Yesterday my 873 started smoking really bad and then a lot of oil coming out exhaust after about two hours of moving trees taken down from Hurricane Helene. I got it back to my shop turned it off and had to add a little more then a qt. of oil. I ran it again to (it was still smoking real bad) unhooking attachment and move it into my shop then turned it off. Now it will only partial turn over then stop (the machine was only run less then 5 minutes after it started smoking). Almost like the cylinders are full of fluid and can't turn over. I checked oil again and it is a quart low. What do any of you think? Is it possible a head gasket leaking and letting oil into the cylinders or a turbo seal leaking? Any ideas would be really appreciated. The machine has 3400 hours, timing belt was changed about 300 hours ago.
Help Support SkidSteer Forum:
wmodel1897
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2015
- Messages
- 27
I had a ford truck that had the turbo go out. The oil seal let loose and dumped oil into exhaust stream. lots of white smoke using lots of oil. I'd look at turbo first. It could have failed so bad it is dumping oil into intake side . If it dumped enough oil into cylinders maybe the oil is locking up on a piston. The tolerances are so close between piston and head that it would not take a lot of oil to lock it up.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2009
- Messages
- 190
99.9% chance it's your head gasket. Very common issue on the Deutz engine in the 873. Had the exact same thing happen on our 873 years ago. You have 3 possible head gaskets in there, they have a tab with notches on them, either none, one or two, you'll want to make sure you replace it with the same number of notches. What we did is just ordered all 3 and sent back the two that weren't the right ones. You'll need a Torx bit, can't remember the size, for the head. Other than that it's not toooo bad or big of a job. Having the service manual will help you out a lot...
I think you're right on the head gasket. I took the turbo off this morning and it seems to be alright not any movement in it and very, very small amount of oil in it. I pulled the injectors and glow plugs and three of the four (2, 3 & 4) cylinders were dry the forth #1 cylinder was coated with thick black oil. I assuming it's the head gasket at this point. Thanks for the info on head gaskets.
Nope temp was in the normal range. It was running alright just looked like I was James Bond putting up a smoke screen behind me. The neighbor from across the way came out to see what was on fire it was that thick. More work replacing head gasket but probably/hopefully cheaper!!
It was the head gasket it had a hole at the #1 cylinder. I had the head cleaned and leak checked they shave .005 off each end of the head to make it flat otherwise everything was OK. It had a one notch head gasket and after 3 failed attempts to get a head gasket overhaul set with one notch through Amazon I finally got deutz head gasket and supplemental gasket set from local diesel shop. Cost a bit more but feel good about being deutz parts. The torx bit is E18 nobody local had it so ordered a complete set from Amazon.
Got everything back together a couple days ago and it's running great. It took over an hour of running before all the oil burned up in the muffler. It really wasn't too bad of a job it went real smooth.
This motivated me to do some needed services, minor fixes and pressure wash and clean up the whole machine. It's all cleaned up and almost like I have a new machine.
Thanks everyone's for your input it really helped.
Bob
Vintagecarlover
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2017
- Messages
- 81
