International 885XL pressurising coolant!

[Ryan]

I know there a few keen tractor owners on here so thought I would post my query here before anywhere else.

Last summer the head gasket went on my 1987 885xl. It blew a small piece of the gasket out between the two middle cylinders which resulted in a major loss of compression in those two cylinders and probably close to 50% loss in power too. There were no coolant or oil issues just compression loss. I did however send the head for pressure testing a light surface grind and the valve seats re ground. Built it up again with a new headset and all went well until recently. Only about 100 hours run time since the head was done.

 

I noticed a drip from below the radiator a few weeks ago and assumed it was just a hole in the rad. I am in the middle of a job clearfelling 3 acres of oak, Saturday is the only time I get for logging so it is taking me a while. I persevered with my "leak" topping up the coolant regularly, maybe a litre a day at first. I topped it up before doing 1 1/2 hours on saturday past and after tea I checked the water level as I though she was running a little warmer than normal. It took almost 4 litre to fill again.

 

Anyway to make a increasingly long story short again I took the bonnet off today and got her up to working temp and discovered she was pumping water out the filler cap in the radiator at a great rate.

Could it be that my head gasket has gone again or could It be something else like porous liners, liner 'O' rings or something along those lines?

 

Heres what I am up against, she is pumping out some water. