CAT 3508 in a Hogzilla

[Coaldust]

Nige,

I am often humbled and impressed with your depth & breadth of knowledge and willingness to share. Kudos to you.

 

[Tony Wells]

I'll second that, Coaldust. He's helped me tremendously. Far more than the local dealers. Some are just dispassionate about their role in helping people keep their equipment going, or getting it going.

 

[Tony Wells]

I'll stick to Morookas, lol.

Those look like fun to play with!

 

[lantraxco]

I'll second that, Coaldust. He's helped me tremendously. Far more than the local dealers. Some are just dispassionate about their role in helping people keep their equipment going, or getting it going.

Both the Deere and CAT dealers I worked at actively discouraged parts people from giving advice or trying to obtain any technical information for the customers... rather pointedly stated that all such inquiries be referred to the service department to "insure correct information was provided". Right. The service techs of course were under similar gag orders. And they wondered why customers dreaded calling the service writers?

 

[lantraxco]

Those look like fun to play with!

They have their moments!

 

[Tony Wells]

Both the Deere and CAT dealers I worked at actively discouraged parts people from giving advice or trying to obtain any technical information for the customers... rather pointedly stated that all such inquiries be referred to the service department to "insure correct information was provided". Right. The service techs of course were under similar gag orders. And they wondered why customers dreaded calling the service writers?

I can surely see that with the Cat dealer here. In fact I won't deal with them, and the Volvo dealer isn't much better, and he's 35 miles away. The Deere guys are slowly coming around, and will print out tech docs sometimes, but I have to say that the Case guys are really good at helping. Same with the Kobelco dealer. Case dealer here also is Doosan, so that helps too, as we have a half dozen wheeled loaders and 1 or 2 excavators of theirs. Hardly any of them can touch the service level of the more specialized machines such as McCloskey or Petersen. The Hogzilla machine support is still pretty good for the overall machine. I think it is still family owned and a fairly small company, and I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. Only bad thing about McCloskey is the factory is in Canada, and if the US distributor can't help, they have to go to Canada to get info. They are more than willing to do that though, so that's a minor inconvenience. Can't say the same about Morbark though. I kind of feel on my own with their stuff. That's why we have a couple of their tub grinders for sale. They are running fine, but it took too much doing to get them there and they aren't nearly the machine a Hogzilla or Diamond Z is.

 

[Shimmy1]

Hey Lanway, I know you don't PM much, so I won't bother with that. I asked a question on my 95E thread. See what you think.

 

[lantraxco]

Hey Lanway, I know you don't PM much, so I won't bother with that. I asked a question on my 95E thread. See what you think.

I don't mind PM's, it just seems like I don't notice I have them, and I don't think I get email notification? I'm lost in space most of the time.... sure wish I did drugs, then I would have an excuse.

 

[Shimmy1]

I don't mind PM's, it just seems like I don't notice I have them, and I don't think I get email notification? I'm lost in space most of the time.... sure wish I did drugs, then I would have an excuse.

Lol. I just posted a little more info. I'll quit in this thread so it doesn't go off the rails over oil, lol.

 

[Tones]

It doesn't surprise me about Morbark with the bean counters taking over the joint and on top of that to have the ex owner of Rayco as part of the helm crew there'll no hope. Apparently Denis CAIMF has gone to poo as well

 

[Nige]

Tony, the photo below will give you an idea what you are up against.
This is the back end of a 3516 but your 3508 will be identical. Maybe it won't have the heat wrap on the exhausts but count that as a bonus.
Aftercooler is right in the middle of the V. Unless you remove that nothing else can be moved.

As you can see with the single cylinder head design of the 3500 engine the exhaust & inlet manifolds are literally wrapped around one another. I'd personally rip the inlets out first then pull each bank exhaust manifold out complete and get it onto a bench where I could beat the living daylights out of it to get it apart. A gas axe might be useful..........

