My 518 has been sitting for a bit now, been using another skidder. Decided to start running two skidders, so we hauled the 518 up to the job today. When we parked it a few months ago, it was working great. Now in 15-20 minutes it sucks the water out of the radiator into the oil. Like all of the coolant. It starts blowing out the blowby tube and going everywhere. Anyone have any ideas?
Did it freeze up? At the very least you have a blown head gasket, worst case scenario a cracked head or liner.
My thought's exactly but I didn't want to be the bearer of bad new's Overhaul was my thought's Sorry. GL and have a :new_year:
Tear down time!
That is a very bad "leak" and if there was anti freeze in it when it sucked dry over a 20 minute time frame, I am guessing there will be crank damage. I am gona guess a cracked sleeve or head.
just did a quick search on Cat forums tech site. That should be a 3304. Apparently they are known to have an O ring issue on the bottom of the sleeves as the hours get up there FYI. you might be lucky IF you dont run it any more till its fixed. Hope thats what yours may be.
Sorry to hear cause I am sure you need it running. Good luck on the rebuild.
Make sure and check the oil cooler also ,another place water can get into the oil.those old 518's are pretty tough a guy that used to work with me had over 40,000 hours on his. Don
As said, you will probably have to tear it down. My guess is the o-rings for the cylinder sleeves. Allowing a machine to sit for extended periods of time can cause more wear & tear than using them. The o-rings can dry out and then crack.
or the liners pitted thru
518 cat = best skidder in my opinion. well worth a fix on that and keep it.
Thanks for the replys. I have been told the oil cooler also. What do I check on it?
A friend of mine that looks after a wack of irrigation pump sets says there was an up grade made available to the gasket set for the 3300 series Cat based staionary power engines in about 83 that put in a much better tefflon based O ring. Says he has quite few of 3306s and a few 3304s that he has rebuilt approaching the 20,000 hour mark since last rebuild pushing water at 600 to 1500 plus gallons a minute that have not developed a sleeve leak since last rebuild that included the new gasket and seal kit. He says some of these engines are on rebuild cycle number 4 and are close to 100,000 total hours pumping water. Says that dollar for dollar it is one of the most reliable engines he works with in the irrigation pump power plants and cummins is about the same but a slight bit more expensive on the rebuild.
The 3304 engines are not super expensive to rebuild, the convertor and transmission are something else !!!!! Don
We just had a similar problem on our CAT 930 loader, I think it's also a 3304 engine (1970 machine). Tear down showed that when the head gasket got done this summer they should have done O-rings too (the head cracked when Wifey lost a heater hose and kept pushin' corn - opps!)
The fellow that put it back together the second time (should have gone to him first!) said that he did o-rings and kept it cheap (we really needed cheap) and to keep our fingers crossed. Still going 2 months later!
We finaly shut down logging for spring break-up, so I tore into the 518 today. Took off the oil pan and was going to pressure up the radiator to see where the water was comeing from. As I poured water into the radiator, it started pouring out the bottom of motor. Checked it out, and it was comeing from water pump. The seals went out around the drive shaft. Looks like a new pump will fix it. Big relief.
Congrat's that is a big relief for ya!