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3208 cat

old-iron-habit

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Nov 22, 2012
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Moose Lake, MN
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Retired Cons't. Supt./Hospitals
I helped repower a charter fishing boat with a 3208, partly because with the wind from astern the smoke would make some of the passengers puke.


Nothing like heavy rolling seas and diesel smoke to accompany the first morning beer for the greenhorns on a fishing trip.

Many of them marine 3208s made some serious power.
 

RZucker

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Jul 7, 2013
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Wherever I end up
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Mechanic/welder
Nothing like heavy rolling seas and diesel smoke to accompany the first morning beer for the greenhorns on a fishing trip.

Many of them marine 3208s made some serious power.
I recall reading a Cat brochure that touted 430HP in a marine application for the 3208. Umm... Yeah... Right. Maybe.
 

Nige

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G..G..G..Granville.........!! Fetch your cloth.
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Mobiltech

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Jan 14, 2014
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Sask.
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Self employed Heavy duty mechanic
A lot of 3208s that smoke bad on startup can be drastically improved by advancing the timing.
Around here where it does get cold I would not set a 3208 pin to pin. I wish I had video of some of the before and after settings. Doesn’t take much just a few degrees off stock setting.
I’ll admit there are a lot of 3208s that just smoke all the time no matter how they’re set.
 
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Birken Vogt

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Nov 30, 2003
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5,305
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
They were very popular in fire trucks around here "back in the day".

Kept reasonably warm they hardly smoked more than anything else. If you were in the wrong gear and lugged they would roll a lot of black smoke but if the RPM was high they were clean.

What they did not like was long idle time. Let one idle by the roadside for half an hour and it did not look like much was wrong but get back in and hammer down and they would puke enormous clouds of putrid blue-gray smoke until the top end warmed enough to burn off the loaded-up fuel.

Never seen another diesel behave quite like that.
 

56wrench

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Joined
Dec 4, 2016
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2,074
Location
alberta
worked on one years ago that ran cold for too long and had a couple sticky exhaust valves. managed to go through the port and clean the exposed part of the stems and liberally soak with carbon remover. we sent it out and it worked ok- just lucky I guess. 3208 engines in New Holland combines were ok-easy to work on and ran well at constant rpm and load. combine engines are usually relatively low hr ( 5000 ) and are readily available at farm equipment wreckers and can be converted to other arrangement numbers to use in trucks etc. although there are serial # differences
 

petepilot

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Jul 7, 2018
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2,167
Location
central shenandoah valley va,
witnessed a 3208 in a ford tandem dump truck putting 238 hp to the wheels on dyno` was a turboed eng after a fresh tune up don`t know what that would translate to flywheel hp . would guess 300 or better btw you guys should see what the one i just got back to life does at 9deg.cold start
 

kshansen

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Mar 11, 2012
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Central New York, USA
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Retired Mechanic in Stone Quarry
Crane Operator Please don't start that truck when the wind is coming out of the southwest!
 

56wrench

Senior Member
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Dec 4, 2016
Messages
2,074
Location
alberta
one important thing to check on 3208 engines is the pcv hose that goes to the intake. I had one that was dusted before I got it due to the hose being cracked. no telling how long it had been run like that. the crack was under the 90 degree section but the oily dirt was the giveaway. it made 10000 hrs but was always an oil burner- if it was pulling hard it would use a gallon a day
 
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