OT Engine overhaul

My neighbor just traded a 4230 Deere in cause it had over 13,000 hours and had never been worked on. many of those hours were pulling a 4 row planter or dragging a mixer-mill around but it was still going.

Depends on how it was used, treated and maintained.  Some will be shot in 1000 hours and some will go 15000 hours.

I've worked on a few 20K gen sets with Yanmar 4cyl. turboed engines with 15.000 plus hrs on them. They were both covered in oil from lack of service and smoked a little blue when cranked but within 30 seconds cleared mostly up. These units were obviously not maintained real well and in fairly dirty environments and enclosed areas and ran above temps about all the time. But they ran smooth and responded to heavy loads very well. I know this is a little different since they run a constant 1800 rpm's but I'm a FIRM believer in these engines after all of them I had my hands on.

In most tractors, hours on the tachometer are accurate only at some standard speed, like PTO speed. Slower engine speed, they accumulate slower, faster engine speed they accumulate faster. And that probably matches wear because loads tend to be lighter at lower speeds and heavier at higher speeds. An electric Hobbs meter is more accurate at actual hours though I find it runs ten minutes after I've shut the engine off, so short runs it exaggerates and it doesn't reflect high speeds as harder on the engine.

And then tachometer hour meters haven't the greatest reputation for long term reliability often needing replacement far more often than the engine bearings need replacement. So for there is no law specific to tachometer hours like that for vehicle odometers so that fiddling with tachometer hours is not rare with sellers of tractors and combines. You have to "look at the horse's teeth" to get a better idea of operating time. And checking for wear on rod and accessible mains with the pan dropped is a good check, along with wear of seat, fan belt, fan belt pulleys, steering, wheel, pedals, and hitch pin holes.

Its not horribly expensive to replace rod and main bearings when found worn, lot less work than doing the whole engine, reqrinding the crank and fixing that new inspection port a failed rod made in the side of the block.

Gerald J.

Let's just say that you had a 1957 D17 gas and a 1967 D17 series 4 gas. I know for a fact, that if both of them are properly maintained (oil/filter changes...air cleaner maintenance, valve tappet adjustments, etc) and used in the same manner (plowing, discing, hay making, feed grinding, etc) the series 4 will run from 3500 to 5000 hrs before overhaul. It's doubtful the older D17 will run that long because of the slightly sub-standard oiling/filtering system and when you did overhaul it the crank would need to be reground and the series 4 will not need regrinding. Some engines are born to be long lived.....some are not. The harder they work, the shorter the life regardless of the care/maintenance they get.