High Hour 963C

Know a fellow who has a 963C with over 14000 hours. In conversation I ask how many engine rebuilds and reply was none. All as it came from factory. Is this common? I know he only owned it less than 5 years so wonder if it is true?

What year model, S/N?

Are 2080 hours of straight time pay for eight hour days per year. If a worker operated or at least had the engine in run for at least 75% of a days time that would be just under 8000 hours for a 5 year span. If worked (Doubtful) 10 hour days six days a week is at 15600. Five days at 10 hr days is 13000. Doesn't leave much off time.

The C model could be up to 20 years old, I believe they produced them from 97 until 07. I maintained an 02 963c with a 3116 engine, it had 14000+ hrs when they sold it and never had the head off or any major engine work. Had to replace the engine in an 06 963c with the 3126, dropped a valve at 5500hrs, gouged the cylinder wall deep.

I know it's not a 963C or even a Cat but where I worked we had a Komatsu WA600 with a KT19 Cummins in it. At about 12,00 hours we had the fuel pump and injectors rebuilt, report from pump shop said only "normal wear". Then at 24,000 hours engine broke a valve spring on one cylinder so it was decided to remove all heads. At that time about 1/2 half the intake valves were replaced along with springs and keeper and again injectors rebuilt just because they were out.

I retired a short time after that so don't know how many hours are on it today. So going by that engine 14,000 on a well maintained engine would seem well within reason. I just used this machine as an example mainly because I did most of the work on it from the day in 1996 when it was delivered new up to the day I retired in 2015!

Just recalled another example, this was a Cat 3406 in a 980G. At ten years of age and 18,000 hours while still running just fine we got a good deal from Cat dealer on a "before failure" rebuild. Main reason they decided on it was that machine was the loader used to feed the BC plant and load customers and they did not want to chance a breakdown in midseason.

No experience with the 3100 series engine so they may or may not be a long lived as those I mentioned but as with any machine the way it is used and maintained makes a major difference in life.

DMiller said:

What year model, S/N?

Are 2080 hours of straight time pay for eight hour days per year. If a worker operated or at least had the engine in run for at least 75% of a days time that would be just under 8000 hours for a 5 year span. If worked (Doubtful) 10 hour days six days a week is at 15600. Five days at 10 hr days is 13000. Doesn't leave much off time.

Click to expand...

I did not doubt the number of hours but just wondering if it was common to go that far on an original engine.

Can happen, seen more hours than that on highway equipment not in as much dirt and harsh environment. Is possible to get 3500-4000 hours a year on those, if not cheating at all team driven with good return trips established.

I have lots of generator engines go 20,000 and still seem to be fine. These smaller engines are usually considered to have shorter lifespans than the bigger ones.

On equipment with dust and dirt and inattentive operators stuff happens to damage the engine but these generator engines just keep on chugging for the most part.

Injection pumps, water pumps, stuff like that do go out but they have to get caught in time. If they don't, that is the kind of thing that leads to later problems.

For those that might not know the engines I was quoting hours on are in machines working in a crushed stone quarry, not a nice clean application by any means but I or should I say we did try to keep up on normal maintenance like oil changes and keeping an eye on air filter indicators.

Maintenance is your friend!! Point in fact I have to change oil/service on some of mine this week!!