Perkins 1106C head gasket?

[sdan27]

We have a Massey Ferguson 6480 with a Perkins 1106C engine. I took a UOA last fall that showed metals a moderate amount of potassium and sodium. I thought it was because I had just changed the water pump which is driven off the front gear assembly and some coolant had probably gotten into the front cover when I pulled the pump off. The unit has 9240 hours with 420 hours on the oil. It is Service Pro 15W-40.

Iron 48
Chr 1
Al 4
Cu 24
Pb 10
Tin 1
Sil 5
Sod 26
Pot 48
Moly 171
Bor 32
Mag 866
Cal 1443
Phos 983
Zn 1229

Fuel >1%
Soot >.1%
Water >.1%
Vis 100c 14.2
TBN 5.09
Ox 12
Nit 18

Anyway, we were using the tractor today, just to spread some fertilizer and the all of a sudden the engine started knocking and smoking real bad. The operator turned it off and found the oil pan was full of coolant. The engine will still start fine but has a knock to it. Other than the slight amount of anti-freeze, do you think this UOA shows any evidence of failures coming up?

 

[sdan27]

I guess I should add, I think the engine has wet liners but, given the suddenness of the failure, I'm kinda thinking it might be a head gasket gone out.

 

[oggb]

Knock? As in rod bearings gone wild knock?

Uhh...

 

[sdan27]

I ran the engine briefly myself and thought it sounded more like a loud ticking. Kinda like if one of the injectors weren't firing quite right.

 

[sdan27]

I got the tractor back to the shop today and I was going to drop the pan and see what the bearings, etc looked like but, turns out on this particular application, you have to remove the front axle in order to get the pan off since the pan is integrated as part of the frame for the tractor. I was talking with a mechanic at the dealership and they suspected that the head gasket blew and filled one of the cylinders causing a bent connecting rod. Might be awhile before I get around to tearing into that much but we'll get there eventually.

 

[sdan27]

Pulled the front end off the tractor so I was able to drop the oil pan. Besides all the nasty milky looking oil everything looked all right from underneath. No bent connecting rods or anything like that I could tell. No significant metal shavings in the oil pan. I put the radiator back on and filled the system with water and before I even got the system full water started dumping out of the bottom of the engine. Water seems to be leaking at the #2 piston, between the piston itself and the liner. Guessing it is a blown head gasket. I think the ticking noise might have been from that cylinder misfiring since it doesn't even take any compression for water to drain out of it.

 

[sdan27]

Well, got the head off and turns out, the valve seat or something on the #2 hole must have come loose as the piston was all beat to [censored] on the top along with the cylinder head itself. The engine has liners which the #2 got cracked as well. Hence the water in the coolant. Head gasket looked perfectly fine. Remarkably, despite the 9300 hours, the other liners still have a near perfect cross hatch. I only took the #2 piston out and the bearings still looked in real good shape too. Another thing that surprised me was where the connecting rod and bearing cap meet up was all jagged and rough but when you put them together, they mate up perfectly.

 

[Steve S]

sounds expensive!!! Does the Perkins use cracked con rods. that is where the rod is manufactured then the conn rod cap is broken off and the fit is really good, several Mfgs use the method with success. The only Perkins engines I ever dealt with were on Forklifts .

 

[dnewton3]

Originally Posted By: sdan27
Well, got the head off and turns out, the valve seat or something on the #2 hole must have come loose as the piston was all beat to [censored] on the top along with the cylinder head itself. The engine has liners which the #2 got cracked as well. Hence the water in the coolant. Head gasket looked perfectly fine. Remarkably, despite the 9300 hours, the other liners still have a near perfect cross hatch. I only took the #2 piston out and the bearings still looked in real good shape too. Another thing that surprised me was where the connecting rod and bearing cap meet up was all jagged and rough but when you put them together, they mate up perfectly.



In lesser-informed circles, someone would blame the oil or filter. I only mention this because I'm involved in a discussion on another site where the use of Rotella apprently manifested itself in the (poorly described and defined ) "failure" of some engines. As if ...

Regardless, given that all the other cylinders were in great shape, one can only conclude that there was a material or manufacturing defect that took 9300 hours to reveal itself. I don't know much about that engine; I presume it is sleeved, or can be sleeved? Probably be able to get another 9300 hours out of it!

 

[Steve S]

Well now the subject has been mentioned, Would you think 5w-20 would have not allowed the part to break? Ya know thin oil at startup !!!

 

[sdan27]

Its a dry sleeved engine. The enigne manual says you can pull the liners out and reinstall new without having to have the block bored or anything like that so I'm really hoping it works out that way. That way I can leave the block in the tractor and don't have to take it out to take to a shop. Of course the manual also shows using this puller to install the new liners which would require removing the crank shaft which I really don't want to have to do that either. I'll probably change the one sleeve along with the bearings and pistons and rings all around. This used to be the tractor we used on our feed wagon so we'd use it everyday, summer and winter. The crazy thing is, it didn't even come with a block heater from the factory so it started itself fine in the cold everyday. I think it has some kind of intake heater though. I called this engine shop and they think they might be able to clean the cylinder head up even though its all beat up so I guess we'll see. The turbo has some issues too as its blowing a ton of oil down the exhaust pipe so I'll have that gone through and then I'll get the injectors looked at too while they're out.