Oil & Fuel Can't Believe This Happened

[General Lee]

Lesson learned. Always check your fluids before starting out for the day.

Standard practice for any competent equipment operator.

Hope you can get out of it without costing you too much.

Lets say he DID check his oil before he started, most likely it would have read ok. He clearly stated he had been working the tractor 3-4 hours prior to it shutting down. When it did shut down, he noticed the oil trail on the ground behind him. Since you are a competent equipment operator, you should know upon removing a drain plug, it will only take approx. 10 seconds or less to drain enough oil before something catastrophic may happen.

This has NOTHING to do with checking fluids before beginning work. And if you say you climb under your tractor and check the torque on drain plugs every time you begin a job, your full of $h--.

 

[Scooby074]

Lets say he DID check his oil before he started, most likely it would have read ok. He clearly stated he had been working the tractor 3-4 hours prior to it shutting down. When it did shut down, he noticed the oil trail on the ground behind him. Since you are a competent equipment operator, you should know upon removing a drain plug, it will only take approx. 10 seconds or less to drain enough oil before something catastrophic may happen.

This has NOTHING to do with checking fluids before beginning work. And if you say you climb under your tractor and check the torque on drain plugs every time you begin a job, your full of $h--.

**** no i dont torque or check drain plugs every time..

But when a new piece of equipment comes into my possession i sure do. You have no idea what the previous owner or last person who worked on it did. I strongly doubt it was vandalism in this case. IMHO the plug was loose, and likely loose and slow leaking for many hours, likely before the OP purchased it. Then one day it just fell out. An inspection when it came into his possession would have picked it up.

If it was vandalism, well that sucks. Not much you can do if your sabotaged. Removing drain plugs isnt typical of vandals in my experience. More than once I was called to repair equipment that had batteries taken, windows smashed, radio's removed and/or tires flattened, but that's the extent of it. I once heard of a loader that had several qts of oil siphoned out of it, I can only guess somebody atv'ing or something had to do a oil change after getting swamped, but that was picked up by the operators check at the start of shift.

 

[General Lee]

**** no i dont torque or check drain plugs every time..

But when a new piece of equipment comes into my possession i sure do. You have no idea what the previous owner or last person who worked on it did. I strongly doubt it was vandalism in this case. IMHO the plug was loose, and likely loose and slow leaking for many hours, likely before the OP purchased it. Then one day it just fell out. An inspection when it came into his possession would have picked it up.

I can agree with this.

 

[sixdogs]

I do all of my own maintenance but the couple times I let a dealer touch it I sure learned to check their "torque" afterwards. They had the pan nut so tight I could barely get it loose. Had the shop gorilla put on the hydraulic filter so tight I had to destroy it to remove it. And not consistant either--others left my oil pan nut on the car loose and it dripped oil. No more ever--i do all my own work now and plan to as long as possible.

The OP's issue is one in a million and he clearly did all that was required and more than most of us would. He checked his oil at the start of day. Who was to know some deviants loosened the pan nut? Let's hope it's insured. As well, if tampered with, this type of punk is not smart enough to shut up and will likely brag to someone. A sheriff with his ears open will eventually get a lead--from the perp himself. Good luck on this and push the insurance issue. At least it's only money and can be fixed. No family was harmed.

 

[BigBoyinMS]

From what I have read in this thread I would guess that this tractor may actually have a low pressure shut down circuit and should have no engine damage. The reason I say that is that I have seen a few engines that had no oil plug (no oil) that lasted way longer than an instant lockup after loosing oil.
OP said he saw a trail of oil which means he had just lost all the oil. A dealership where I worked in the early '90's had to destroy and scrap a Nissan van. The techs drained all of the oil and started it. It ran a total of more than 12 hours before locking up. At 10 hours they drained the coolant which sped up the process.
At another dealer we had a "tech" forget to put the drain plug back in during an oil change. The customer went 4 miles in town and then 7 miles on a 70mph interstate before the noise caused her to stop. We gave her a new engine then tore down her old one and found no damage, although we did replace rings and bearings. That engine went into another car and gave no problems.
Not long ago I saw the same situation again but this owner was called and stopped a few miles away. Plug was installed and engine filled with oil and he has had no problem since.
I know this is a tractor at working rpm but I wouldn't expect any different results... especially since diesel oils contain MUCH higher levels of zinc and phosphorus which are the main additives that provide metal to metal lubrication.
Hopefully the OP got lucky.

 

[RobertN]

About 15 years ago, a local quick-lube left the oil plug loose on my Grandmothers '70's Nova with a 305. A couple miles away it came out, and dumped all the oil. It got towed back to the quick-lube, another plug put in, with fresh oil and filter. Lasted her a few more years. She sold it, still running fine.

Hope it is same for OP...

OP said he saw a trail of oil which means he had just lost all the oil. A dealership where I worked in the early '90's had to destroy and scrap a Nissan van. The techs drained all of the oil and started it. It ran a total of more than 12 hours before locking up. At 10 hours they drained the coolant which sped up the process.
At another dealer we had a "tech" forget to put the drain plug back in during an oil change. The customer went 4 miles in town and then 7 miles on a 70mph interstate before the noise caused her to stop. We gave her a new engine then tore down her old one and found no damage, although we did replace rings and bearings. That engine went into another car and gave no problems.
Not long ago I saw the same situation again but this owner was called and stopped a few miles away. Plug was installed and engine filled with oil and he has had no problem since.
I know this is a tractor at working rpm but I wouldn't expect any different results... especially since diesel oils contain MUCH higher levels of zinc and phosphorus which are the main additives that provide metal to metal lubrication.
Hopefully the OP got lucky.

 

[azbinder]

OP stated that he was brush hogging in "tall grass". That being said, I can almmost gaurantee that he had the engine running at full throttle under a load. Under these conditions, I don't see how that the engine couldn't be anything but JUNK.
Kubota offers a NEW complete engine through wholegoods. These are complete drop ins whit just having to swap out the accessories(starter, alt, fan, clutch and maybe the flywheel) to the new engine and come with a 1 year warranty. Considering this is probably a catostrophic loss, the crank, rods, main bearing carriers, camshaft, and block will all need to be replaced. Add to that the labor to disassemble and reassemble the engine, you are further ahead to go with the complete engine. The only labor involved would be just to R and R the engine.
Current list price on a V2403E3G engine is $5408.00. PLUS freight and installation.

 

[joshuabardwell]

At my last company standard was low oil pressure = light plus warning horn.

Well, now, that's interesting, and has got my mind working. My tractor has a low oil pressure light. With a little creativity and some relays, I bet you could easily wire that to blow the horn when it's on as well. Only problem is, the light comes on when the key is turned, but the engine is not running, and that would be annoying. Is there some lead that only has current on it when the tractor is running, and not just when the key is turned? That way, you could wire it up so that if the oil pressure light is on and the engine is running, the horn blows. My tractor is a diesel, so in theory it doesn't need electrics to keep running. On the other hand, something shuts down the engine when I turn off the key. What is that?

 

[crazyal]

Well, now, that's interesting, and has got my mind working. My tractor has a low oil pressure light. With a little creativity and some relays, I bet you could easily wire that to blow the horn when it's on as well. Only problem is, the light comes on when the key is turned, but the engine is not running, and that would be annoying. Is there some lead that only has current on it when the tractor is running, and not just when the key is turned? That way, you could wire it up so that if the oil pressure light is on and the engine is running, the horn blows. My tractor is a diesel, so in theory it doesn't need electrics to keep running. On the other hand, something shuts down the engine when I turn off the key. What is that?

You could just add in a timer circuit that overrides the low pressure switch when the ignition switch is first turned on. You could set it for 1 minute. So each time you went to start your tractor you would have 1 minute to start it (more than enough time in winter) or it would sound the alarm. You could even tie it to your fuel shut off so it kills your engine. But the real question is how many people have this problem? Is it really worth the effort for a 1 in 10 million problem?

 

[joshuabardwell]

You could just add in a timer circuit that overrides the low pressure switch when the ignition switch is first turned on. You could set it for 1 minute. So each time you went to start your tractor you would have 1 minute to start it (more than enough time in winter) or it would sound the alarm. You could even tie it to your fuel shut off so it kills your engine. But the real question is how many people have this problem? Is it really worth the effort for a 1 in 10 million problem?

I wouldn't tie it to a fuel shutoff, for the reason previously described: an unexpected shutdown can be catastrophic in a moving vehicle. There are times when I'd rather move the tractor than save the engine.

How many people have this problem? If you mean the drain plug falling out, very few. But if you mean running an engine on low oil? Well, that's why they put a low oil pressure light on the dash, right? I mean, **** happens, right?

EDIT TO ADD: And, just out of curiosity, I'd still like to know if there is something on the tractor that only has voltage when the engine is actually running, that you could run a relay off of.