Rebuilding diesels

We have a IH 584 that has something like 8000 hrs on it. I vaguely (may be imagining) hear a knock when it is hot and getting a work out baling. The crank case vent is puffing some oil smelling smoke when it is warmed up and working hard.

I have located a complete rebuilt kit for 1500$ and an in frame for 900$.

Should I be looking at doing something like this to prevent crank damage? Should I pull the oil pan and check a crank bearing?

How big of job is an in frame job? Should I be looking at full over haul?

Do cylinder liners need to be pressed out and in?

The tractor isn"t worth serious machine work as it is beat up but it is 4wd with cab and expensive to replace.

It had a clutch installed last year but they neglected to replace the damaged ring gear. I don"t want to split the tractor as my shop isn"t finished yet.

I"ve rebuilt small engines and done everything but engine rebuilds on cars/trucks.

Thanks for any help!

I've never been into the bottom end of a diesel that the top end wasnt toast. If any plans to sell, then I'd by all means sell and let someone else worry about the o.h.

With that said, I wont build a diesel that I dont pull the block and get everything checked by a machine shop. Cost isnt too bad here and they save me enough on parts that it is normally a wash. Last major rebuild I did took $900 for the machine shop to hot tank and pressure test (David Brown 219), bore all 4 cylinders .020, turn the crank .010, check the head (replace 3 valaves), and reassemble the short block. Only ever put 2 cranks in diesels, one would only turn to .020 and it had already been taken to there other one broke on an ether overload. Rest of the time they would turn clean.

As far as sleeves, dont know on this model. Most of my experience is on Fords and Case/DB's with parent bore blocks. Given the choice 99.9% of the time I should have sold and replaced rather than rebuild (1 exception was a 1290 Case D/B that had been run dry of oil and mains were trashed). May be building a 268 Ford next winter though, so not following my own advice.

First make sure where your knock is coming from. Could be nothing more than a bad injector causing the knock.

Blow-by? Some diesel designs, like my 7.3 PSD, and the 5.9 Cummins, have a positive pressure crankcase so that would dump some blow-by without being anything wrong.

Buy a manual and get some tests done then you will know where you stand.

Since your planning on getting rid of her I would just repair what is needed since you will take a hit on other major repairs having to be done with the new owner.

T_Bone

You'll get varying opinions most likely but I'll go on record and say this... any engine worth rebuilding is worth rebuilding correctly. That means she comes out of the cradle and into the machine shop. Discuss costs with your machine shop owner. If the engine needs a rebuild and you don't want to do it, it might be time to move on and sell this tractor and get another.

Is it wise to replace the bearings in the bottom end?

I'm not looking to have a new tractor out of this exercise as it could also use a tranny job, hydraulic pump, and the loader cylinders, plumbing and joystick valve rebuilt.

I can't justify a couple of thousand on a new crank and thousands more on machine work etc if it loses a bearing. The tractor is worth about 10,000$ or so but we want to get a smaller tractor to replace this one with.

I'm gun shy now because I recently had a car that had good oil pressure and ran well until it developed a knock 200 km from home, 10 km later it spit a con rod out the side of the block. It was full of oil the whole time and the oil pump was good, just lost the bearing on the last journal that gets oil.

They way I like to say it is... "90% of solving any problem is the correct diagnosis".

Replacing parts that don't need replacement is money down the toilet. But it's your money.

I still don't really know what to do. I don't know any decent diesel mechanics and the dealers here charge 100$ an hour to piddle around.

The blow by is new in the last 100 hrs and the 585 next to it with only 2000 hrs doesn't do it.

Perhaps I should start by finding a set fo shop manuals.

Time will furnish an answer.
Ken

If the tractor is beat up looking anyway, you may want to sell it "as is" on a consignment sale. Get whatever you can get for it and use the money towards a better tractor.
The problem with doing a halfway overhaul job is that it will come back to bite you about a year later. Doing it right will easily run into several thousand dollars for parts alone. If you have to hire someone to fix it, you can double the cost for labor. If it was my tractor, I would not fix a rough looking tractor unless I could do all the work myself. By the way, you can't replace all the main bearings (namely the one closest to the clutch housing) without splitting the tractor on this particular engine. So you might as well buy the out of frame kit and replace the seals as well as long as the tractor would be split anyway. My .02 worth.