This is my project for the winter months this year. Il have a few questions along the way so any help is very welcome
thats a fair project you have......whats the history of the machine and whats the plan after its done up?
The motor is worn out 23k hrs so pulled the heads, liners, pistons and oil pump to get things started. I could nearly slide my finger between the rings and liners! My plan is to go through her properly and work her away next year. When I'm happy with the drivetrain il give her a sand blast and some paint. If you see this tc, you mention the bypass valves in the filter head in your thread. Would these be under the two cover looking up to the heads? Are they available as pieces or is it buy a filter head?
She gave all her life in a limestone quarry. It was fairly well serviced over the years but the engine got tired and when things turned down here it was parked up. If I can get it going right again I'm gonna work it away with a bit of luck
23K hours, I would call that a good and faithful friend and give her a pat and a "Well done lass". Be sure to keep plenty of pictures coming when you make progress, love to see it come back to work ready.
Jam, the control valves are under plugs in the filter head and are colour coded for correct location, I still get the odd job on A25C's and love working on them, they are very easy to work on compared to the more modern mounts, your bin looks very rusty possibly needing a blast and paint? my usualy jobs on them now is back beam bushings and transmission changing as I have the lifting frame for the tran's swap thing, the engines are not to bad a task as the Volvo kit is so well built, if you have the service book it gives you a tool section and explains how to make tooling for some of the jobs you might get into, the A30 dumper that I have split in 2 parts with a knackered vertical joint has a VHS tape in the Cab as an Opp's Manual??? its some fun to read without my TV and all the stuff to put the tape in, possibly not Volvo's best idea? tctractors
Just some thing else to check with the poor starting is the top hats on the injection pump drive and the drive plates had a fair few wear and give starting problems and I seam to remember spill timing and have a tube some where but it's been a few years since I seen a good old Volvo engine
Strachan, you might be confusing Jam with the Top Hat thing, I did mention them (delivery valves) in the kick off, is it worth bringing up the Alpha Drive as the front is stripped out and the injector pump is on the "Healing Bench" the pump can be spill timed but is usualy only set via the tooth and plastic peg method, I could just do with an A25C engine rebuild to get me away from all the crap jobs I seem to pick up, as for getting a service manual a parts manual is also very handy, but the Operators manual is realy good at helping sort the fuse and relay thing out, plus the dash warning bulbs and controls can become a brain tease, the Ops' book sorts this part well. tctractors
Just a small update I pulled the wheels off to get them shot blasted and painted. I found good disks but all the pads were fairly shot. When she has been sitting for so long I'm going to resell all the callipers but 26 of the 32 pistons are corroded so have them ordered. Iv sent the rad off for a new core as well and cleaned the hydraulic tank for some piece of mind. Still waiting for my service manual but does anyone know where the transmission filter is and roughly how much oil? I presume it's check after while warm and running?
Another update Got all the main bearings in handy enough and the bottom end built back up. These are a really nice engine to work at il have to say I'm very impressed with Volvo so far. Rad came back with a new core and all my wheels came back powder coated and lovely.
transmission filter is in the front right hand corner of the bottom of the transmission, and it takes 18 litres of atf.
Thanks for that. I changed it out last weekend and thank god everything looked spotless.
Ran into my first real problem today. I timed the injector pump at 8 degrees btc on the compression stroke. Engine fires instantly but won't rev up past about 1500rpm. Iv a new lift pump delivering plenty of juice and iv cleaned the fuel outlet valve on the back side of the pump but still no joy. Have I the timing wrong?
After working on it for another while I think iv the timing wrong for sure. If I hold the throttle open it will heat fairly quickly and it's well down on power. I put the valves for number one cylinder rocking. Then turned the crank around nearly one turn until I could see the timing marks on the flywheel. I set that at eight degrees and then adjusted the pump until I could see the little pointer through the Allen head window. Rotated the engine two turns and check again. Anyone know what I'm after missing because I'm stumped??
The plastic peg for timing the pump is in the pump you remove it from its store position and insert it through the timing set hole that you have been struggling to see into, you do this with the coupling loose on the pump drive, on the engine rotation thing well it all sounds good enough if both rocker arms are loose and you are turning the engine clockwise from the front, the usual issue with under speed is down to cable adjustment or worn out foot peddle, so pull off cable from speed control also remove or make sure the 2 (Two)stop control cables are not holding things in the wrong spot, the 1 stop cable goes to the Hydraulic tank shut off lever, then try things with your hand on the pump speed control, the rev counter works off the alternator via the connection marked W this puts out A.C. power 12 volt to the rev counter, the g/box will not select a speed if the engine speed at idle is over 900 rpm, the hydraulic fan speed should go to high blow at I think around 1600rpm, all this detail should be in your service book, I will check on the engine data for static timing as I cannot recall but there is also dynamic timing data, all that involves is engine running at pre set speeds to check the Alpha drive to the pump. good rims tctractors
Thanks for the reply tc Where is the plastic plug stored? I'm using a mirror to look in the hole and I can see a little spur looking back at me. I thought I found a setting of 8degrees btdc but I reckon it should be more. Maybe 13/14 because it's sounds fierce soft. No hint of a diesel bark?
