School Me On The 3208

oliverkid

Member
So the story goes, im trying to buy a 1974 2255 from the father of one of my friends from college. They bought the tractor brand new in 74 and it broke a crank at 36 hours. White refused to warranty it so $1500 dollars later they put a new crank in it and ran it up until I think they said 1992 when it broke another crank at 34XX hours. It has sat ever since and the guy has refused to sell it to anybody. I went over to their farm for the first time a few months ago and I started giving the guy a hard time about selling me that tractor but figured I wasnt making any headway with him. Well I guess a few weeks later my buddy was helping his dad around the farm when he started talking about maybe selling me that tractor which shocked my buddy because his dad always said he would never sell that tractor to anybody. All that being said, what would be causing that crank to break? Was there an inherent problem with the block/crank in that first generation of 3208's. And the big question, would it even be worth screwing with trying to fix that engine or would it be cheaper to buy a good running engine from a New Holland Combine? I only offered him $2000 for the tractor so I have plenty of wiggle room on the fix and repair phase.
 
What is the arrangement number for the 2255, how about the combine? If you take the engine apart check the line bore. Did both cranks break the same place? When I taught school the M-F dealer wanted to give me one out of a M-F that didn't have 50 hours that punched a hole through the block.
 
Around here you can get a decent 3208 for around $1200. I never really heard of any cranks that were breaking on a 3208. I have a pile of 3208 parts laying around and probably at least 2 good cranks and at least on good block I'd part with. We have 3 tractors with the 3208's in including a 1976 Oliver 2255 running 210+ Hp. The other two are whites. A 2-180 and 4-150. I may be wrong but I think the cranks were pretty well all the same. The newer engines had wider rod bearings which was just a rod modification from what I could see. What was that 2255 hooked onto most of the time? That could be your answer. That tractor should have a 3150 in being a 1974. 3208's weren't installed until I think late 75 or 1976 for sure. There are a lot more with 3150's vs 3208's. A 3208 is a much better engine than a 3150 which is what I have in my White 2255. The fuel, oil, and cooling systems are all better. A 2255 is a steal for $2000 even with a bad engine. It is 13,000lbs of iron without a cab. There are some modifications to be made switching to a 3208 also. Pretty well everyone switches to a 3208 which are plentiful it seems and no one has a use for them it seems. I would at least put bearings in the 3208 when I bought it. They were supposed to be changed at 5000 hrs. I'd make sure it ran before you bought it also. The rack in the injection pumps really don't like this new fuel and seize up very easily from not being run. Any questions, email me. Where are you located at?
 
Thanks Ill keep you in mind if I end up with the thing, im located in Southwest Michigan almost on the Indiana Line. Im not going to say the tractor had an easy life but it never really had its guts pulled out either. Biggest thing it ever ran was a 6 bottom Oliver 588 plow. I know the tractor wont run because it has sat outside in the guys front yard since 1992. The one thing stupid me forgot to do was look in the cab and write down the serial number and spec number for the tractor so I cant verify the year other than what he told me. Ill have to get that as some point so I can do a little more research. Will they make 210 naturally aspirated or did you turbo yours? Im looking to fix this up to have a bigger tractor for working ground so the more Ponies I can stuff under the hood the better.
 
At 1 time I had trucks with 3208's in them. They were a good motor for the size and type of use I was doing. thousands of miles on them and never broke a crankshaft, never had a problem except I did loose an single injector in one.
 
I was always told that the V8's were never good at varying loads or spikes in draft resistance. I was also told the best configuration for farm tractor applications was an inline 6 with each increment of 100 CI making around 25 HP at the PTO. We have a couple threads going on Oliver, MM, and White on the Tractor Talk board. Feel free to jump in.
 
The way i see it, is you dont have enough main bearing area with a V8 diesel, the 903 Cummin's was about 1/2 the engine life of a 855 Cummin's.In the trucking industry they called them 9 oh nothin, On a v/8 configuration, you only have 5 mains. where u have 7, on a 6 cylinder. I have never seen a long lived v series diesel unless it was the 34 hundred series cat engine, and they have a mammouth diameter bottom end .
 
They will make 210 and a little more naturally aspirated. We ran our 2255 on a 5000 gallon tanker long enough to wear out a set of 20.8x38's and duals. We could pull just about any hill in 5th direct lugging it around 1700-1800 and would sit there. 210 is the limit of the single disc clutch. We put a double disc in ours out of 2-180 after we ripped the center out. I was thinking something running on the pto maybe set up a vibration causing the crank to break. I'd be curious where the crank broke at. Cat had problems with 3406E truck engines breaking cranks. Some broke at #1 rod and some at #6 rod depending upon serial number. Bottom line was the cranks were ground wrong without enough of a radius on the journal which is where the crank gets its strength.
 
A 3208 is a throw away engine they have been made in a few configurations. The early ones only had one compression and one oil ring. If I was going to buy this thing id think long and hard about a reman. You'll know what you have that way. Also a 3208 is backwards of everyother engine. The worse they get the better they start and they smoke like crazy.
 
I bought a 2255 this summer from the original owner who bought it in 1974. He told me that it broke the crank at about 500 hours, because there was an update to the main bearings that was supposed to have been done by the dealer before delivery. Inspection revealed that this update was not done to his tractor before delivery, so the Oliver dealer and Caterpillar installed a new engine. The tractor now has just over 3700 hours total on it, so about 3200 on the new engine. No more problems, only new ones caused by sitting too long with bio-diesel in the tank. After cleaning the tank, lines, injectors, and a little work on the injector pump, it now runs like a new machine.
 
We've used the three speed in our turbocharged 2-150 and 2255 for quite a few years with no problems. The under side is out of the 2255 right now and haven't had time to fix it. A lot is in how you use it and treat the 3 speed. I use direct as much as I can to make all the power go straight thru the unit.
 

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