Going down the list of maintenance tasks on my Deere 310L backhoe, one of the items is "adjust valves". Under this heading, it says to "Call the Dealer". Curious why this is a dealer issue? I can't do this with a feeler gauge and a wrench? Christine
Are you reading the operator's manual ? Many an "operator" can break an anvil with a rubber hammer. So mother Deere plays it safe. The Deere engine tech manual will provide the full details.
You might even have specs on the engine ID plate
http://www.reliancepowerparts.com/c...orque-and-rebuild-specs/tr-jd-4045-PT-TSI.pdf Valve Clearance (set cold) (2 Valve Head) I .014” E .018” Sounds close enough to me, but if you have a four valve head, keep looking.
That machine has a 4 valve head. Measurement taken with a cold engine and measured between the rocker arm and the valve bridge. Intake 0.018" Exhaust 0.021"
I think it is a case of trying to protect themselves from liability or just trying to push more work to their dealers! Would not surprise me to someday see an owners manual that under "check oil" for them to say call dealer!
Valve bridges are the usual culprit that make people nervous when adjusting valves. I always loosen the rockers up, loosen the lock nuts up on the valve bridges, set the bridge adjuster and then set the valves. After all are set, then I go back and check the torque on all the valve bridges. Anyone who has seen the damage of a loose valve bridge adjusting nut will know what I'm talking about.
I'll echo the comments regarding the complexities of adjusting valve bridges, but I have a question. Does this particular engine have screw-type (adjustable) or floating (non-adjustable) valve bridges.? Maybe mg2361 could comment.
Yes, Floating non-adjustable bridges.
Well that cleared that up..........
When the Deere tech comes out, I'll watch him do it so I know how next time.
And there was me thinking your original question was because you didn't have the valve lash specs.......
words can’t describe how much disappointment I feel. Here I was, silently following along, thinking that somehow you were gonna stick it to the man and HEF as a whole would bask in a small but significant to us victory and then you went and invited him over.
hey now, the man's gotta eat too
he sure does. But he doesn’t need to eat caviar and leave the rest of us eating off the dollar menu.
It's probably not the service wrench who gets to eat high off the hog. You might measure the girth of the salesman and the management staff for a clue as to who is getting fat.
I'm looking upon this as a way to get the lug nuts loosened, a bunch of questions answered, and I can watch him do these jobs so I can do them next time. It's worth the price to pick an expert's brain for an hour or two.
Im curious as to whether your tech will be reading from the service manual while doing the job.
When I worked for end users, putting a young person with the dealer wrench was always cheap on the job training and you got more for your money. Part of my consulting services was working with client newbies getting them up to speed on maintenance and repairs.
Maybe, in which case, I'll go and see the head of the dealership, and negotiate a refund. Perhaps I might get someone really good, in which case I'll learn a lot of new things. Low risk.
This reminds me of something I think I mentioned before on this site. At the shop Norm and I had rebuilt a few Allison CLBT5860 transmissions then this one time another one of the companies quarries had a Allison DP8000, or some model number very close, that needed the torque converter removed and replaced. Well someone in management decided to ship the transmission to our shop but have the "factory man" from the dealer come over to do the work. Long story shorter, as both transmissions were the same with the slight difference in size of the parts. Norm and I more or less showed the "factory man" how to do the job he was suppose to showing us how to do!
I mean, the guy who shows might be a terrorist, and blow up my house. He might be infected with leprosy, and my limbs might fall off. He might be a Jehovah's Witness, and spend the entire time quoting bible verses, and telling me that I'm going to go to Hell. He might be a Democrat, who brings Hillary Clinton along to stump speech. Why assume anything negative? Why worry? I have the skill, experience and ability to address anything that comes up, and I can make it work. At the worst, I waste a bit of money, and I learn that this particular dealership is not good to deal with.
