .009" thickness, but they do not have the thinner ones. Anyone knows a source were we could find these shims? Thanks a lot
The shims start at 7 thou, the shim thing is not the trouble, you need to be looking at the condition of the counter-bore for damage? the shims are to make up liner hight after the counter-bore is cut, the D6C has the 333C engine fitted as the common unit, the location of the water pump would clear up this point, if it bolts in from the front its a 3306 if it bolts onto the top its the 333C, they are both 4 3/4" bore engines, it is known for liners to be incorrect on the counterbore flange thickness so please check this detail. tctractors
TC, what's the tolerance on these, just curious? I've turned a lot of bolts and skinned a lot of knuckles, but never actually had the chance to do any major engine work on CAT diesels. Used to play house with a pair of D399's, loved them like good dogs, but never needed anything other than maintenance.
It's a 3306. I will check more on the counterbore condition. We wanted to di it the easy way, just add the shims, specially as the crank and cam is already in place. But now it looks like we have to machine this counter-bores first to spec.
As Tony says unless you have the surface of the counter-bores skimmed to specification first you could be backing a loser in the long run. Why spoil oil your hard work rebuilding the engine for the proverbial "Ha'porth of tar"..? If you are still struggling for shims the exact thickness afterwards see if you can find a machine shop with a surface grinder and a magnetic table That would whip a couple of thousandths off a shim in no time.
Thanks Nige. I understand, it's better to do it right first place. I wonder what are the prognostic engine failures that could happen, if the counter-bores and shimming are not taken care correctly?
Premature head gasket failure would be top of my list of possible failures, probably closely followed by a cracked head.
I'd be concerned that the counter bores are not nice and true. Also is the top deck right on the money? I'd feel much better with a light skim cut of the deck followed with a recut of the counter bores. Ideally cutting all to the same spec to avoid getting parts mixed up when assembling or if there is need to pull a liner in the near future. Depending on how out of true the counter bores are you could be looking at anything from minor compression leaks, coolant into oil leak or worse case a cracked liner flange and that's not good!
:iagree
All that has been stated is out of the bible of rebuilding. One other thought is why was the engine torn down in the first place. If the above mentioned problems were part of the reasoning for the down time then extra care should be taken on the counterbores. I've seen plenty that were cracked through and required Z sleeves before the engine would hold water and compression. You have done a lot of work to this point. It is a long way back if when you get done you have a fountain coming out of the radiator or ice cream from the dipstick tube.
To the history of the engine: We only own that machine a little over a year, She was always running fine; good cooling, good oil pressure, overall no problems on the engine. Than beginning of the year i started to hear a knocking. After dropping the oil pan we found 1 con-rod bearing totally gone and it had eaten so badly in the crank that it would need to be replace. After disassembling the whole engine the conclusion was most likely an oil pump failure, because other parts also looked dull like not well lubricated. We ended up replacing all the internal parts and only keeping the block. Now we are at the point that we are putting it back together; cam, crank and bell-housing are back on. It would be time for the liners but now we have this shim problem. A friend who has much more experience on this engines is doing the rebuild, I am just helping him. So i cannot tell right now how true the deck and bores are as i did not check on that. One thing i saw on the block: the upper wall between cylinder 1 and 2 and between 5 and 6 has a small crack extending from the bottom about 1-1.5" up. It doesn't reach the deck luckily. My friend said this shows that the engine has been stressed. Is there something to do about this? I saw once on a smaller diesel engine with the same cracks that they drilled small wholes through the wall at the end of the crack, so it wouldn't travel further up. Good thing to do? John, if there truly is a bible of rebuilding, what is the name of it??? I really want to learn as much as possible. Thanks
Oh yes i forgot: tctractors would you have cat part numbers for those shims? Thanks
pj, I would expect to find a 333C parked in the place your motor is perched? the shims are common standard with the 4"3/4 bore engine you will have no trouble finding them off any competant E.O. or Non parts outlet, the shims are stainless steel so magnets dont love them, before you blow your coins this engine might be worth a re-think, as you start with a good block and then bolt things off it like the crank etc, you seem to be starting at the end rather than the begining? any chance of a few snaps of the beast. the counter-bore cutting is best done with the Swiss Mira tool. tctractors
I posted the shim part numbers and procedure on the ACMOC site. The D6c uses the 3306 engine at 10K7953-up.
