Perkins 4-318 Head Gasket Bottom Line

IFF · Feb 9, 2015

I have read more information on the Perkins 4-318 head gasket issue than I probably should have. The service bulletin "fixes" for this issue have been, according to some, to change the bolts to studs, increase the torque, change back to bolts, etc, etc... Hard to know exactly what to do. Here is the direction I am going to take. Check block and head for flatness, install new studs, install new gasket with Hylomar gasket sealer, torque to ? Let engine warm up to operating temperature, re-torque the head, re-torque again after 25 hours operation. What is the bottom line with replacing the gasket? Thanks.

IFF

blue water massey · Feb 10, 2015

high performance engine builders recommend using studs in all torque situations (heads manifolds bearng caps etc)
I would swap out the bolts for studs and keep it that way
my perkins a3-152 has studs in it
not sure if it came that way factory or not
I know the guy I bought my tractor told me a lot of things they had done over the 25 yrs they owned it and I think he said it had a top end done on it
all his repairs were done by a AGRO dealer

J. Schwiebert · Feb 10, 2015

I will send you an e-mail. We just completed a 1080 Yesterday. They do not furnish the old headgasket. You use all new studs and the nuts are different as well. The torque is also different. AERA even had a bulletin on those engines. J.

Danperkins · Feb 10, 2015

One thing to look out for when changing from bolts to studs is make sure the thread pitch is the same on both ends of the stud

You see this a lot in car engines, a lot of those have coarse head bolt threads, but the replacement studs often have fine threads on the stud nut side. If you torque the fine thread nuts down to what the book says for the coarse thread head bolts, you are over torquing the head since the fine pitch threads have much higher clamping force at the same torque value.

Overtorquing can cause head gaskets to fail too.

IFF · Feb 11, 2015

I believe my email is open. I look forward to hearing about your repair.

sllimec47 · Mar 15, 2015

Make sure you check the sleeve heights, according to specs they should stick up slightly. We found shims available from Perkins to achieve this. We found mine ridding to low which caused the gasket to fail after just a few hours on it.

Perkins 4-318 Head Gasket Bottom Line

IFF

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blue water massey

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J. Schwiebert

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Danperkins

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IFF

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sllimec47

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