keepin an old girl running.

[RayfromTX]

In my subdivision we just bought an old Fiat Allis 65 motor grader. It is about circa 1976. After 30 hours, the right front wheel was falling off from a failed bearing. We had the spindle rebuilt and located or made the other parts and seals we need and will put it back together in the next few days. In thinking about the machine, which I love by the way, I worry a little about the tandems. I'm new to all this. Should we take the covers off and inspect or service the tandems to try to stave off a repair that finding the parts for might be difficult or just run the machine until the next thing breaks? What should we be looking at to try to avoid trouble? Thanks in advance. I like this site. Lots of good folks here.

The roads have never looked better. I really enjoy operating it. Lots to learn.

 

[Grader4me]

I've never had any problems with any of the tandems on the graders that I operated over the years. I would check the fluid level weekly and change the fluid once a year. If it was me I would take the covers off and have a look...and change the fluid..just my 2 cents. Good luck with your grader!

 

[DonBC]

Ray, I also suggest that you take the top covers off and look at the oil and check the slack in the chains and the condition of the sprockets. Everything runs in oil so it is unlikely that the chains or sprockets will show any wear. You could run a magnet through the oil and see if if it brings up any filings. When I got my D grader it showed several signs of neglect. One drive chain was in the cab and was missing the pin for the master link. When I checked the chain box with a magnet I found a lot of filings before I found the pin. I also found a very beat up 9/16 socket that must have dropped into the chain box and never retrieved. It was just big enough to jamb under the driven sprockets and they showed damage to the ends of some teeth. I guess the socket jambed in tight enough one time that the master link came apart. I drained and flushed out that chain box and installed new chains in that side. The other side looked like new. The secret to keep these machines running is good and regular maintenance. I suspect that your damaged spindle was probably caused by poor maintenance or a blocked grease nipple that no one bothered to change. The pivot on the bottom of the spindle on the right side of my grader is really difficult to get grease into some times and at times I have to remove the bolts and pull the spindle bearing retainer off to get grease in. I never let a grease fitting go with out ensuring that it has received grease. A little proper preventive maintenance is a lot cheaper than making repairs. My manual says to grease all the fittings every ten hours of use. I don't know if the FA65 has differential gears or not but my D grader does not so all four drive wheels are locked together at all times. Because my grader travels on paved roads I a lot my 4 drive tires are all identical and matching to minimize strain on the final drives.

 

[RayfromTX]

I looked at the alignment of the rear wheels and on one side, the back wheel doesn't align with it's mate. My neighbor just told me that when he followed me home one night that one appeared to have a wobble. This can't be good. I'll have to look into it soon. Maybe I can check on it today before the game. I'm afraid this one is going to hurt. Anybody have any thoughts on what I should expect to find or what I should look for?

 

[DonBC]

Ray when I got my grader one wheel on each side was loose on the axle. They have a tapered axle with a tapered hole in the wheel. There is also a key. Normally when these are on tight they are almost impossible to move. The nuts that were suppose to hold the wheel tight on the taper were tight. The problem was that there is a step in the axle just past the threads and the washer stopped up against this step before the wheel was held tightly on the taper. This would have been a fabrication and assembly error and was most likely like that way from day one and the problem was just ignored. This messed up the taper on each the axle and each wheel as well as the key-ways. I had a machine shop clean up the tapers on both the axles and the wheels. This moved these two wheels almost 1/4" closer to the chain boxes but there is still lots of clearance. He had to machine a wider key-way on the wheels than the axles so he machined stepped keys. He then made cupped washers for each axle to clear this step so that the nuts can now properly hold these wheels tight to the axles. They have not moved on the axle since I had this done. I suspect that you may have the same problem. If the axle bearings do not seem to be the problem and your wheel appears to be loose on the axle then take the nut and the wheel off and check the condition of the tapers and the key-way. If they don't look too bad you might get by with getting a cupped washer made up so that you can get the wheel tight on the taper. You also might want to use some permanent lock-tite on the axle when you put it back on.

 

[RayfromTX]

Awesome- I'm finding something similar and spent sunday cutting the keyway bigger and shimming the key. We were able to remove the nut with channel locks even though they were supposed to be tightened to greater than 900 ft lbs. We will fix all four before we go further. This is great info to have. Thank you so much for your response.

 

[DonBC]

Glad to be of help Ray. On my grader the nuts were tight and had cotter pins in place. I had to use a 5' cheater bar on a 3/4" drive socket to break them free. I expect that when the grader was assembled all the nuts were properly torqued but but the washers hit the step on two of the axles before the wheels were tight. The machine shop work for my repair was over $700 even the the old guy that did the work only charged me about 1/2 price.

 

[RayfromTX]

Got the rear end back together and tourqued up. Had to machine out the washer on the one wheel only due to slight wear on the cone. All four wheels run slightly out of true. I am going to guess this is ok for an old machine and will not cause premature failure that would require me to completely tear down the machine and rebuild the rear end. One wheel was so tight it didn't break loose with 1000 lbs of force. The other two loosened with about 50 lbs of force applied and the bad one loosened with channel locks. This morning, I'm putting the front end back together as I got the wheel lean bushings in the mail last night. I should be back on the road by noon if nothing else pops up to fix along the way. Here's keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for the help.

 

[DonBC]

Ray it shouldn't make any difference to the wear and tear on the machine if the drive wheels don't all line up. It is just an appearance thing. Glad to hear that you are getting everything fixed up.

