LK3054XS- Engine oil flow issue to hyd pump drive gear bearings

[Valleyview]

Need help to solve an issue with my LK3054XS TLB that is serial #26500393 with only 215 hrs, a week ago when operating the BH to dig holes for pole barn, the engine just shutdown when running at 2,000 RPM to dig holes, I got it started but then noticed I had no hydraulics, after pulling the hydraulic pump I found the spur gears that drive the pump from engine (fuel injection pump) were trashed, the outer set of two bearings back to back had seized up this in turn caused the casting that houses these gears to crack. So I purchased new parts and this weekend installed them, all the while concerned that the real cause of issue, not getting enough engine oil to these bearings would cause new parts to fail, that is exactly what happened with less then 40 mins after running the engine shutdown again, and new casting was more damaged then old was in same area of the smaller spur gear with back to back bearings that drive the actual hydraulic pump.

What I am wondering is how does Kioti provide oil to properly lubricate these bearings? On the engine block where a splined shaft comes out of the fuel injection pump area, I see that the bearing is open faced (like the back to back bearings that house the smaller spur gear that drives hyd pump), below this bearing is a small hole that when I run the engine a very small amount of engine flows out of, this should be the oil that flows into the housing of the spur gears, but when I removed the new cracked casing there was no oil in it so during operation no oil is getting to lube these bearings. I would think this lower hole would provide oil under pressure and that the open faced bearing above would be the path for oil to return to oil pan of engine. Does this make sense to anyone and does anyone know how these spur gears are to get proper lubrication from engine. The bearing on hyd pump splined shaft is sealed so this would keep engine oil out of hyd pump. What I am wondering is what may be broken/damaged or worn that provides oil to this area. I do not own a shop manual (will have to try and find one to buy) so i am a little in the dark here. I do not want to rebuild till I know what is the root cause to my bearing failure or lack of oil supply. Has anyone run into this and knows what inside engine needs to be replaced/fixed. After replacing the gears and case yesterday I had changed out the engine oil and filter, the oil light was on for few seconds till new oil made its way thru system so it seems the oil pump is at least developing pressure to satisfy the oil pressure switch but maybe not enough to pump thru entire system?????

Ken

 

[Coyote machine]

Welcome to TBN. Sorry to hear of your troubles. Is your Kioti under any warranty? With 215 hours it seems it might be, possibly? But you've already taken apart your hydraulic pump and replaced the bearings in it? In the injection pump? I'm confused
Before you do anything further let some who know about this type of thing chime in. Sometimes it takes a while to get responses to complicated questions.
Take a breather on the issue for the moment and get some perspective. I say this because you already said you thought your fix would fail and it did so let it be until you get some feedback/guidance.
When you drained the oil and filter did you look for or find any contaminants, metal, etc?

 

[somguyss]

These bearings are feed by 2 sources of oil, one being splash lubrication while running and the other is indeed the small hole in the case. The small hole allows minimal oil flow into the cavity to add in lubrication. My advice would be to make sure where the housing gasket fits to the case if you don't have it postioned correctly it can cause an oiling issue. I also rcommend that you check your system oil pressure when running, also make sure the unit is on level ground when operating it for extensive periods of time, the reason being is due to the splash lubrication concern. Look at those things and report back.

 

[EHR]

There was a period somewhere between 2004 and 2005 that had an issue with aluminum hydralic pumps failing in that model. I think they worked fine for awhile then failed.

 

[Valleyview]

Coyote- I bought my machine used 3 yrs ago with 100 hrs, not sure what year it was made but the logs in back of owner manuals shows servicing back in 2006 after 50 hr and then 100 hr break-in period. So I doubt there is an warranty coverage at this point. The gears I replaced were not in hyd pump but what drive the pump. Oil from engine did not have any metal in it because the metal parts from stripped gears (outer rings/teeth) and ball bearing races were trapped in the casting that encloses these parts and the small weep hole and bearing on injector pump keep the larger debris from entering engine.

EHR- the hyd pump is ok or at least appears to be OK, its the drive train to run the hyd pump that I am having an issue getting oil flow to hence, seized bearings. The casing for my hyd pump is cast iron w/ alum pump head and alum oil pick-up sections. Poor engine oil flow/pressure design that lubricates the drive gears if you ask me.

