Posted by David Sherman on Saturday, July 05, 2003 at 11:28AM :
In Reply to: Re: Spun rod bearing journal easy fix? posted by Dan Shockley on Saturday, July 05, 2003 at 10:09AM :
That sounds bad! The only discoloration was a slight bit of blue on one corner of the rod bearing cap. Is there any way to set up a dial indicator on the crank in-block to see if it's warped? My inclination is to try to make the engine "good enough" so the machine can dig a few holes for me now and then, without removing and totally reconditioning the engine. I suspect that to do everything right at this point could easily cost $3K in JD parts and machine shop time, plus the trouble of separating the front and rear of the tractor and front loader frame, and even then I'd still have the cracked block. If I have to tear it apart that far and throw that much money into it, I think I'd be better off adapting some other engine into it.
As for the overheating, the head gasket does not look blown, and there was no water in the cylinders or oil. I did find that one of the water pump gaskets (there's two on this rig) had been installed wrong so it didn't line up with the water passage and left only a very thin bit of gasket material along the bottom edge, which looks like it finally gave way. The leak would have been near the bottom of the front of the block where I might not have noticed it.
The white smoke was coming out of the road-draft tube at the moment when it finally seized up, not out of the exhaust. The exhaust has always smoked a fair bit (gray-blue) but I figure that is because the compression was low. I never got to test the compression because somebody stole the toolbox containing my expensive new diesel compression gage out of my truck before I even used it once.
Follow Ups: