580M front engine seal leak

[Bootheal]

2000/2001 series I. Nothing special. Just a good hoe. Greasing tonight and noticed the oil pan damp. Looks very much like the crankshaft seal.

Busy tomorrow but plan to take a better look later in the week.

How much of a job to replace? Not a mechanic as many of you are.

Does time do the seal in or is there something else going on? Always starts and runs good. No noise other than diesel sounds....coming from someone who has difficulty hearing conversations!

Just looking for any information. It’s a four cylinder, about 75 hp best I recall.

 

[JBrady]

Others on this site are far more knowledgeable than me on this subject, and may have other ideas. Check your front engine mounts (2 of them) and the 4 bolts that connect the hydraulic pump bracket to the engine block. If any of those are loose or broken, it can cause your pump shaft to be out of alignment and cause the seal to prematurely fail. Also a fan belt that is too tight could cause it to fail. I guess time could do it in as well, depending on various conditions. Assuming the engine has never been rebuilt, it is 20 years old...

 

[SlatcoAu]

I just did mine last year (2004 580SM) in the bush and it took about a day to do with another guy to help. I think it is just a question of time- mine has 7500hrs and had never been done. Things to note:
1. Timing cover has to come off. This requires removing the hood and the hydraulic pump. The rad can stay and the coolant and oil do not have to be drained but the hydraulic lines on the pump will need to be capped.
2. Also to get the timing cover off I needed to remove the front engine supports that are installed to the hydraulic pump mounting bracket. You need to support the engine when you remove these.
3. The replacement seal will come with a crank sleeve. You need to heat this to get it to slip on the crank snout before reinstalling the timing cover.
4. Make sure you have a bunch of metric sockets and combination wrenches.

 

[Bootheal]

Thank you both for your thoughts and information. My manual has the engine section omitted. Engine must have been an option on this model.

 

[Bootheal]

4300 hrs on the tac.

Will it be detrimental to use as is for maybe a month??? It’s just now getting dry enough to go outside and play!

 

[Tinkerer]

Unless it is hemorrhaging oil so bad you can't keep it full use it.
If the groove that the seal wears in the crankshaft isn't very deep, you may not need to use the sleeve that comes with the new seal.

 

[Bootheal]

That’s the answer I was looking for!

it’s just damp on the oil pan...no drips yet.

thanks for taking the time to share.

 

[boone]

I recently replaced the front seal on my 310. It's a '97 and had about 3900 hours on it. It was dumping a good bit of oil out. The sleeve was grooved pretty bad. I have some pictures of it on here.

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/threads/john-deere-310-se-project.82599/#post-886916

Kinda suprised that mine would need replacing with that low of hours. Was concerned with crank case pressure too high, but it's been good so far and it doesn't have too much blow by when hot. Guess they just wear out.