Somguyss- you are hitting the nail on the head, the issue or first failure happened several hours after I had been running it at a slight down hill angle (tractor nose being just a little lower then rear of tractor, side note, my brother has run his New Holland TLB w/ more of a pitch and never a problem), I tried using front bucket curl to level out, I had to dig first 4 post holes in this configuration. Failure happened later when I was digging the 7th hole on flat ground. This time I was still trying to finish 7th hole when it failed about 30 minutes after rebuild on flat ground. I had before reinstalling new parts run the engine with hyd pump and gear housing removed and saw that only a very slight trickle of engine oil came out of lower weep hole when I was throttling up engine, but none came thru the bearing that supports the splined shaft from injector pump on engine. So I thought I need to keep on level ground when working BH which really keeps a full time strain on hyd pump and hoped that the small amount of oil was enough to fill the bottom of new gear housing and that the larger gear driven from engine would splash engine oil up to lower gear on hyd pump and hence lubricate those two back to back bearings. But I guess this did not happen and I lost the back to back bearings and gears along with a very cracked housing this time. My brother came over to help me (he has larger John Deere's, New Holland and International farm tractors) and we tried to make some measurements since one concern was that the lip on the gear enclosure casting that mates into engine side looked like it might be sealing off the small lower weep hole, but after making measurements with depth gauges, it looks like there is some small clearance for oil to weep up over this lip into the lower casting if there was enough oil flow from this weep hole, I was thinking on next casting I should grind this area a little to open up this clearance some more. We next took a wire and pushed into the weep hole, looks like this goes to a bigger cavity within the injector pump, not sure why they did not design this to be a pressurized line! We started engine and only when RPM's were up did some very miniscule trickle of oil came out of this hole, also when I removed the 2nd fractured casting did I note it was bone dry inside, we checked the gasket and it was not blocking this port since the lip on gear housing casting holds it from doing this. Next test was with engine running we had reinstalled the gear housing with gears in place and ran engine for few minutes (tractor is dead level, engine oil half way between marks on dip stick), set engine speed to were I run when digging then shut down engine and removed gear housing, not a drop of oil in it from weep hole or open faced bearing on injector housing! We then tried to block the weep hole with our finger and started engine to see if we could get engine oil to come out of open faced bearing above weep hole but to no avail.. So without a repair and/or parts manual on hand I do not know how or what feeds the engine oil to this area and what is suppose to be proper flow or pressure of oil in system. I have not measured the oil pressure yet, will need to buy an oil pressure gauge. As an engineer I am not please with Kioti's set-up or design on lubrication of these hyd pump drive bearings. I have operated many BH's in past mainly Ford's and Case's and have had tractor tilted in many directions to dig ditches or holes and never a lubrication issue. Any help you can give me into determing root cause of my problem I am grateful for. Do you know a good website to purchase a repair and parts manual for my LK3054XS TLB from? Even though the oil light goes off when engine is running is possible I have a bad pump or is there some other place I should be looking that may be restricting oil flow to the cavity that weeps engine oil into the hyd gear casting?
Thanks,
Ken

 

[Valleyview]

Somguyss- I forgot to mention that my tractor engine was blowing a lot of white smoke and just did not seem to be running strong when I was trying out these tests yesterday with my brother. Not sure if the second shutdown of broken gears also did some other damage to engine or if the lubrication system if weak is doing other damage???
Ken

 

[somguyss]

I have in the past and is a fix that I have done on some other unit, i have t'd into the pressure guage port and ran a oil supply line over to the adaptor housing and allowed it to supply oil to aid to lubricate the gears. You will need to meter the flow but this can be done with either orfices and also regulator. It is away to get better lubrication to the drive gears, only down side is that you will need to drill the housing adaptor so you can get oil in there. As far as the year model there should be a letter or number in front of the 2 in your serial number #_26500393. It is discouraging that it doesn't have better flow, as for the post about of these models had pump issues that is true but it was the LK3054 and early LK3054XS and with yours being a 393 number it is pretty high up in the series and the unit that replaced the LK3054XS was the LK30 and they are one in the same.

 

[Valleyview]

Somguyss- Have you run into this issue with a LK3054 or LK3054XS you have owned? I agree with you that I need to find a way to supplement the engine oil flow to these gears and bearings, over some beers tonight my friends were thinking about the old cars that used drip oilers on various areas of the engines and cars linkage systems. Tying into the engine oil pressure gauge port seems like a great idea and adding a flow restricter to limit oil flow is something I can add to system, my hope is the excess oil will flow either thru the weep hole or more hopefully thru the open bearing that supports the splined shaft from injector pump back into the engine oil pan.

I am traveling so when I return home I will have to look for the letter or number in front of my serial number and let you know in this post.

I also have now two damaged gear housings so I will practice with my drill press on drilling and tapping a hole in one of these before I attempt on the replacement I need to put on order now that I have a path forward.

I still will purchase a oil pressure gauge and install for better indication of any future issues. What should be the correct pressure range for this engine?

Sounds like Kioti has not followed up with a better design to this problem even on the newer replacement LK30 from if I read you right.

I like the tractor and want to get a fix in place if this is a cronic issue with design vs. some other issue in the engine oil delivery system so that I can log many hours without further issue!!!

Thanks,
Ken

 

[somguyss]

The issue is just lack of lubrication, you can see pressures as high as 60 lbs and never lower than 7 lbs. If your oil pressure is around 7 lbs or lower than you need to look at the oil pump for possible wear, you can also check your oil and filter to see if you see any fillings or forgien debris. This debris will be aluminuim so therefore it won't be magnetic. I have never owned one of these machines but arounf 100's of them ranging from LK3054, LK3054XS,
LK30 and the new DS3510. Just restrict the oil flow when you do the line to the housing for lubrication, you shouldn't have any issues with drain back as long as you restrict the flow.

 

[josh3054]

Ken,

What was your final solution to this? I just had the same problem - drive gear bearing seized and case cracked. Unsure whether to take everything apart and trace that non-working oil hole back to where it's clogged, or just add an auxiliary oil line like mentioned here.

Thanks,
Josh