Deere 450CLC timing issues.

[CrossDrilledPiston]

Hello everyone, hope your well. Not often that I use a forums for help, hate wasting the time of others on my problems.
But it's becoming desperado at this point and I could definitely use the help of this all knowing community.

The machine in question is deere 450clc with their all glorious 12.5/6125 ht 001/ powertec engine. Currently no mater what I try or replace I cant seem to get rid of trouble codes 636.10 cam position input pattern error and 637.7 cam/crank out of sync.

Due to this the machine, (once coolant reaches operating temp) will send heavy white plumes of raw diesel vapour out. I'm assuming this is due to pilot injection being shut off by the ecm.

Currently there has been significant work performed on this machine in order to determine the issue. Initially we were told by deere that the cam shaft was faulty on this machine. Wouldn't start, smokey and ran like dirt. So it sat there for a couple years. Eventually we got a donor cam from another 450clc. Performed the swap, and it started up with out skipping a beat. With in a few minutes of running, smoke and surging. Checked the fuel and lines made shure no air and installed a clear line on return to wach for bubbles. All air removed from system and with fresh fuel issue persists.

Called in deere they diagnosed a faulty ecm and wire harness, due to the same codes being thrown. Replaced ECM, wire harness, Cam sensor and crank sensor. Still no resolution.

Pulled the injectors out and sent them out to a reputable rebuilder, all of them were in need of rebuilding. At the same time we pulled the head and donor cam and sent it out to a machine shop to have new sleeves, cam bushings, installed, valves checked over and cam ground down, head checked out okay, with no issues found. Reassemble the machine, and the problem still persists.

Finally to eliminate that the cam shaft is not the true issue, we purchased and installed a new cam shaft. And to our surprise the issue is still ongoing.

Interestingly though when the 450 is put under load or worked the smoke immediately clears and it runs smooth but high or low idle result In plumes of smoke.

The turbo has also been replaced early on due to oil on the compressor side.

What I'm wonder right now Is, if there is a diffrent timing pin used for timing of the engine and another for setting valve lash. ?

Inspecting the cut slot on the crank shaft for the timing pin, I found quite a bit of bur from rocking the crank to fit the pin in. Would it be possible to create enough slop in the slot to throw the timing of?

Any ideas and help would be tremendously appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[greasynails]

Have you closely checked all wiring on CPS and CKP? Make absolutely sure all terminals are pinned to the correct slots at all connectors. Give all the wires a good firm tug at all connectors to verify the terminals are crimped correctly to wire, and the terminals are seated to connector body.
Have you checked/set front gear backlash? These engines have a fair amount of front gear problems due to failed water pumps. FYI, change your water pump at 3000-4000 hrs no matter what.
Do you know anyone with a 2 or 4 channel scope? If I were working on this one, I would be scoping it at ECM connector, then at CKP and CPS connectors.

 

[CrossDrilledPiston]

Thanks for the reply, now when I replaced the wiring harness and the issue remained. I did find a post online of some one who had an issue with the two wires being flipped around. In the plug. That caused me check where each wire went on the ecm plug and they did terminate at the according terminals. I will triple check it in the morning though. I dont have a 2 channel scope at this time but did use a single channel to see what the ecm was seeing from the CPS. The only issue with that was, I had nothing to reference to what the ecm wants to see. The backlash was set multiple times, after cam swap the first time, when we sent the head out, and cam swap the second time, I will be double checking the lash again once I get the new timing pins. Also I would love to do the water pump, asap as alot of the machine history is unknown to me, but it's hard to justify when I cant get 5 min of clean idle out of the poor beast.

 

[Vetech63]

You need Mr. MG badly on this project! If anyone can help you it would be him. He is going to want the Model and serial number of your machine.....so you might as well post it. He should be by in the early morning.

 

[CrossDrilledPiston]

Sounds good to me!
The model is Deere 450CLC Serial FF450CX091591. I've even gone as far as wrapping the wiring harness in aluminum foil to attempt eliminating emf/noise in the system.

 

[mg2361]

Welcome to HEF CrossDrilled! Thanks for the serial number. A must for Deere info.

636.10 cam position input pattern error

I would have liked to have seen the snapshot data on your codes and number of occurrences. This code I am not overly concerned about at the moment because being up there in the great white north and the cold, slow cranking speeds can set that code. It would be interesting to see if that code pops up cranking and goes stored after start up. A scope pattern at start up could help determine if that is the case. Cam sensors are also particularly sensitive to EMF interference even though the wires are twisted. No accessories like two-way radios on this machine are there? Other times (and it is rare) is that the wires for the cam sensor could be wired too close to injection wires and the interference from the injectors firing create the code. Only heard of that happening on skidders however.

