1984 310B backhoe with oil and cooling issues

JD_310B_Guy

New User
The backhoe has ~3400 hours on it according to the hour meter. I don't know much about the history of it. I bought it from a guy on CL and he'd only had it about a year, but I could tell it hadn't been maintained like it should've been. I've been working to get everything fixed to bring it back up to being a reliable work horse for around-the-farm use, but I've encountered a problem and wanted to get some feedback from the greater JD community.

This past weekend I changed all of the fluids and flushed the radiator. The oil that came out of it was thick and black, almost like latex paint. I put Rotella 15w40 back in it with JD Hy-Guard hydraulic fluid. I also put a new temp guage in since the old one was broken. The problem that I'm having is now oil starts pouring out of the dipstick tube once it gets up to operating temperature. It's a pretty good stream too. It's not overfilled, I'm sure because I've checked that numerous times. Also, I'm losing a lot of water/coolant from the ventilator tube that comes out of the valve cover and goes down beside the block. It comes out as steam - enough to burn your hand. At first I thought that was just an exhaust leak but it wasn't.

I called the JD dealership here and spoke with a parts guy about the oil flowing out of the dipstick and the coolant loss out of the vent tube and he told me that it needed to be re-sleeved and the issue was caused by significant blow by. He also asked if the oil coming out of the dipstick tube looked like coffee with creamer in it, which it does - to which he said that was water in the oil. In my limited experience this all points to either a blown head gasket or a cracked head?

Has anybody seen this before or had the same experience? Any way to verify if it's one or the other? Thanks in advance!
 
I would say head gasket also. Pressure test the cooling system. Also, if your getting milky oil, do not run it that way. Antifreeze and oil while running adds the equivalent of a hundred thousand miles on the crank bearings.
 
odds are the previous owners never changed the antifreeze or topped up the corrosion inhibitor in the antifreeze.
The wet sleeves are probably rotten.
Install the high compression sleeve/piston set for better cold weather starts. Install a block heater and avoid ether unless you want to crack those new rings and Pistons .
Has the transmission screen been cleaned and the filter changed ?
If the shifter boots are cracked , replace them as rain water will run through into the transmission.

This would be the time to obtain the real Deere manuals .
 

That was what the guy at JD said too. When I drove the backhoe and checked it out the first time before I bought it, I noticed that the guy had a radiator cap on there that wasn't the right one and wouldn't tighten down. That was one of the first things I fixed after it was delivered. I topped it off with water (no antifreeze) before flushing it, and then tightened down the OEM radiator cap that I got from JD. That's when I noticed the steam coming out of the ventilator tube after using for about 30 min. Needless to say, I parked it and didn't work on it again until this past weekend when I changed all of the fluids.

I didn't change the transmission filter or check the screen, but I will. I recall seeing that in another post on here. Good info about the boots too. I didn't know that. One is cracked, the other is not, so I'll just go ahead and replace both.

Needless to say, I'm not running it or using it until this is fixed. I have the service manual for it and the online JD parts catalog is helpful for exploded views. How "labor intensive" would you say this job is? I've never owned or worked on a diesel but I have rebuilt a few small block Chevy's. Would you say this is a pretty straight forward rebuild, or is too much for a shade tree mechanic to take on? Once again, I appreciate all the feedback and guidance!
 

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