Case 350 Crawler kicking my butt

[showrguy]

@frinenboard, did you give up ??
Remember, no one likes a quitter !! Lol

I spelled frickenbored wrong..

 

[frickenbored]

No I haven't quit, I was a little late on ordering the parts I need so I'm still waiting for them. Plus I've been really busy with some other stuff, and its been raining every other day here in Michigan so basically zero progress has been made at this point. I'll be busy with my Chevy k10 build all next week but I should be able to work on the ol' Case by next Friday. Everything I need to do shouldn't take more than a few hours.

 

[frickenbored]

So wow it's been like...3 months damn. Well in this time I really haven't done anything to the case tractor, I got super busy at work, started a little side project re-bluing firearms, and mainly I was just burnt out on this tractor. However over the weekend I finally installed the fuel bowl seal and replaced all of the injector return line seals so all of my fuel leaks have been stopped. I bled the system and yet again all it does is crank. So I headed up to tractor supply and bought a couple cans of "diesel safe" starting fluid. I ran that engine on an entire can of ether hoping maybe it would finally catch and run on its own (at this point I figure the compression is low enough that the engine is probably shot anyway) by the end of the can it seemed like it was actually trying to start. When I stopped spraying the idle would even out and it would run for about 4-5 seconds then die. Thinking it was just residual ether keeping it alive I shut off the fuel and then the engine would die immediately after I stopped spraying ether. It seems like it wants to start...could there still be some air trapped in the fuel system? Or am I just wasting time at this point?

 

[thepumpguysc]

Seeing this has gone on for so long.. take the top cover off the pump & have a look..
Do a search on a "Roosa Master metering valve"
Your looking for a stuck mv on yours.. a pic is worth a 1000 words..
OR.. take off the top cover & move the shut-off lever & watch the movement.. the little cam should push on the mv arm to move it to the shut-off position & return on it own to the run position..
IF the mv is stuck in the shut-off position, the cam will just move & not touch anything..
Worse comes to worse, I'm available to take a look at your pump..
IF your not sure what your looking at.. send me some pics to my home email address..{easier than posting here}
Good luck..

 

[frickenbored]

Well sad news but pretty much what I expected...so I took the pump cover off and checked the metering valve again and it's still free. So I took the intake manifold off and poured oil in each cylinder thru the intake valves to raise the compression. With the help of a little starting fluid it started and after some sputtering it actually ran for a little over 30 seconds. It sounded like crap but it was running on it's own. Its leaking so much compression into the crankcase it shot out the oil dipstick like a bullet. So that pretty much solves it. At minimum it needs to be re-sleeved. Eventually I'll take the head off and see how bad the damage is.

 

[Tinkerer]

A dipstick that is launched like that is most likely caused by a piston with a hole in it.
Do not use any ether to get it started again or bad things will happen !!

 

[frickenbored]

I dont think theres a hole in a piston, unless it somehow just happened, because when I checked the compression I had between 250-300 on all cylinders and over 400 with oil. A hole in a piston would should read 0. Could be a tiny hole maybe. I'm thinking piston rings are fried/broken.

Either way I'm done trying to start it. I wanna disassemble the engine. As long as the head is good I should be able fix the engine.

Has anyone ever honed sleeves and replaced the rings? I'm thinking if I find the sleeves in ok shape and the rings destroyed I might be able to just put a set of rings in it.

 

[DMiller]

Won’t get a ring to reseat on old sleeves as cannot break the shine off them enough as well broken rings will score the crap out of them
Then there are piston ring grooves most of these were square cut with typical wear making the ring grooves keystone shaped and will likely destroy any new rings in short hours of run time
Gonna overhaul need to do it correct or expect the bad results

 

[Welder Dave]

Despite it saying diesel safe, using a whole can of starting fluid to run the engine was a bad idea and likely added to your problems.

 

[frickenbored]

I'm not too worried about it, I already pretty much knew the engine was shot anyway. Re-sleeving really doesnt look like a difficult job and luckily the whole job can be done with the crank still installed so I dont have to pull the engine.

 

[Ronsii]

As long as the ether didn't hurt the crank......

 

[Tinkerer]

Look for bent connecting rods to.

 

[Welder Dave]

Your problems may have just been injection pump related. Having to go through the entire engine because of an injection pump problem seems counter productive.

 

[Ronsii]

Look for bent connecting rods to.

And.... since it shot the dipstick out at least once you can assume shaft seals and such may be compromised.

 

[frickenbored]

Your problems may have just been injection pump related. Having to go through the entire engine because of an injection pump problem seems counter productive.

Dont see how it could be. All 4 injectors fire just fine.

 

[Welder Dave]

Using a full can of starting fluid may have caused more damage but you won't know unless you check everything. Excessive use of ether can cause a multitude of problems. If it ran on the oil in the cylinders it seems it should have ran if it was getting the proper amount of fuel at the right time.

 

[frickenbored]

Using a full can of starting fluid may have caused more damage but you won't know unless you check everything. Excessive use of ether can cause a multitude of problems. If it ran on the oil in the cylinders it seems it should have ran if it was getting the proper amount of fuel at the right time.

I dont believe it was running on the oil I added to the cylinders. My idea behind the oil was to raise the compression of the cylinders temporarily. When I performed a wet compression test the cylinders all jumped up to 400+ psi. So my thought was if the engine started while the cylinders were "wet" then I'd know 100% it's a compression problem. And it did, 30 seconds or so of full throttle running (not running good but running) and once all the oil burned off it died.

 

[frickenbored]

The tractor at this point could be a total loss, it's so old and has been so neglected that no one wants to spend more money on it, and re-sleeving kits are not cheap. I've already saved it from a trip to the scrapyard twice. With my grandpa suffering from dementia the tractor falls to my grandma, dad, and uncle and none of them have any interest in it besides its price in scrap. So I've been trying to get it going any way possible. All which have failed lol. So I'm gonna tear it down and see what I find. If it's too far gone they get their wish and it gets hauled off. If I can fix it with a sleeve kit I'll probably buy it myself once I get an agreement that the tractor is now mine.

 

[Smokeyjoe]

What was the outcome of this loader ?

 

[Flat Thunder Channel]

Did she make hay again??? Curious if the old crawler ever lifted dirt again.