140H SOS

Hi everyone, I received some bad news today in regards to my 140H machine I run in the spring summer and fall, She is my baby and have been on her sense new, the oil report from SOS came back bad for my engine from Cat, the engine has 13000+ hrs on her and its the 3176 C11, the sample showed lead and bearing findings also some antifreeze, they recommended stop running the engine ASAP, crank bearing are going, I have faithfully changed the oil in this machine at 250 hrs and fuel filters at 500hrs sense new plus always followed the PM laid out from Cat to the letter, and have not had one bit of trouble with the engine ever, the only thing that was done different was our shop switched to Baldwin filters from the Cat ones about 2 years ago for my machine to save a buck, as of now the machine runs great lots of power no noises, you would never know something is wrong, it has not been going down on Antifreeze or using oil any more different than any other time, our shop Mech is going to open up the oil filter to see what findings may be in there, I will be looking at 7-8 weeks from the date they take her till I get her back, god only knows what old blister the will give me till my baby returns, I am dreading it.

If it's not using coolant then take another SOS sample ASAP and compare the results against the first one..?
Glycol will take the LTO (lead-tin overlay) off crankshaft bearings in a heartbeat, especially in a high-hour engine.
Baldwin filters = asking for trouble IMHO.
I don't think 13k hours to overhaul is a bad number for an engine as small as a 3196

Agree with Nige. 13000hrs is getting up there, but to pull an engine on the basis of one sample is, IMO, a little hasty. You should definitely resample to confirm.

Cmark said:

........but to pull an engine on the basis of one sample is, IMO, a little hasty.

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Not just a little - a helluva lot .............

Thanks guy's, I forgot to mention that we are taking more oil samples to confirm for sure, my machine over time would take a top up on coolant like maybe once a year you may need to add a gallon but always remains in the sight glass, I do a lot of ditching with my machine leaning over a lot forming and cleaning out ditches the coolant level was always that way sense new, nothing really has changed or stuck out that you would take notice or become concerned, as for oil usage I find Cat engines find their own levels on the dipstick and stay there, my machine would stay about half way between full and low oil mark still in the safe zone, adding oil to bring it back up to the full mark I found it would fall back to that set level again burning up that litre of oil, but would remain at that set level for days on end without adding, my engine would start taking some oil when it neared the 250hr mark, that always triggered me to check my engine hour's, i'm interested in what the next samples will say, I will let you guy's know, thanks

My father always said every engine has its own full mark, and no amount of oil will keep it above that. My old 730 would take a quart a day if you wanted to keep it on the full mark. Once it lost that quart, it wouldn't take a drop untill it was time for a change.

Has anyone considered a rebuilt engine as opposed to rebuilding the original?

It all depends who’s doing the rebuilding.

If the engine is shot they will most likely use a Cat reman as to rebuilding it in our shop, at one time we did everything when it came to rebuilding engines and trannies had our own dyno room, and anything to do with snowplows and snow and ice removal as well, we had the shop to do it in, at one time there would have been a engine for my grader sitting on the floor completely rebuilt waiting to be dropped in, now every thing is sourced out and that building is shut down, kind of sad to see everything sitting there in that building not being used a lot of good people use to work in that shop, that's government for you, now we pay dearly like x3 for anything we need.

Our 140H, with 3176 motor at 5000hrs, returned some frightening numbers after a coolant pump failure.
For example, Lead 20
Copper 241
Iron 66
Mo 444
Sodium 2400
PQ Index 309
Now, touch wood, 3000Hrs later it is still running like a top and returning A level sos reports.

That's good to know, I will pass that info on, maybe we are having a coolant pump failure, thanks

In my experience 12,000 to 13,000 is the perfect time for a rebuild. The engine and all the ancillaries are not all so worn that they have to be all replaced. The block only needs a minimum of machine work. Gaskets and such are all hard and starting to leak anyway and the parts need thorough clean to bare metal to ensure no leaks. You can expect another 7,800 to 8,500 hours with few if any problems and there will still be enough machine left at a little more than 20K hours to recoup some money on a trade in.
Run it to destruction and there is no more planning for the end game. Everything to do with the machine cost wise will be a reactionary response and much more expensive.

John C. said:

Run it to destruction and there is no more planning for the end game. Everything to do with the machine cost wise will be a reactionary response and much more expensive.

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Have seen this so many times.

The fights I have had with management, argue my point, pull in all the information I can to prove my case and get told that the money is not in the budget for our division this year.

Maintenance on the machine was a bit overlooked because "we are going to get a new one next year", but we kept it going.

And later when there is a steaming pile of crap blocking the road and all the fingers are pointing to me, I have a really hard time trying to keep the I told you so smile off of my face.

wornout wrench said:

Have seen this so many times.

The fights I have had with management, argue my point, pull in all the information I can to prove my case and get told that the money is not in the budget for our division this year.

Maintenance on the machine was a bit overlooked because "we are going to get a new one next year", but we kept it going.

And later when there is a steaming pile of crap blocking the road and all the fingers are pointing to me, I have a really hard time trying to keep the I told you so smile off of my face.

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This happens at our main shop all the time, robbing Peter to pay Paul, for the time being I have been running my 140h without a hiccup, our mobile Mech was talking to the Cat Mech in our area about my machine's bad sos report and he said the findings are most likely coming off a piston??? we did open up the oil filter and found some shinny little tiny pieces in the fabric of the filter, kinda looked like brass, this filter had 60hrs on it, my gut feeling is they will want me to run my machine till the engine completely explodes regardless what the new sos sample comes back with, one of managements famous saying's at the mech shop is "if you could just get by for 1 more year" Lol.

Priced one out this spring a Cat long block about 5,000 cheaper than having cat go though the engine Soo that one will be run to destruction and 2 days later be back to work

I've worked for more than one dealer and done a few long blocks in the day. Two days down time on a swap might work with a direct exchange but I've never seen a long block take less than three days for the swap over plus you have two days for the remove and install. You should also think about rebuilding or exchanging items that aren't part of the long block. Turbo, fuel transfer systems, water pump, sensors, hydraulic pumps and so on. I would also highly recommend that long block be dyno tested when finally put together. I produced a video of a D11 rebuild that's on YouTube now. What isn't shown is the first exchange engine had something not done properly in the rebuild and the oil pan filled up with coolant in a manner of minutes after the first start up. That engine had to come out and another exchange engine brought in. So much for quality rebuilds. I'd figure at least thirty two hours of labor to do the swap out. Add in travel and administrative tasks and you are looking at a week.

1 week sounds about right in a shop that's on the ball, in our shop..4-5 weeks if they have everything needed to do a drop in, your looking at 6-7 weeks from Cat, that's how long it took them when our 12m3 engine blew up to get her back, just sad really, I would say when it comes time to get my machines engine done Cat will be doing it, they want the warranty that comes with it.

Did they resample? Everything turn out good?

Fatgraderman said:

Did they resample? Everything turn out good?

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I checked the other day to see if the SOS report came back yet and no nothing has come back yet, working the machine every day you would never know anything is wrong let alone the engine is failing, nothing is out of the norm for my machine and the way the engine works, I was thinking the sample results should have been back by now.

20/80 said:

I was thinking the sample results should have been back by now.

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Our dealer usually has results back within a week, certainly a fortnight... if you mark the sample “urgent”, they’ll endeavour to have them within 48 hours of receipt.