New too site, bought a MEP-803A, bad head gasket

[dragracer]

got it from GL back in Jan and just now tried to fire it up. It has not cranked yet. It has bad head gasket leak from rear cylinder. have not removed head yet.

my plans are to strip it out of it's container and place it in our race car trailer.

has anyone had head gasket issues?


meter shows 1917 hours and is says LP remanufactured engine.

found head gasket kit on auction site

 

[Light in the Dark]

Welcome to SS. It happens, rebuilt or not. If you have already found a set on the auction site, you are ahead of the curve. Have you done any pressure testing?

 

[dragracer]

No sir, have done no pressure testing

 

[Light in the Dark]

How do you know its got a bad gasket?

 

[dragracer]

Smoke and pressure coming from between head and block. Kinda see gasket gone in the spot

We hope that is only damage

 

[Light in the Dark]

Good luck when you get into the machine. Are there any stickers anywhere on the machine, that have additional information (that might point to the machine having been reset at a certain hour count, or receiving repair with an hour marking?). The engine certainly may not have 1917 hours on it... but it might (if this was a reset, and the hourmeter was changed at the same time). Very tough to say since it seems the quality of repair work and documentation ran the gamut...

 

[dragracer]

Have seen anything saying a reset but when saw it had reman engine made me wander.
Can they use reman motors in new units?
It does have lots manuals/document, I will have to look closer

 

[Light in the Dark]

No, you would not see a remanufactured engine in a 'new' machine. It may have been a tiered reset... but they didn't always put the Tier reset plates on the machines until later on. But knowing that its a re-manufactured job, thats what I would consider being reality.

 

[Ray70]

Hey Dragracer, while you have the head off, take a good look at the condition of the glow plugs that are screwed into the head. If the machine has been outside and exposed to years of rain, sometimes the glow plugs will be rotted and frozen in. If so, the best time to fix them is while the head is off, incase you need extreme measures to get them out.
If you end up needing new glow plugs, RockAuto.com has them cheap.

 

[Farmitall]

Hey Dragracer, while you have the head off, take a good look at the condition of the glow plugs that are screwed into the head. If the machine has been outside and exposed to years of rain, sometimes the glow plugs will be rotted and frozen in. If so, the best time to fix them is while the head is off, incase you need extreme measures to get them out.
If you end up needing new glow plugs, RockAuto.com has them cheap.

And be sure to use an anti seize lube when reinstalling.

 

[dragracer]

Do they have engine without glow plugs? I hate to sound dumb but I can't find any on my motor.

 

[Ray70]

Wait a minute... forget everything I said! you have an 803A, I somehow thought you had an 003A. You don't have glow plugs in the head, only in the intake manifold... Sorry about that confusion!

 

[Ray70]

Now that I have my head on straight... If you haven't bought the gaskets yet, I've been using a place on Ebay that sells the LPW4 full gasket kits for $90
You get everything. Now I see there are competitors selling the same kit as low as $67! That's way cheaper than others sell just the de-carbon kit gaskets for.

 

[dragracer]

I plan to only use it in 240 volt single phase, what all can I strip from it?
It will be removed from container.
Can I delete all but crank switch?

 

[Ray70]

You mean you're going to take it out of the enclosure? There really isn't much you can remove per-sei unless you plan on dumping the %load voltage and Hz gages and using a universal voltage regulator.
If you go with a universal regulator and eliminate the gages you can get rid of a lot of parts, but this requires some rewiring of the 12 Gen head wires, and some rewiring of the engine controls.
You need to have a good understanding of the engine and gen operation and controls if you want to attempt this kind of modification, but there are threads on this forum where people have done this mod. on the older air cooled 002's and 003's. Not sure if anyone has done an 803 and documented it here.

 

[dragracer]

I was cleaning head and block getting ready to install new head gasket and notice number 1 piston had mark on it where valve had hit it. I don't when and how it accrued since it is a remanufacture motor.
Is there something beside clearances I should check?

 

[Ray70]

The valve hitting the piston happens in 2 instances. 1) if your oil pressure relief valve gets stuck closed and oil pressure goes too high the lifters pump up just enough for valves to touch the pistons and usually bend the pushrods a bit. Luckily the valve hits flat and usually does not bend the valve. The other scenario is if you loosen the rocker arm nuts at any point, the lifters will expand. When you reassemble you have to let the motor sit for about 1/2 hour after tightening the rocker arms before you turn the motor over ( this is explained in the TM ) otherwise the piston may hit a valve and bend a pushrod. So now make sure you don't have a bent pushrod in the cyl that hit. You should also put a mechanical gage in the oil pressure fitting to verify oil pressure doesn't go too high ( once you reassemble ) or if you have the side cover off, its easy to remove and check / clean the oil pressure relief valve.

 

[dragracer]

You were right, bent pushrod
Any place to get one?

 

[devilphrog]

Mayi diesel, they are on the large auction site

 

[dragracer]

Mayi diesel, they are on the large auction site

Thanks, I bought a gasket set from them also


Yeah, even with bent (slightly) pushrods and new head gasket we got it running yesterday.