nickel plate
Veteran Member
JD 850 model # 3T80J
Yanmar 3 cylinder diesel engine #CN3043D219197
219 engine hours
engine oil last changed at 217 hours in 2012
The tractor was inherited by a friend of mine so we know the full history since bought new by his father and to date has no history of any related repair work.
It's parked in a shed with a concrete floor with no visible oil leak previous to its last outing a couple of days ago. It started up normally, let it run for a warm up then put it in gear and got about twenty yards out when the fan and belt started throwing oil everywhere. The leak is at the front of the engine but I can't say from where as the factory sheet metal pretty much seals off the entire area between the front of the engine to the radiator. I could see what appeared to be the hydraulic pump (has two metal pipes attached and leading aft) on the bottom right side of the front of the engine and it APPEARED to not be the problem but I could only see the outboard side of it. When running, the oil is severely dripping straight down and over the fwd front end, when shut down, the oil stops the heavy flow. The threaded engine oil dip stick was pulled and checked and in doing so released a huge amount of compressed air, (actually went BANG!) enough to cover my face and glasses with oil spray. The short dip stick checked out to be dry. I cut a long piece of smooth clean fence wire and stuck it down the dip stick hole to the bottom of the crank case and it registered around four inches of oil. I checked the hydraulic oil dip stick and it showed a level but was in the add area. I don't think the hydraulic oil has ever been changed but what is in there is still red in color. The engine sounds fine while driving it back the short distance into the shed. The fluid smells more like engine oil than hydraulic fluid and it was visibly sort of dark in color although that might have come from contaminates on the outside of the engine. At this time I'm not 100% positive that its engine oil.
The owner's manual has no photo or diagram of the front of the engine so please help direct me to what is there that let go. Was this tractor built during that short era of time when the powers at hand were trying to switch the country over to the metric system or are the nuts and bolts SAE? We had no real hand tools with us to do any investigating and to further the situation the ranch is a very rural off-grid property that only gets visited a few times a year so we need to be prepared as well as possible on the next trip up and hopefully make the repair.
I'm sure we will be in touch with the John Deere dealer in the next town over but I wanted to lay it out here to the knowledgeable folks on the John Deere side of TBN.
Thanks in advance.
Yanmar 3 cylinder diesel engine #CN3043D219197
219 engine hours
engine oil last changed at 217 hours in 2012
The tractor was inherited by a friend of mine so we know the full history since bought new by his father and to date has no history of any related repair work.
It's parked in a shed with a concrete floor with no visible oil leak previous to its last outing a couple of days ago. It started up normally, let it run for a warm up then put it in gear and got about twenty yards out when the fan and belt started throwing oil everywhere. The leak is at the front of the engine but I can't say from where as the factory sheet metal pretty much seals off the entire area between the front of the engine to the radiator. I could see what appeared to be the hydraulic pump (has two metal pipes attached and leading aft) on the bottom right side of the front of the engine and it APPEARED to not be the problem but I could only see the outboard side of it. When running, the oil is severely dripping straight down and over the fwd front end, when shut down, the oil stops the heavy flow. The threaded engine oil dip stick was pulled and checked and in doing so released a huge amount of compressed air, (actually went BANG!) enough to cover my face and glasses with oil spray. The short dip stick checked out to be dry. I cut a long piece of smooth clean fence wire and stuck it down the dip stick hole to the bottom of the crank case and it registered around four inches of oil. I checked the hydraulic oil dip stick and it showed a level but was in the add area. I don't think the hydraulic oil has ever been changed but what is in there is still red in color. The engine sounds fine while driving it back the short distance into the shed. The fluid smells more like engine oil than hydraulic fluid and it was visibly sort of dark in color although that might have come from contaminates on the outside of the engine. At this time I'm not 100% positive that its engine oil.
The owner's manual has no photo or diagram of the front of the engine so please help direct me to what is there that let go. Was this tractor built during that short era of time when the powers at hand were trying to switch the country over to the metric system or are the nuts and bolts SAE? We had no real hand tools with us to do any investigating and to further the situation the ranch is a very rural off-grid property that only gets visited a few times a year so we need to be prepared as well as possible on the next trip up and hopefully make the repair.
I'm sure we will be in touch with the John Deere dealer in the next town over but I wanted to lay it out here to the knowledgeable folks on the John Deere side of TBN.
Thanks in advance.
