Cylinder Head Gasket

One of our other members, Bert, has a 454 and went through the same thing. There is a flat plate on the back of the cylinder head, his was warped allowing coolant to enter an oil passage. You may want to P.M. him to get the details.

Homer,

That plate on the back of the engine head might not be warped on yours, however, you might be missing a gasket. Take that plate off and take a look if that hole is blocked properly with the gasket – if there is one. Did you notice if you had oil in your rad?

When we had this problem, we noticed that changing the head gasket did not solve the problem. We noticed that when the tractor motor was not running the coolant would slowly thrickle down the oil port located behind the plate of the engine head. When running the tractor motor, we would notice that the oil eventually mixes with the coulant from the same area. I would recommend that you take the time to remove the plate and take a look if the plate gasket is covering the oil port hole properly. We had that oil port hole blocked and added the proper gasket and had a machine shop reproduce a thicker back plate for us.

Homer I had the same problem. Bert told me about his problem with this plate. I checked it and found out I had left a bolt out on the top right. Replaced the bolt and problem solved.. Thanks again Bert

msshearin,

Good to hear that it solved your problem. We went through a time consuming and costly process trying to determine why coolant was mixing with our engine oil.

Here is a picture of our engine head with plate off. I'm pointing with screwdriver at the oil port that caused our problem.

It looks like you don't have that oil port on your engine head.

Where in the base did the coolant come out? Post picture pointing to the location.

Okay, if you've noticed that it's dripping from the front cylinder then yes that is a good next step to verify if the cylinder sleeve is cracked or if the o-ring around the sleeve is damaged. We removed and cleaned and replaced all the o-rings on the sleeves as we've noticed that the engine oil got mixed up badly into that area. We also cleaned out the rad.

I wonder if that oil port can be in the front of the engine head!?

Below are pictures of removing the piston and sleeve.

Those liners appear to be heavily pitted and corroded. I would advise against using conventional ethelene glycol based anti-freeze unless you use an additive such as Pencool or equivalent. See here

Preferably a heavy duty pre-mixed solution such as Final Charge or better yet, a waterless coolant like Evans.

Coolant filters are also a huge benefit.

Bob,

When we got the tractor there was water only in this area and we changed it over to the proper antifreeze for diesel engines. Here's what it looked like once it was cleaned.

WOW! Craters! I wouldn't reuse them, but I guess you did.

Hope you don't intend on working it too hard, and intermittently at that.

The cavitation were not that drastic…we wouldn't of put them back in if we found them to be in that bad of a condition. We've been working the tractor quite hard this winter and with no problems.

What you are referring to is not cavitation, cavitation is an action. You have erosion and corrosion caused by improper coolants and a very dirty cooling system. There is absolutely no reason why a liner shouldn't look almost new after 1,000 hours of service if the cooling system is maintained properly. I guess I'm just used to different standards, I apologize.

Bob,

Here's a comparison with old and new sleeve. There is cavitation on the new one as well. I believe that this is how they are formed.

Bert,

I'm kinda curious about the tool used to pull the sleeve. Is that some sort of attachment for a slide hammer?

Cool pics of your work, and it's also pretty nifty Bob's pointing out of the evidence of ring travel, etc.

This is an interesting thread.

Biggerten,

That's exactly what we used.

Bob,

Sorry, I got it now. We cleaned the engine block where the engine sleeve slide in as it was quite dirty in there and we flushed our cooling system on several occassion.

This is a really great thread, thanks guys!  I'm learning about stuff I hope I never need to know but I sure do appreciate the information to have in the mental bank, so to speak. 

Ain't this a great forum?

Homer,

That's great that you were able to find the problem.

Did you notice any oil mixing with coolant in the sleeve area? If you noticed oil in your rad there is a good chance that all your sleeves got contaminated with oil. While you've got the engine apart, you might as well take all your sleeves out so that you can clean them out – including the engine block area. We also replaced all of the o-rings on the sleeves. 

Homerj,

You are doing a reat job and the writeup will be a great help to the rest of the members on this site. I head similar ex[eriences a few years ago, but not on my tractor.

A few years ago I rebuilt the engine in a JD450 – was a four cylinder too. That engine had cylinder liners leaking mainly around where the “O” ring but the was also ample evidence of cavitation. On two liners the outside looked like honeycomb with all the small cavitations.

All liners pistons bearings etc were renewed – however the amoount of sludge build up in the cylnder block around where the liners are situated, was very considerable. I know I spent hours cleaning out the whole thing as best I could ( I had the block off and on a wooden pallet which allowed good access ) and don't regret spending the time doing it. In my case even the radiator had a large amount of sludge in the bottom of it and that too, good a real good cleaning.

As others have said, the more care taken now will ensure a much better and complete final job.

Good  luck with the work and thanks for posting your progress.

mariner

They didn't try to charge you extra for that did they?

I've seen things like Band-It steel tape and clips, extra springs, keepers, tools, etc. in brand new $750,000.00 engines. Although infrequent, it does happen more than you may think. And then there is the ubiquitous  rag.

I thought that our members would appreciate the following link on the causes of liner cavitation which Bob briefly explained in his replies to my posts.

Tips to Prevent Coolant Failure

http://www.forconstructionpros…../5FCP18810

All I can say is this site is excellent for learning how to operate and maintain your tractor and implements.

Thanks Bert, that was a good article to read!

Good article, and another strong argument for using Final Charge, an OAT coolant.

Good article, includes a lot of stuff I learned in Cat school.

This is what I have for my C490BT engine.

Cylinder Head Bolts=     117~137 Newton Meters or 86~101 pound foot

Main Bearing Bolt=       137~156  Newton Meters or 101~115 pound foot

Connecting Rod Bolt=    98~117   Newton Meters or 72~86 pound foot

Flywheel Bolt=               98~117    Newton Meters or 72~86 pound foot

Starting Claw=              130~150   Newton Meters or 95~110 pound foot

Valve Clearance:

Intake-  .35mm

Exhaust-  .45mm