PROBLEM HELP! 2018 GC1720 only 6 hours and developed a strong vibration

[jimmyhouser]

I've seen them suck a piece of foam in the intake and stop up one of the valves on two occasions. I'm guessing it happened at the factory. Just a thought...

 

[cdaigle430]

Today I had 17 tons of gravel delivered to add to my driveway. I was a little worried using the tractor to do it but figured what the ****, what else am I going to use.

ｯ \_(ツ)_/ ｯ
She goes, she goes. She blows, she blows. What the ****, right?

Well, the vibration and weirdness was obviously apparent at the beginning even after warming up to operating temp. It sounded odd so much so that my fiancee's father, who has been around heavy machinery before came over and asked me if it was supposed to sound like that. I hadn't mentioned my concern about it to him prior.

I thought it seemed like a miss or something. Like an injector needed bled or whatever. I am not new to things mechanical by any means, even diesels. The engine was acting like my 6.2L DD did in my M1008 truck before I replaced my injectors and rebuilt the DB2 with new seals. Either way, I just ignored it and went to moving the stone.

After I moved and spread the initial pile of gravel over the span of 45 minutes, I idled down and let it run. I always let my engines run to cool off before shutting down. I noticed that it sounded different than before I started. It actually sounded like it was running perfectly again. It wasn't vibrating or resonating like it was before. The grainy feeling of the steering and loader control also stopped. My airbox wasn't violently thrashing about like before (I swear, guys, the video I posted doesn't really illustrate how bad it was). Even my throttle lever only vibrated a half inch or so either way. Before it was buzzing a lot more.

It's really weird. I wonder if maybe it just needed worked a bit or if it needed to pass some air through the fuel system or something. I didn't run the first tank of fuel out (maybe 1/3 tank left based on what I could see) but I did fill it with road diesel the day I noticed the weirdness happening. It initially had a full tank of red off road diesel from the dealership when I got it.

I am still breaking the engine in, obviously. Maybe this chaos is part of that. -But, for it to go from running super smooth on day one, to running strangely, to running smooth again, seems pretty odd to me.

It certainly is a whole lot of fun to operate. I love it.
I appreciate the help and insight from each of you!

View attachment 574464View attachment 574465

As I stated before sometimes mine shakes more than yours (what I saw in video) . I moved 36, 18 yard truck loads of dirt, gravel and sand...no problem. To me its one of two things that may cause this - drive shaft balance, or injectors. I once had them replace the drive shaft and vibration was gone for about 20 hours-now its back again. I got dealer, Agco representative involved before I could at least get it looked at. It did vibrate more so than the tractors on the lot.
I just operate it and not worry about it anymore.....5 years and 200 hours later still going strong.......

 

[JWR]

This has been a long thread and I'm not 100% sure what all has been said but looking at your original video , that just does not look like anything abnormal to me. The MAIN source of concern to date in my opinion is that you say it changes drastically from one moment to the next without any great change in loading. If that is the case, there is clearly something not right, and being a new tractor, for heavens sake insist on dealer attention to it. You'll have to be able to illustrate the problem of course.

 

[jimmyhouser]

Hey there,

I'm quite new and recently posted a thread about my new tractor. I'm tossing this one up with the hope of getting some insight on what I should do about an issue I'm having.


I just took ownership of this tractor about 10 days ago. Only ran it around the yard, idled it a little bit, learned the backhoe controls and just familiarized myself with it.

The weather had been bad for a few days and today I was finally able to try and mow my 4 acres with it. My land is basically flat and grassy.

Everything was going great at first. It was smooth and went through the field-cutting like it wasn't even trying. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. I wasn't cutting fast at all or really taxing the tractor.

About an acre in, I noticed that it was maybe a little weaker and felt different. I could hear the HST a little more, or maybe I was just noticed it more once it seemed to begin acting up. I stopped and let it idle a bit. I noticed that there was quite strong vibrations being transmitted through the whole tractor. My PTO was disengaged and I was on smooth concrete.

I opened the hood to take a look and the engine was vibrating a lot-more than it did before. It is very strange. The engine was barely operating at the first line on the temp gauge.

The vibrations happen at all RPMs. I will share a video to show what I mean.

I am feeling a little sick to my stomach and heart-broken about this tractor, now. I haven't even made my first payment yet I plan to call the dealership in the morning. I don't really know what they will do for me- probably charge me a fee to come get it for nothing.

The engine was sooooo smooth before. I remember specifically being very impressed with how a 3cyl diesel could idle so smoothly. Something is definitely wrong. Could it be a miss? Have there been any reports of issues like this?

I think there may be a piece of foam stuck in your intake manifold. So far I have seen to come from the factory like this.

 

[JWR]

I think there may be a piece of foam stuck in your intake manifold. So far I have seen to come from the factory like this.

Could you rephrase that sentence please ?

 

[Coyote machine]

Could you rephrase that sentence please ?

He's saying he's seen two come from the factory with foam stuck in the intake manifold. Look there for foam.

 

[jimmyhouser]

He's saying he's seen two come from the factory with foam stuck in the intake manifold. Look there for foam.

Exactly

 

[1bayouboy]

Was it foam from an air filter or some bit of foam left from the lost foam casting of the intake manifold?? I had an outboard once that had
a bit of foam block the cooling passage to the ECM and we figured it was a bit left from the casting.

 

[Coyote machine]

Was it foam from an air filter or some bit of foam left from the lost foam casting of the intake manifold?? I had an outboard once that had
a bit of foam block the cooling passage to the ECM and we figured it was a bit left from the casting.

