A4T-1600 oil recommendations and external pump info needed

Hey, I got a call from my buddy that has an A4T-1600. He has had some oil pressure issues with it and they pulled the engine and dropped the pan and oil pump out of it and wanted to me too see it and hear my thoughts on it.

The tractor does not have the external pump upgrade on it and has run fine since they bought it, however this spring they noticed the oil pressure was dropping some days and others it was fine. Well they finally figured they better check before something bad happened.

What they found and what I also see is that the suction screen around the pickup tube was sucked in and covered with some crusty black stuff. The engine is clean inside but the bottom of the pan is covered with a black layer of stuff that isn't really sludgy at all. The oil pump appears to work fine when spun with a drill in a bucket of oil. The pump gear is however very sharp and not far from failing. They run 30w oil in it and change the oil regularly in the tractor.

My thoughts are that they probably should upgrade to the external pump. I am a mechanic for a living working mainly on cat construction equipment. I use Shell Rotella 15W-40 oil in everything with great results. We have gotten 25,000 hours out of many 3406 cat engines in our loaders. Would this oil be a good upgrade for the 585? My thoughts on that layer of black stuff on the bottom of there oil pan that is possibly plugging there screen could be a soot problem and I know the Rotella has the soot control and seems to work well.

So my questions are : What engine oil do you guys recommend for the 585, where can my friends find an external oil pump upgrade kit for there tractor and has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks.

By all means switch to a good multigrade diesel oil. I would
recommend Chevron Delo 400 MG 15w40, but that's my bias,
Rotella is fine too. Is the 30wt they've been using a non-
detergent by any chance? It almost sounds like it. All of
Chevron oils are backwards compatible by the way. Can't help
with the pump, you'll have to do the parts yard search for
that.

The two cars that I switched from stright 30WT to multy-vis high detergent, in my early days both started leaking, and burning oil. I now have a guestion what to use in my GB. At best it might have dello 300 20 or 30WT in it, but more likley something like havoline or penzoil. Thougths??

I use shell 30 weigh in every moline I have and wouldnt use anything else! I have friends that use it and never have any problems and have been using it for years and thousands of hours on their motors.

when I worked for a case IH dealer we had several customers with both cummins powered magnum tractors that call for 15-40 oil, And International powered tractors that called for 30W. Many of them didnt want two barrels of oil setting around so they ran 15-40 in there International engines. At the same time the local Deere dealer was pushing oil sales and told everyone that deere's 15-40 was good for any engine. A year or two later we had several bearing falures in IH engines. The Oil people from both Case IH and cenpeco said the problem was caused by running to light of oil in the 400 series engines,the early deere engines that called for 30w however ran fine on 15-40. I myself run 15-40 shell rotella in everything on the farm, car, gas pickups,tractors gas and diesel and have never had a problem,,,,but that moline is a high dollar engine to work on, and they have been known to have oil pump problems. 30w may be the best.

I would think salvage yards would be your best bet for the external pump and filter set up. Almost every 585 I have seen had the external pump and filter installed. We had a a4t-1600 with only 3000 actual hours spin a rod bearing, it still had the factory internal pump, but the drive gear was almost gone. The other two a4t's have the external pump and filters, and we have not had any pump problems with those.

I run two a4t-1600's. One has external pump and the other
had internal. I replaced the internal pump with a new internal
pump but it had a modification to allow extra oil flow to the
critical drive gear from cam. This simple modification was
made to the oil pump housing. A simple vertical groove about
1/16 deep and about the width of hack saw blade. It is made to
the "shank" of oil pump housing to allow high pressure oil from
oil gallery to squirt past to lube cam drive. A photo would be
great but it's been in service for 15 years since with no issues.
Check AGCO Parts for an image. It's a simple and effective
next best solution to external pump.

I know that Clint Stamm in Washington KS has a external pump....I just traded it to him for some other parts.

Later-TangleFoot