My new 4300 project
- Thread starter larboc
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larboc
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- John Deere 4300, Deere 455, Ariens GT17, Cub Cadet O, Wheelhorse 50
For John Deere parts I either went with my local deere dealer or green parts store. In hindsight, my local dealer took longer and was more expensive than ordering online on any parts that had to be ordered (everything). For the maxiforce kit, I bought it straight from them over the phone HOWEVER....
I blew my headgasket. Losing compression to coolant on a cylinder. I'm not sure if it was because timing somehow changed and became over advanced after I setup the static timing, or if there is an injector issue, or if there is an issue with the aftermarket gasket. The $80 John deere gasket will be here tomorrow so I'll be changing that out this weekend and trying to figure out what went wrong. I was very OCD when assembling the engine, dipped all the head bolts in deere oil before torquing with a freshly calibrated snap-on 3/8" torque wrench to 65 ft-lbs. I pulled the valve cover and checked most of the head bolts and none of them were less than 65 ft-lbs. I didn't use any compound on the gasket. I'm going to check timing on all 3 cylinders separately (3 marks on FW, viewed by removing right side loader mount arm) before running any more.
VERY DISAPPOINTED this happend, not sure what's wrong or who screwed up. Must have been me somehow, very rare to hear of a yanmar with a blown HG.
Maxiforce I went with Mytractor but I ordered it over the phone not off their eBay store. Let us know about how you make out with the head gasket. I though the head gasket looked really thin. Thank you for all the infomation it has made this task a lot easier.
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larboc
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- John Deere 4300, Deere 455, Ariens GT17, Cub Cadet O, Wheelhorse 50
That's the same thing I did, I don't know why I said I ordered from maxiforce directly. Hopefully I'll have time to get the head off saturday night. Pending what I find I'd be ready to pull the trigger on an OEM yanmar/jd gasket if I were you.
texasranger556
Platinum Member
I'll be very interested to see what you find. If the head bolts go into blind holes I've heard of oil hydrolocking the bolt and giving a false torque.
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larboc
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- hancock, MI
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- John Deere 4300, Deere 455, Ariens GT17, Cub Cadet O, Wheelhorse 50
Did you happen to take note of how the timing marks on the idler/crank gear lined up when the rest of the marks lined up? I'm just curious.
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larboc
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- hancock, MI
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- John Deere 4300, Deere 455, Ariens GT17, Cub Cadet O, Wheelhorse 50
I finally got around to pulling the head off. Once again the deere manual disappoints. The section for cylinder head removal procedure conspicuously omits to mention the part where you have to pull the tank to get to the back head bolts. I should have remembered this but I was trying to just go by the manual. If it wasn't for pulling the tank it would have been much easier. Regardless the head is now off.
The head gasket failed, but I'm not sure why. Rather than having a direct leaking path from the combustion chamber to coolant like I have seen before, the whole gasket had "ballooned" for lack of a better word. Combustion pressure was leaking between the metal layers somewhere and expanded the two halves of the gasket. Any where it wasn't clamped it filled up like a balloon.
The deere head gasket looks virtually identical to the maxiforce, however it seems like the maxiforce gasket might have been a little thicker (calipers said .014" vs .010")
I tried retorqueing all the headbolts before removing the head but none of them turned at 65 ft-lbs. Also checked torque wrench calibration, dead on.
Flat bar on head and block show no signs of warpage, .0015 feeler gauge wouldn't even start at any point under bar.
I'm at a loss as to why it blew. I'm going back with the JD gasket and retarding pump timing until just before I get high speed misfires.
The head gasket failed, but I'm not sure why. Rather than having a direct leaking path from the combustion chamber to coolant like I have seen before, the whole gasket had "ballooned" for lack of a better word. Combustion pressure was leaking between the metal layers somewhere and expanded the two halves of the gasket. Any where it wasn't clamped it filled up like a balloon.
The deere head gasket looks virtually identical to the maxiforce, however it seems like the maxiforce gasket might have been a little thicker (calipers said .014" vs .010")
I tried retorqueing all the headbolts before removing the head but none of them turned at 65 ft-lbs. Also checked torque wrench calibration, dead on.
Flat bar on head and block show no signs of warpage, .0015 feeler gauge wouldn't even start at any point under bar.
I'm at a loss as to why it blew. I'm going back with the JD gasket and retarding pump timing until just before I get high speed misfires.
dfkrug
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Sorry to hear of the gasket failure. Did you use new head bolts? I did not, tho on newer engines,
head bolts are designed to stretch only once to be torqued properly.
When I did mine, I did not find any aftermarket parts, such as your Maxiforce head gasket. I
suppose it could be just a poorly made gasket.
Got my engine block reinstalled today now to start adding all the exterior parts like the pumps. The machine shop assembled all the interior parts including the gears so I never got to see the timing marks.
Loving the tech manual again, putting the 2 hydraulic pumps on it seems there are no gaskets between the pumps and the engine. Also the rear of the 2 pumps has 3 different length bolts, but nothing saying which ones go where. The 2 long ones are easy to figure out but the 2 short ones are not the same length but nothing says which bolt which hole. It might not matter but I don't want to screw something up.