It's foam from Duck Dynasty! Gramps found it looking for his squirrel skinner....

 

[jimmyhouser]

Was it foam from an air filter or some bit of foam left from the lost foam casting of the intake manifold?? I had an outboard once that had
a bit of foam block the cooling passage to the ECM and we figured it was a bit left from the casting.

It usually looks like this even though his is still attached so we're the last two that I saw.

 

[cdaigle430]

It usually looks like this even though his is still attached so we're the last two that I saw.View attachment 581449

That massey is way to clean and shiny.

 

[jimmyhouser]

That massey is way to clean and shiny.

It's new!

 

[Nacademus]

My vibration is back. I'm going to. Try and fashion something to the engine to help illustrate the severity it and take a video.

 

[Nacademus]

20 hours on the clock.


My tractor is vibrating so much at idle that the hood shakes a lot and has been rubbing through the paint in some places where it touches the supports. I also think I may have found some wetness around an injector fuel supply line nut.

Anyone else have to tighten their injector fuel lines on these?

It may be nothing but since the tire issue I'm having and this vibration happening again since last season, I'm on alert for every little thing. This rough idle isn't exactly a small thing, though.

My father-in-law remarked that it was pretty bad when I showed him today.

 

[JWR]

My vibration is back. I'm going to. Try and fashion something to the engine to help illustrate the severity it and take a video.

Are you saying this severe vibration went away and come back ? Your video with sound last fall did not, in and of itself, seem abnormal. It would be a major difference in this entire topic if it CAME AND WENT, IF IT TOTALLY BLACK AND WHITE CHANGED or not.

Has the dealer ever seen the machine and evaluated the problem since you bought it ? If you really have a problem that has to happen no matter if the dealer is far away or not. As I asked last fall, have you had another experienced tractor operator run it and listen to it ? That's worth doing before forcing the issue with the dealer.

 

[Nacademus]

Yes. The issue went away then came back. It was great when I first received the tractor. Then the idle was awful after the first time I filled it with new fuel after the original tank ran low. More than midway through that tank, it seemed fine again and I felt silly taking it to the dealer when it all of the sudden began to run fine.

This is only the third tank of fuel its ever had and it's still showing 7/8th full.

I can't pinpoint what's making it act like this. I know if I take it in, I'll get it right back because they won't find anything. And they probably won't fix the rub-through on my paint from the vibrations.

 

[JWR]

There are so many unknowns here it is hard to diagnose from 500 miles away... And I know exactly what you mean feeling silly taking it to the dealer -- with my luck it would be smooth as silk and I'd be unable to illustrate the problem to him. Like going to the Doctor and the pain is gone...

I do not know your situation and what kinds of tools and gadgets you have access to but here is a thought:

1) The bad vibration state of affairs (call it Bad versus Good for shortening this discussion) -- when it is 'bad' one would think you have one cylinder not 'firing' properly. I could guess a faulty injector or some issue in the high pressure side of the fuel system leading to that one cylinder. On a brand new machine you as owner should not go digging even if you have the background/capability to do so.
2) Lets hypothesize one cylinder is missing for whatever reason. Bad fuel from that first fill-up you mentioned way back, a bad injector from the factory that has a defect, who knows.
3) If you have access/own/or just go buy one of the hand-held infra-red thermometers [Amazon dot com has them in the $13 price range and your local stores carry various versions...] use one of those as follows:

-- Get familiar with the normal operation of the "temperature at a distance" thermometers. Try it out, get repeatable readings on various things warm/hot etc. How far away you hold it, how it acts, etc.
-- Measure the temperature of your cylinder head very close the base of each injector with the engine cold and not running -- all the same of course. Better be.
-- Run the engine a while and observe the rising temperature the longer it runs up to some stable final operating temperature.
-- During that run-up sequence, go from cylinder to cylinder, expecting to see each one in the same temperature ballpark. Keep doing that until the engine is finally hot at its normal operating point.

In that sequence/process IF YOU HAVE THE BAD Vibration, then I suspect you will also have one cylinder head top area cooler than the other two. If you catch it with BAD vibes AND find which cylinder is the "cool" one then that tells you which one has the problem.

Keep in mind that, over too much time, (if you let it sit there and run for half an hour) the heat will conduct all along the cylinder head and you might no longer be able to see a significant temp difference among them ? If you are GOOD and do not have the excess vibration, then all 3 cylinder head areas will read about the same. If the BAD vibe continues I suspect that one cylinder would still be cooler than than the other two.

I'm thinking this test may at least give you something factual/measurable to point to, proving there is a problem.

Armed with this data, you should be able to get the dealer (OR an authorized by the dealer shop closer to you if that is that big a distance problem) to swap out an injector or flush out a line or whatever. IF THAT's THE PROBLEM...

 

[irvingj]

Water in the fuel? Have you tried any diesel fuel additives? Only the third tank of fuel... must spend a fair amount of time sitting... sounds like water might be a possibility.

 

[JWR]

Water in the fuel? Have you tried any diesel fuel additives? Only the third tank of fuel... must spend a fair amount of time sitting... sounds like water might be a possibility.

Irvingj is right -- that's so quick and easy to do before getting into other things I have suggested. But with only 1/8 of a tank into your 3rd tank of fuel in over 6 months -- you're going to have to run it some (with the additive) to ever find out anything.

 

[WranglerX]

Also check head temperature at exhaust ports, do it early in run before head/exhaust manifold temperature normalized across whole head... Ummm... Added "fresh" fuel... Problem starts.... Sort of seems like a no brainer....

Dale