Thinking of buying Cat 963 A high hours

BCOWANWHEELS said:

Its already off, it doesnt make sence to not send any head new or used to machine shop to be checked to me and seeings the original was in such terrible shape if you dont pull the engine and go thur it now you will shortly i promiss

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Agree on the "Checking" ! Pull out the valves keeping them in the order they came out. Clean and inspect the head. Measure guides to assure they are well within spec's. Take straight edge to head to be sure it is nice and flat. Reassemble and test valves for good sealing with fuel oil in exhaust and intake ports. If guides and valves are good and head is flat the worst it should need is a light touch-up on the seats and valve faces.

use vacume to check valve is sealing. do it right............... even new head have corners cut. this is the world we live in now, profit is bottom line not quality

BCOWANWHEELS said:

use vacume to check valve is sealing. do it right............... even new head have corners cut. this is the world we live in now, profit is bottom line not quality

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That works too, if you have the vacuum tester.

I got the loaded reconditioned head from the ebay guy from a 3208. He got it already reconditioned from a school system selling surplus. It seems to be in good shape, and I finally had good enough weather yesterday to get everything mostly put back together.

Obviously I didn't pull the engine and take it all apart, and maybe I'll regret it, but right now I kind of just regret taking the thing apart at all. I think for the amount I plan to use it, I probably would have been ok with the engine and all its issues.





No less than 5 times we said "oops, we got the wrong head" ... but it always turned out we had something temporarily misaligned.

I still need to get a couple plugs and fittings that were in the old head but not in my new head. Once I get the ones to keep the coolant from leaking, I was going to fire it up..

What would you guys do about those big holes on the back side of the head in the first picture? Those are where the fuel lines enter in a 3208, but in the 3204 they enter from the other side of the engine through the valve cover. I was thinking CAT may make some plugs. Or it would be easy to tap with 1/2 npt threads, but may be too late now that everything is much less accessible. I bought some short, thick grade 8 bolts and nuts (for corrosion resistance), and I was just going to to put them on with some rubber washers, but I'm not sure there isn't a better way.

I got it all put together-- went super-smooth. No surprises or leftover bolts, etc. Everything torqued to spec.

But it won't start. It used to start instantly if the throttle was 2/3 or more. I can get it to smoke and I can feel it kicking a little bit, but it won't catch.

I started everything with the fuel lines open hoping to discharge any nasty fuel first. I didn't know about the hand primer pump though, so my starting at first probably didn't send any fuel through. I tightened the lines (why, i don't know) and tried to start it, and still nothing. I googled and found out about the hand primer, so I primed it with that and the lines tight. I did send some nasty fuel to the injectors doing this. I then cracked the fuel lines afterwards and saw a few teaspoons of darker stuff come out before it cleared up.

BTW, pumping the hand pump sends fuel through the other pumps directly through the fuel lines. I was surprised about that. Seems it could overfuel or even create some kind of hydrolock if you send too much.

Here is a video (40 seconds) showing fuel spitting out the little holes in the valve cover, and it shows some little black specks in the fuel:
https://vimeo.com/141899485

I read somewhere there are screens in the little fuel nipples that go through the valve cover. I may check these for gunk.

I looked at the diagram of the injector pump, and it looks like even if some dirt/water/etc (which if anything was condensate) got in through the top uncovered fittings, there is a check valve right below, so it wouldn't have been able to mess up the moving pump parts or anything crucial. And I kept some diesel in the holes with a dropper. But I'm still wondering about the state of this thing.

I rechecked valve lash and it seemed fine. I didn't do anything while apart that should mess up the timing. I did give the cylinders a little hone to remove a little rust that had formed on two cylinders (we forgot to reoil the walls after removing pistons), but it cleaned right up, and it didn't seem to remove any material.

Could my injectors be so clogged from the first bit of dirty fuel? Should I take an injector out to test? Maybe turn it upside down so it sprays upwards to check the spray pattern?

People say it's hard to get the air out of the fuel system (even though it seems to me I got it out) and that they need a little help first time starting. Should I try to spray some ether or wd40 in the intake?

Thanks guys!

crazyjncsu said:

What would you guys do about those big holes on the back side of the head in the first picture? Those are where the fuel lines enter in a 3208, but in the 3204 they enter from the other side of the engine through the valve cover. I was thinking CAT may make some plugs. Or it would be easy to tap with 1/2 npt threads, but may be too late now that everything is much less accessible. I bought some short, thick grade 8 bolts and nuts (for corrosion resistance), and I was just going to to put them on with some rubber washers, but I'm not sure there isn't a better way.