I believe you are taking offense to something that isn't directed towards you. This is more about the knowledge that the dealer techs are supposed to have for the rates the dealers charge. Its fact that alot of service techs employed by the dealers lack knowledge that they SHOULD have, especially running field service. This is something that is very prevalent in my area.
The comments on dealers are from experience, whether that is first, second, or third hand. Some members work for, or have worked for dealers, some are independent, some are just hobbyists. But there's plenty of experience from all that the dealer is not the first place to call for a lot of things. We could go into all sorts of details about their business models, where the profits are and the priorities are, in short, expect to do it yourself or pay for whatever service the dealer offers, good, bad or ugly. If you don't believe me, you could read plenty of threads here about dealer service experience. Or here's a thread about somebody who thought they knew better than the advice offered here: HeavyEquipmentForums
Paul Morin from Schmidt Equipment in Springfield, MA showed up this morning to fix the leaking hub seal that drained out all of the fluid. The good news is that there was no damage to the hub and gears, and no worn metal in the fluid or the hub itself. I was concerned from posts here that the dealer might send a newbie out who didn't know his stuff. Instead, Paul blew me away. He did the seal, explained what he was doing, demonstrated why the seal went bad, and fixed it without wasting time. He also showed me the gears to prove that no damage occurred to the hub itself. He then fixed a plugged up Zerk without having to remove a frozen pin (torch heat freed things up), and tightened an impossible to get at drain hose off my hydraulic tank. He then went over the machine from stem to stern, looked for any issues that might prove problematic, told me places that 310Ls tended to have problems, and did some preventative fixes to help put off breakdowns. Finally, he gave me a run down on operating practices, and told me some short cuts to make my experience with the tractor more productive. His attitude was fantastic, and he cared about my tractor as if it was his own. Minimized mess, and kept everything clean while he did the repair. Paul has 28 years of experience with Schmidt in the field, and wasn't one of those flunkies who had a service manual in one hand and a wrench in the other. He also demonstrated how far cordless tools have come, and was able to crack the frozen-on lug nuts with a 3/4 inch Milwaukee impact gun. Because I learned so much, it was worth the $125 an hour to have him come out. Finally, he located a fault with the fan clutch, and told me how I could change it myself to save a service call. Excellent experience.
We Dealer techs are just like you, we put our pants on one arm at a time.
And BTW, the tech told me unless there were issues with the engine or power output, I should not touch valves until 4000 hours. And even then, if the hoe was not abused, it probably wouldn't need to be touched. He indicated that every one he checked when the engine was running well, was pretty close to perfect without him adjusting anything. He offered up the following advice. 1. With low hours use, change oil, filter, and fuels every year. Hydro filter, tranny oil, and other filters at 2 years. Unless I was plugging in hydro lines to attachments, or seeing problems with the hydro, don't bother changing hydro fluid. It's a closed system. 2. Avoid messing with the DEF system if possible. Fill it when it is nearly empty with an entire container of fresh, unopened DEF, and throw away the leftover. Treat the whole system with kid gloves. He said that Deere figured out all of the 310 problems by the time they hit L, but the DEF system was the biggest place for PITA problems. 3. Grease is your friend. Anytime you are putting cycles on a fitting, grease once or twice a day with a moly grease. If you are religious about greasing and don't do stupid things, you'll never have a problem with pins, bushings or zerks.
Except you work with big, heavy tools. More power!! Grunt, grunt.
One misconception is that valve adjustment always loosens. When I was at Cummins Factory Training, they explained the condition referred to as 'valve hammering'. This is when the valve starts sitting deeper in the seat, this brings the valve stem closer to the rocker and thus the adjustment is tighter than spec.
Based on what I have seen the most important valve set, and coincidentally the one that most often gets missed, is the one that most OEM's call for to be done the first time the oil is changed on a new or rebuilt engine. That's generally the one where the largest changes in adjustment take place as all the parts bed in, and often when its done the adjustment has closed up below spec on at least some of the valves.