Looking to replace an engine in a gradall

Have a client with a 544 d10 (s/n 0455344)
His engine has excessive blow by and has recently started to have an over heating problem.
Engine is a Cummins 4bta (s/n 60117914, col 1963). He asked me about replacing the engine. I didn't give him any numbers because it has been about ten years since I have run across a gradall/Cummins that I felt needed it.
My first step was to contact my local Cummins dealer to ask for a quote (I like to have a baseline to make a decision against). Waited about a month, think I called a couple of times in there but couldn't get the right guy on the phone, finally called this morning and just waited for him. He emailed me the quote and I just looked at it. It seems unreasonably high to me, but I don't often buy engines.

Its Friday evening now so I can't contact any other places for competitive quotes so I thought I would throw the numbers up on the forum to see what anybody else thought.

$12,128.56 for the reman, $1300 for freight (engine barged from the mainland to Hawaii Island, core back to Oahu). About 120 days lead time. I think an internet search showed me a company that provides new 4bt's for less than half that price (I dunno, "agkits" maybe?)

I don't really want to do the overhaul myself. According to the data tag the engine was already remanufactured at least once. There was a time when I would have, but it is a time consuming process and all of my time is spent on just trying to keep the machines in my stable up and running and I am about three or four weeks behind just doing that.

Thanks in advance for any help.

It seems to me that there is likely all kinds of equipment such as generators that gets sold for cheap or goes into the scrapper with a perfectly running 4B of some kind, you could get a good used one and swap over what needed swapping.

You could widen the net possibly: Does it need to have as much HP as it does with aftercooled? Is it ATAAC or water? Does it even need a turbo engine or would he get along fine with NA?

But if you can get a new aftermarket one for $6k, that seems like a pretty good deal to me.

The 4BT is a great engine. We also have a Gradall 543D that has been a great machine.

The little engines are quite popular in the off-road world where folks are putting them in Jeeps and rock crawlers. A quick search found several 4BT's around the $5-6K range.

I've read somewhere that those new after Market engines are not all that great and none of the parts would interchange with cummins. Just hear say tho.

Birken Vogt said:

It seems to me that there is likely all kinds of equipment such as generators that gets sold for cheap or goes into the scrapper with a perfectly running 4B of some kind, you could get a good used one and swap over what needed swapping.

Click to expand...

The client is actually okay with paying what was quoted by my local Cummins dealer. So I'm not even going to ask him about putting in a used or scrap engine. I just have a hard time believing (with the popularity of this engine and the reasonable prices for genuine Cummins reman kits) the $12,000 price tag.

CM1995 said:

The little engines are quite popular in the off-road world where folks are putting them in Jeeps and rock crawlers. A quick search found several 4BT's around the $5-6K range

Click to expand...

I saw that as well. I didn't even know that that was a thing.(putting diesels in jeeps). But....I don't know. I don't understand other people's hobbies.
I spend about 70 hours a week on other people's mechanical problems. If I ever find a hobby; pretty sure wrenches aren't involved.

Tyler d4c said:

I've read somewhere that those new after Market engines are not all that great and none of the parts would interchange with cummins. Just hear say tho.

Click to expand...

That is what I was worried about.
Any idea where you read that?
Or does anyone have hands on experience with this?

Mobilewrench said:

That is what I was worried about.
Any idea where you read that?
Or does anyone have hands on experience with this?

Click to expand...

I believe it was on one of the mechanic pages on Facebook ill look around for it a bit

That price doesn't seem out of line to me right now. I've seen some pricing on new big bore diesels engine in the $40 to $60K range. What is the warranty on the new 4BT? Does this machine have two engines or one? Does Cummins offer anything in a reman?

John C. That is a reman. The quote has a core charge as well.

Oops, I went back to your initial post and see the paragraph of the replacement being a reman. My other thought was about your statement about another company providing a new 4BT for half that price. Do you mean another reman or a new engine for half that price?

New engine, according to the website. I think it was agkits, but I got the impression that it isn't actually a cummins, some sort of cummins clone.

Leave that clone alone. I did one-WON'T do another. Timing cover is different, holes in block for oil pressure sending unit is a different thread, and other things. Don't mess with it. There's a lot of different ways to go about getting another engine. That price is high to me. I wouldn't build it either- too many issues with sub-standard parts, poor machine work, and you at the end of it all. Keep looking around.

A member on another forum offered to quote one from Cummins, are you interested?

Of course thanks.

tractormech said:

Leave that clone alone. I did one-WON'T do another. Timing cover is different, holes in block for oil pressure sending unit is a different thread, and other things. Don't mess with it. There's a lot of different ways to go about getting another engine. That price is high to me. I wouldn't build it either- too many issues with sub-standard parts, poor machine work, and you at the end of it all. Keep looking around.

Click to expand...

That was what I suspected. Thanks for letting me know.

I asked, using the numbers in your OP.

Had a truck shop telling me you can't even get a big bore Cummins long block for a truck right now and they're wanting $30-35.000.00 for a short block.

I was just reading a thread about unresolved threads and decided to do a little self evaluation.
This is 11 months old. I think the client bought the factory reman. But just realized that I don't know.
Should have been here 8 months ago.
I still have $2000 dollars in labor on this machine and at least $1000 in parts that haven't been paid for.
On the upside; I have the same amount in already paid for parts that haven't been installed in my inventory.

Uh, thats far back down the road to chase money.