637.7 cam/crank out of sync

This is the code that concerns me. It does become active and stay active while the engine is running, correct? If it is stored with only a few occurrences then maybe you have another issue. A dual channel scope would help confirm timing issue here. Below is basically what a good pattern (from a Deere 4045, same speed sensors as the 12.5 L) would look like that is in proper time.

Replaced ECM, wire harness, Cam sensor and crank sensor.

With this comment you can pretty much rule out electrical, unless something was mistakenly wired wrong like greasynails said. So that leaves us with basically 2 possibilities.

1. Cam timing is not correct. Since the cam has been in and out several times I naturally suspect that. Hopefully you used JDG971 timing pin set (the only one used for theses engines) to time the cam. One pin for the cam and one for the crank. I also doubt that the tone ring on the cam is damaged since it is new so that would eliminate that as an issue. While backlash is important on those engines I don't think it will create that code unless you were a tooth off in timing. All the other gears in the timing gear train sound? No missing teeth?

2. Crankshaft tone wheel. Has that been checked for being loose? Spun? Missing teeth? It can become loose over time. Definitely need to check that.

 

[CrossDrilledPiston]

I believe that one of the service techs prior did suspect noise of some sort in the system as the antenna and am/FM radio was removed from this machine.

I do not have access to a deere scan tool and have been getting the codes using the small display unit at the ecm. Each time the active code is 636.10 under SRVC CODE and 637.7 is found under STR CODE menu. Both codes are set almost immediately. Shortley after we get sputtering and missing and plumes of smoke, like the ecm is missing TDC each time it fire ls an eui. I'll run a camera probe into the Crank sensor bore today and do thorough inspection there.

As for gears, the bulk of what I had witnessed did look sound and nothing questionable that I could see. Even the wear pattern on them was text book.

Hopefully I can get my hands on a 2 channel scope today I'll post the results of what I find.

Thank you so much for your input! Making me sound a little more sane.

 

[greasynails]

Looks like mg has you covered with a known good scope capture. I didn’t think about the tone wheel being loose, but is a great place to look. Don’t mess around with that water pump either. When the pump bearing goes out, you won’t hear or notice anything until the front gear train is totally destroyed, and huge amounts of metal get pumped through the lube circuit after the oil filter goes on bypass. Rods and mains spin, and you have a mess.

 

[CrossDrilledPiston]

Alright mg I've gotten some scope data to start with, not to familiar with using a scope but gave it a shot to try to recreate what you have posted.

Greasynails, as soon as this thing is running right that's the first thing I'm gona tackle.

Edit** I got way to excited over getting data from the scope that I neglected to actualy analyze it.**
At first glance of the scope data. I wanted to say that the dips and variations in the purple chart point towards play in the reluctor wheel for the crank. But looking at it again the rpms of the motor were inconsistent and surging during the test. would I be safe to think that, due to the way a variable reluctance sensor generating a higher ac voltage the faster the reluctor wheel is turning and a slow down would cause the the voltages to be erratic?

 

[CrossDrilledPiston]

Alright a little further investigation after getting the scope info;
Wanted to check the timing pins for engagement. When I was instaling the second pin into the crank shaft timing slot. Doing the typical slight rocking back and forth of the flywheel. There was significant amount of slop before the cam shaft would be engaged and begin to rotate.

I pulled the timing cover to see if I had lost the back lash set on the idler gear. The idler was floping all over the place. Could move most of the gear train by hand. The inner plate that the bearing rises on and is used for setting lash was solid, it was the actual cog on the bearing that was moving all over the place,

Wanted to take a recording, but of all the times dang phone had died. By the time I pulled out the camera and set up some lighting. I guess the gear train had enough time to cool off. Because when I got to recording , couldn't move things around anymore. Back to how it should have been.

Went to pull the idle gear off to see if there a possible crack along the race. Or if the bearing was shot. Unfortunately here in the great white cold, only so many usable hours in a day no mater how much you try and stretch em.

 

[mg2361]

Sounds like you are on the right trail. I think you have a mechanical issue (that's affecting the scope pattern) that needs to be resolved. Still check the crank's tone wheel just in case.

 

[greasynails]

According to MG's capture, it looks like your cam is retarded.