Found a deal too good to pass up on Monday. Found a 34HP 4 cyl diesel 1987 L2850 Kubota 4x4 tractor 1700 hours with loader and fairly new tires, implements it came with were a 6 foot JD finish mower and a 6 foot rotary brush mower and a box scraper and cultivator, package deal for $4500. Can sell off the mowers and other stuff and recover close to 2K there alone.Tractor and implements all in super shape but the project portion is that the engine has a bad knock. I did not start it to not cause any further damage but did crank it over to confirm it does have one.

So I plan to drop the oil pan shortly to inspect and see what broke and what direction I want to go.

Win win for me no matter what, tractor with loader is worth $8-10k and worst case I wind up putting a reman engine in I have found them for the $3k range or a complete rebuild kit for $750 plus whatever extra broke like rod or damaged crank shaft and machine work and overhaul it myself all depends on what I find damaged once oil pan is down, if all looks good I will overhaul it myself.

 

1 hour ago, Wild and Free said:

 at that point will pull a main and rod cap to inspect the bearings just to make sure i am not wasting time installing the engine that needs work right away.

Are you going to just do a visual inspection or Plastigauge them?  Why not just through a set of bearing at it and be done with the bottom end for a while.

Just do a visual. Only reason I  platigauge is when replacing bearings that showed signs of wear to make sure things are kosher with the crank shaft dimensions when installing new bearings,  no need to throw parts at it if it doesn't need it, trying to save some costs on the project otherwise I would have just bought a rebuilt engine with a warranty for another $1500+ but this tractor will not get enough use to justify that extra money.

Edited October 30, 20168 yr by Wild and Free

I feel your pain W&F, I dropped my tractor off at the kubota dealer two weeks ago, just do do a pressure test on the hydro-static unit, probably no more than a 1 hour job. and they still haven't got to it.

I would have done it myself but cant come up with the proper fittings to tap into the hydro static unit, Kubota requires their special fittings or buy their hydraulic pressure test kit for about 2k.

If it come to where this is going to cost 2 or 3k to fix. I may be buying another tractor and parting this one out.

If anyone is interested in following along I just started a thread over on the Kubota Forum which will document the project along the way.

http://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27513

Well here are some teaser pics of the new to me newer version V2203 di engine I got from member cviola for my L2850 engine swap project.
For those in question of this project a quick update is I purchased the L2850 with known bad engine for a song and dance price with numerous attatchements. Found out the crankshaft had broken and upon doing some research found that the V2203 enginges would be a direct swap so the search started. Took a couple months to nail down an engine which took me off guard. Was being picky and wanted a lower hour engine and this one according to cviolas supplier cam out of a wrecked trucks refer and "Supposedly" has roughly 3k hours on it unlike the norm of 10K+ hour refer engines.
Here is a link to my original post with pics of the engine damage of the v1702.
Now the fun begins. i will keep things updated but will be a few weeks before getting too deep into it as work and vacation schedule the next few weeks and then getting a parts list of basics like gasket kits and seals ect ordered for it will take a bit.
http://www.orangetractortalks.com/fo...ad.php?t=25377
First pic was having it loaded up yesterday afternoon in back of my pickup at work where I had it shipped to.

The little B2250 got put to work unloading the engine this morning.

There was a question as to wether or not the exhaust manifold from my old V1702 would fit and work on the V2203 so I did a quick fit test and it will work perfectly.

 

When I swap the oil pans and drill the block for the dipstick i am going to pull a main and rod cap to inspect the bearings and crank journals before going any farther in case this engine is in need of some deeper work which I hope not.
Then I am going to do a valve adjust right away as well. And then pull the injectors and take them to the injection shop for a quick pop test and clean and adjust if needed and do a compression test at the same time.
Not going through this much work to blindly install a used engine of unknown maintenance and history without doing some investigation of my own.
 

 

Good clean looking motor on the outside. Here's to the inside being the same.

43 minutes ago, dripley said:

Good clean looking motor on the outside. Here's to the inside being the same.

I requested he not bead blast, pressure wash and then prime and paint it as that is what he was going to do before he shipped it out, I asked him to ship it as is so i could see first hand what i was dealing with plus i didn't want the issues of having bead blast media stuck in seals and everywhere else to cause issues nor water inside any open intake or exh ports.

Edited November 5, 20168 yr by Wild and Free

Yeah, I would rather see it as it came, dirt grime and all.

hope all goes well, I'm sure their will be some surprises, I do know that those engines can go for 10,000 hrs or so with decent maintenance, before an overhaul, Being it came out of a reefer unit it was probably governed to run at a constant rpm, hopefully you can change that out fairly easy. looking forward to your thread  

We have light plants at work with Kubota engines with 20K+ hours with nothing but basic oil changes, I know for a fact not a single one has ever had a valve adjust even.

Getting fired up and running a set speed its whole life is a lot different than getting varied and heavy loads put on them like in a tractor scenario. Much like comparing a Cummins in an over the road life where a million miles is easy peasy versus a daily driver life where half a million miles would be an extreme stretch.

Edited November 6, 20168 yr by Wild and Free