Don

 

[RayfromTX]

This isn't funny anymore. I got it all together and started using it. 1/2 a mile down the road and the old girl is overheating. I pull over and she's got a blown head gasket. No water and oil mixing but water is coming out of the head gasket area. I'm ready for the problems to quit standing in line with each other. A weekend day not spent working on equipment would be nice also. I'll be tearing it down today. The steering linkage is still sloppy but that will have to wait for another day or month or year.

 

[rsherril]

I know that feeling

This isn't funny anymore. I got it all together and started using it. 1/2 a mile down the road and the old girl is overheating. I pull over and she's got a blown head gasket. No water and oil mixing but water is coming out of the head gasket area. I'm ready for the problems to quit standing in line with each other. A weekend day not spent working on equipment would be nice also. I'll be tearing it down today. The steering linkage is still sloppy but that will have to wait for another day or month or year.

It's not fun, that's for sure. Similar experience here as I purchased a JD570A for our subdivision roads and soon found "issues". Almost immediately a kingpin dropped down from the lean wheel assembly. Was introduced to the mobile mechanical service truck at $100/hr. Money was well spent though as the mechanic, Wes, was experienced with the old machines as his dad had one on the ranch. He fixed it and showed me a few pointers about maintaining it.
Shortly there after, during snow plowing, the return hydraulic line cracked right over the radiator fan, fogging the entire engine compartment. Went to the dealer and got a replacement hose for ten bucks and installed it. Hotsy'ed the engine compartment out and started plowing again when the hose clamp slipped off and fogged the engine again. I finally figured out, after a third fogging, that I had the wrong type of hose for the return line. When I called it to their attention, they agreed and gave me the correct hose for free. However I did pay for the 30 gal. of hyd. oil that I washed the engine with.

Now if I would have been more experience, I might have questioned the parts guy after the second fogging. These days I look 'em in the eye when I purchase a part. I recall my father-in-laws advice concerning equipment "If your gonna have it, your gonna have to fix it to keep it running."

I'm still having fun, but I'm gonna rasie my rates.

 

[RayfromTX]

We got the head off. Now to find out if the head gasket and exhaust gaskets are still available. Five hours for the tear down. I'm guessing 7 for the re-install and then we can find out what else is wrong. The thermostat was opening about 1/16 of an inch. I guess while we have it apart we'll have the radiator and water pump checked. I guess we should take the head to a machinist to check for flat or spend some money for a perfectly flat straight edge to check it with. The book says if the cylinder sleeves are not within .002 of even with the top of the block that they have to be replaced. Ours are from .006 to .015 low. I'm really not interested in replacing them. Any thoughts?

 

[DonBC]

Ray you might want to put an inquiry on allischalmers.com construction section as the guys there are very knowledgeable about the various Allis engines. A lot of their lighter construction equipment used the same engines as some of the farm tractors. I am assuming that it is a diesel. It will be a great little grader once you get the bugs worked out.

 

[RayfromTX]

We're going to put it back together with new gaskets and bolts and watch it. When it blows again we plan to swap the engine out for one that doesn't have this issue. What would be a good option for this machine. We want reliable, easy modification to this machine and similar power range. I don't really expect to get a long life out of this new gasket.

 

[DonBC]

Ray, I really don't know what engine they used in the Allis M65 or the FA-65. The literature that I have says that in 1979 they switched to a Fiat diesel engine and a power shift transmission. I can inquire on the Allis forum for you and see what they suggest.

 

[RayfromTX]

It has the Buda d262 diesel engine. It's going together in the morning. Fingers crossed Don.

 

[DonBC]

I posted a question about your engine on allischalmers.com and got two responses. First, they said it should be an Allis engine because Allis had bought out Buda by then. This engine was available in both a gas and diesel version and the diesel version was used in the Allis D17 and D170 farm tractors. They said that the head gasket might not hold if the sleeves are too low and had some suggestions on the best way to reinstall the head. They said that this engine was prone to head problems if it was heated up too quickly and if was not allowed to cool off slowly when shutting down. more responses may come in if you want to check the Allis site.

 

[RayfromTX]

That's what I had found also. I had searched that and other sites. I spoke to Bill at Sandy Lake Implement. On his suggestion I used copper tubing to reinforce the water port at the point where these gaskets fail. I don't like the dissimilar metals being used and the copper will go away over time but I did it anyway. I threw out the thermostat and will not replace it. I cut the old fire rings apart and used the .010 thick rings that were produced to shim the new fire rings except on one. The ring that failed was only below the surface by .002-.005. A shim would have put it very high. If it fails in this place again, I will shim it. The others were down .006-.015. I torqued, warmed it up and torqued again. I'm glad to have the manual. The valve lash was also way out but I got it adjusted. It purrs like a kitten and has no leaks. Right when I got ready to start it, the sun came out. Good sign on a drizzly day. There is a lot to like about this machine. It now idles at 135 degrees and operates at 160. I will warm up and cool down for 10-15 minutes on each use. I will install an alarm set at 210 degrees to alert me to danger. I will pray each time I go out. Always a good idea anyway. Thanks for your help Don. There will be other things come up and eventually I will tighten up the steering linkage and be forced to replace the seals in the hydraulic pump that oozes from the main seal but today, I'm gonna work on roads instead of machines. Fingers crossed.

 

[51kw]

I would run a thermostat. Those temps are awful cool for a diesel. They like to be closer to 180 deg.

 

[RayfromTX]

I just ran it for 5 hours. It ran from 160 at idle after it got warmed up to 180 when grading up hill and 170 when light grading on level ground or down hill. Still no leaks. Knocked out 1/2 a mile of road and ditches. This just might be ok. Scared to take a chance on a thermostat. They fail and in this case it caused a lot of heartache and I'm not sure how many blown head gaskets this engine has left in it.