 

[Tony Wells]

Nige,
I've been studying on it. Owner asked how long I thought it would take. All I could say is " a while". I don't see that as an issue if the decision is to do it. This machine has been out of production for 3-4 months, it seems, so whatever it take, it takes. I think it just has to be done.
I just have one thing nagging in the back of my mind. We just had our main engine guy, from outside the company, come in and pull the injectors. I cleaned them up, polished a bit of corrosion from the o-ring grooves and got new o-rings for reinstall. He came in and put everything back, reset the valve lash and all. Is there any chance that something he may have done would result in a noise that sounds like an exhaust leak, or even caused one? I can't hear so well these days. I can't even hear the exhaust leak myself, so I'm just going by what others say they hear. I can't think of a real test to find it. I guess I could disable the fan and get away with running it long enough to spread some dust or smoke or something at the connection points and maybe find it. I dunno. It's a big job to go by what someone else says. I've been burned before on that. I charge anyway, and get paid without complaint, but the owner is a personal friend of about 40 years so I try to not waste his money.

 

[Nige]

I just have one thing nagging in the back of my mind. We just had our main engine guy, from outside the company, come in and pull the injectors. I cleaned them up, polished a bit of corrosion from the o-ring grooves and got new o-rings for reinstall. He came in and put everything back, reset the valve lash and all. Is there any chance that something he may have done would result in a noise that sounds like an exhaust leak, or even caused one?

Not that I can think of off-hand.

A small mirror, like the ones a dentist uses, might help you get into the nooks & crannies of the exhaust system and inspect the 4 bolts on each cylinder head to exhaust manifold joint. Look for soot that could indicate a failed gasket (those 7W-8145s were not that great), broken bolts will be obvious, the head will be missing - probably lying right by the hole it fell out of if it is a bottom one.

 

[Tony Wells]

I'll do that. I've been focusing on the other connections, but I will concentrate on the head connections. I haven't noticed any spare bolt heads, but I may have just overlooked them.

 

[Nige]

Be aware that those same bolts can also work loose and that can result in a blowing exhaust joint.
In fact the longer bolts & spacers I mentioned earlier were designed to prevent that.

 

[John C.]

We used to say a noise is not a problem until you can't turn the radio up loud enough to drown it out.

 

[Jonas302]

A Smoke machine like is used on automotive evap systems could potentially pinpoint or prove the leak the one we used had a tailpipe adapter I'm sure you could figure something out

https://www.amazon.com/STINGER-Smok...ocphy=9020110&hvtargid=pla-570590603233&psc=1

 

[Tony Wells]

All the bolts are safely accounted for, but the leak is on cylinder #7. My engine guy came down and was listening for a mechanical noise, possibly from the valve train. Some of the other guys said they could hear it. I'm 95% deaf so I couldn't say much. He found the leak by ear, and there is evidence (smut) on a little patch of the head surface adjacent to the manifold, and you can feel the leak "puffing" out if you don't mind getting burned a little. Since it's #7, I'm thinking that it may be possible to removed that elbow section of the manifold and replace that gasket only, but I know there are pins and box ends on that el, so not all too hopeful. Have my doubts.

However, he also noticed an odd issue that seems to be ECM related. There is a erratic miss that seems to move around. It will miss a few times on one cylinder, run smooth for a minute, then another cylinder will miss a few times, then another, then another. The engine guy suggests that we send the ECM to someone with a simulator who can record the injector drive pulses and see if they are inconsistent or just what's going on. We have a diagnostic laptop, but I don't think it will record while monitoring. This is a rapidly fleeting problem and doesn't set a code that we've been able to nail down.

So we have two problems now. One identified, one not. So if I can locate a service center to check out the ECM, we can work on the exhaust leak.

Just a minor update.

 

[Birken Vogt]

I wonder if you could use a storage oscilloscope of some kind to record injector drive pulses on the machine and see what it's doing.

 

[Nige]

Get hold of someone with Cat ET and do a cylinder cutout test - preferably an automatic muitiple cylinder cutout test.

IIRC on the 8-cylinder engine it's a 2-stage test where it cuts 4 cylinders completely then tests the other four one at a time. The test is then repated by cutting out the other four cylinders. Warning - the engine sounds like a bag of bolts when doing this test.
Loading the cylinders that way gives a much better idea of injector condition than simply testing each cylinder of the 8 in turn with all of them firing.