Here's a little outside the box thought for you Jam; Does it have the butterfly style exhaust brake? Reason I ask is that we had an A25 that developed similar symptoms and it turned out the exhaust brake was stuck on. I realise you have just rebuilt this, but is it possible that you've got the linkage back to front or something?
Cheers Cmark I opened the 3bolts this evening to check the brake and everything is working as it should. My gut is saying il have to do some more routing around for the pump timing degrees. She sounds lovely at tick over but as you bring up the revs with no load she's fighting herself a bit and you can nearly see the heat in the exhaust manifold. Water temp rises quickly at the same time?
To me the symptoms you describe sound too severe to be just a timing problem. If not an exhaust restriction then maybe a parasitic load? Hydraulics loading up? Hoist lever stuck in the down position?
I moved the pump timing to 14degrees and also found a pin hole in the air pipe coming from intake manifold to pump. Engine revs up now but is clearly under load. If you hold the revs up the transmission temperature climbs steadily. Would it be possible that the retarder in the box is stuck on?
Not certain about the specific retarder on an A35 but I would expect it to work on the output side of the transmission and so only create heat when the truck is moving. The majority of heat in a powershift transmission is usually generated by the torque converter. Possible scenarios for unexpected TQ stall are transmission in gear but parking brake stuck on, (but you would then notice the machine straining against the brake,) or, transmission has multiple incorrect clutch packs engaged at the same time. Looking at the gauges, would you say the transmission temp is coming up independently or is the engine temp dragging the tranny up with it?
If you open the throttle the trans temp rises up first and the engine temp follows after a while. If the trans temp is at 40 degrees and you press throttle I can watch it rise steadily until I leave it back to idle. If I leave off the handbrake she will roll freely so it's not fighting against a gear I think.
While you were working on the engine did you have any of the power train hydraulic system apart..?
I had the two front facing hydraulic pumps off alright to get the sump down.
in that case is there any possibility that you hooked sometrhing up wrong..?
Thanks Nige. After a lot of head scratching and messing about it turned out to be a stuck electric solenoid in front of the windscreen sending an air supply down to the retarder relay keeping it turned on. Once I disconnected the air supply everything is perfect so must get a new solenoid to get the retarder working again. All I can say is thank god for service manuals
The retarder control is very simple so it might be worth checking out the foot control as this could be your issue, the mag valve needs to have electrical power to energize the air spool going to the retarder valve on the gear case, this would be a rare fault to have on a dumper, no doubt when you had the 2 front pumps off the drive case you looked at the screen filter behind the plug on the drive case? the retarder warning light on the display should have helped you spot the fault showing retarder on, I would always go through all the controls, warning lights and fuses on a service/repair job, the mag coils (solenoid) when faulty just don't work? did this dumper get the big engine rebuild due to a "Tarder Fault" in the very start, the G/Box usually lasts around the 16'000 18'000 hours on A25C's, they are 1 of the easy ones to remove/replace compared to the later series dumpers but they are still pigs to tackle, I do have the trolley frame for gearbox removal on Volvo Dumpers, the last time I used it was on an A30 about 4 years ago. tctractors
My problem seems to be this solenoid. I don't know is it because she was parked for a long time but it's not seating properly. Even with the plug off its still leaving an air supply down to the retarder. There seems to be two regulators feeding it. Would that be for the two retarder strength levels? Other that this she is getting close to a trial run!
Just another small update. The dumper has around 60hrs on the engine and seems to be going well. I put a new solenoid in for the retarder so that's working properly now too. Couple of small things like a leaking sight glass in the hydraulic tank and a hole in the exhaust box to sort out when it comes back to the yard but overall I'm very happy so far.
Changed out the handbrake disk with pads and a new exhaust box.
nice job there Jam, good to see it working
Just wrapping this up lads. Thanks for all the help with it. Finally got the last few small bits sorted out and got her painted. Painted the cab frame black to be a bit different and made a set of back mud flaps. Overall I'm very happy with the result
She looks a tidy dumper now, good work.
Did you do an in-frame overhaul on the engine? Looks like I’m going to have to overhaul mine and I’m hoping I don’t need to pull the engine. Mine just started putting antifreeze in the oil and also pushing antifreeze out the coolant tank so I guess I have something going on in there. Where can I get a shop manual to guide me in this process?
Easy to work on in frame. A lovely straightforward engine
I did find a shop manual from Volvo for the engine. In the section that deals with setting the liners, am I reading it correctly that if there is no damage to the liner seats, and if liner height can be adjusted with shims, that it is very possible that I won’t have to mill the bores at all? Because I don’t have the tool to do that and don’t know who does. I really don’t know how to do this rebuild job, but I’m thinking I can learn as I go since it’s a wintertime project. I’m thinking about just tearing it all down myself then hiring a real mechanic to do the technical parts of it.