Thanks tc! Nope, it's a 3306 and that's what we thought too, it shouldn't be to hard to find these shims. But that seems not to be the case, i checked a lot and cannot find them til now. Only on ebay somebody is selling 8, 9, 15 and 30 thous. but he doesn't have smaller. I talked to my friend yesterday, he is already one of the old foxes, and he said that the bores look really good, so there is just no need to cut them. Also we are on the Big Island in Hawaii, to find a good reliable machine shop here is kind of non existing, and he also doesn't trust the people who are working at our local CAT store. Also they seem not to be able to locate the size of shims we are looking for. So that's why i am reaching out here too see if you folks got a better source or information. (part numbers?) Right now i am not close to the beasty, so no pics, sorry. As soon as i will be there again i will make some and show them.
A serial No cuts out lots of issues? anyhow if your block is good it would seem that the counterbores have been already cut, are the old shims still on the removed liners, dont forget to clamp the liners down to the standard spec' 50 lbs ft to measure correctly around 4 points the hight. tctractors
Hey old magnet, that is exactly what i was looking for. A thousand thanks. Now it was a breeze to order those at cat dealer. Before they didn't know where to find this information... kind of ridiculous. Oh and sorry, should have been more specific; this is a D6C LGP sreial# 90 B1849 pj
When we pulled the liners only 1 had a shim. Next time i am at the engine i will check on the dimensions of the counter-bores and flanges of the old and new liners, maybe this will give a clue of what has been done to the engine in the past. oh yeah, anybody has a hint on the rebuilding bible???
What I was referring to was the general knowledge the gentlemen were sharing with you. They all know what they are talking about and gave you good advice. In your case the printed book of knowledge would be the appropriate service manual for the engine you are working on.
We have one of those! http://www.miratool.ch/index.php?page_id=26 The biggest "trick" we found to using the Mira tool was to have a very good top deck. Nice thing was once you got it dialed in on one cylinder the other 5 cylinders could be done in the mater of a few minutes. And it can do just about any engine, no need for adapters specific to each engine. We have not been "allowed" to do engine work by upper management for a few years. The reasoning is if we rebuild it and it fails we have to eat the cost. If they farm it out and it fails the sub-contractor has to eat the cost. Never mind that in 20+ years of doing our own rebuilds we never had any confirmed failures caused by an error on our part. So now this and other tooling we purchased over the years is just gathering dust, Oh well these things happen.
OK, in that case the 3306 came in at s/n 99J1764 (1973) 90B is the model #. Unit built in Japan. Yours was built in that same year.
Yair . . . kshansen Bloody hell mate! It must be hard to work with that type of negative thinking. Cheers.
pj, you need a service book, it lists the shim spec' plus all the correct detail on assembly of this unit, the rods have a front and a back to them, plus there is plenty of detail that needs to be correct within the cylinder head area, when I take any parts to be machined like a crank, I also take the CAT spec' sheet with it to remove any doubt of the repair standard needed, the 3306 is possibly the easiest engine for me to re-build, but I often find on strip down all sorts of things not correct after people have "done Stuff" through its life, the bottom liner seal area in the block often needs a bit of fettling. tctractors
Pitty! Well with this forum i am glad to have found a source which goes actually far beyond any book written. It lives from real time experienced members - far more valuable.
Woah! that tool looks really great. Actually makes me a little proud as Swiss citizen to see a Swiss tool in your guys inventory. How much do these things cost?
Yeap! That's right, built in Japan. But I wasn't sure about the year, thanks for that. Now i know she's almost as young as me
tc, I have a service book, but i couldn't find the info about the shims. So what Old Magnet sent me was just what i was missing. But i still think that the people working at the cat dealer should have come up with this in no time. Oh... i just dug in one more time in my service book and what did i find....the shim specs. It is buried in another part of the book. Well....at last.
Been many years since we got ours and we actually got it second hand from a guy who used to run his own shop then came to work for us for a couple years till he got bored and moved on! I like the very simple design and ease of use. The only thing that would make it better is if it came with a supply of Swiss Chocolate! Guess after working for himself and making all the decisions he could not deal with having others make them for him. And that was back when I thought we were doing most things right!.