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I would measure the holes with a dial caliper and get some core plugs of correct size to install.

In the video with the fuel squirting out the weep holes, the the injector lines are loose I hope? If you get thick grey/white smoke out the exhaust while cranking it should fire on it's own. I'm hoping the specs of "dirt" you're seeing is just external contamination..

GregsHD said:

In the video with the fuel squirting out the weep holes, the the injector lines are loose I hope?

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Yes, they're loose in the video. It was nighttime so I couldn't really tell the color of the smoke.

If you've not disturbed the cam or pump timing during your repair, and you're confident that you've got the valve set right, it should go.

Cat fuel pumps are a little unusual in that you can pump fuel right up to the injectors with the hand primer, a good thing IMO.

It looks like you're on the right track. Loosen the injection lines at the unions, pump away at the hand primer until you get no air bubbles at the weep holes, screw down the hand primer, crank it over a few times and tighten a couple of the lines. Crank it over and it should eventually fire. Remember that the pump still has to push the air out of the crossover tube and the injector. Once you get it running on two cylinders, tighten the other lines.

I went out there tonight with the intention of bleeding the thing til I was blue in the face ... But I quickly found a leak in the fuel filter, causing bubbles to keep coming through. I'll get a new filter tomorrow and see how it goes!

And I measured the holes with a caliper. Exactly .75, so I'll get some freeze plugs for it.

Thanks!

When I run mine out of fuel, I pump it a few times until it gets harder to pump. Then I have someone else turn the key start and i use the prime pump at the same time. It works like a charm.

I replaced the fuel filter, primed, and it fired up on the first crank. Ran a little rough though. Cracked the fuel lines and I found #2 cylinder wasn't firing. I swapped the injectors between #1 and #2, then #1 stopped firing, so it seems to be the injector. The guy at the machine shop took off the injector, so who knows how he beat it around .. or may just be clogged with dirt from the fuel.

I figure it's probably beyond a soaking. I looked at taking the think apart, but it looks kind of tamper-proof. Some weird screw on the side (torx-ish, but not torx). And a 7-sided nut/bolt on the top. I ordered a new injector for $65 ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Caterpillar...type-Diesel-/171677565269?hash=item27f8c7c155 ) ... A lot easier than dealing with the old one, if I just need to deal with the one-- but I'm wondering if I should have done something with the other 3 injectors ... either ordered 3 more new ones or just sent all 4 off to have them cleaned?

Got out there today for a few minutes. Installed the injector and it runs smooth. I mostly let it idle, then moved it about 100 ft.

Anyway, I don't see the coolant circulating through the top of the radiator, and the water is still cool to the touch

The gauge on the left (water temp?) has always been pegged, even when off. The gauge on the right (oil temp?) seems normal.



Could there be an air bubble around the water pump? I forgot to massage the hoses like I used to have to do on my toyota... Thermostat stuck? shouldn't there be a little bit of bypass? How do I test?

Right guage is water left is oil temp.

Got out there today and finally started digging! I'm glad I was able to find dry dirt under the muck. The family joined me after about 20 minutes of work starting to make a ramp down to the pond. I still have a day or so more of the pond draining to get it to where I can take the loader across.

The radiator or water pump did have some kind of air bubble around it. It got up to about 205 degrees before I remembered to look at the gauge and then checked the radiator cap. When I did it was still cold and a bunch of coolant spewed out before everything started flowing.

It's gonna be a while before I get productive on these controls...









Thanks for all the help getting this thing running! I hope I don't blow it up!

I've got a lot of work done with this thing. Man, if you've gotta just have one machine (for the work I'm doing at least), this is the machine!

I can knock off of work a couple of hours early each day and get a bunch of work done just by myself.

The hydraulics and transmission are really strong-- no issues whatsoever there (yet). The engine is still hanging in there just fine. It goes through a little oil and coolant, but I don't really care adding a little here and there for the work I'm going. I don't think it's the head gasket because the coolant smell is more from the fan blowing through the radiator than out the exhaust.

I've removed about 40 trees averaging 12" diameter or so. I skid them up a hill (behind where the pic is taken) and bring back a load of dirt each time. I'm preparing the dam to have a driveway across it.

Before:


After:

Nice looking road across the dam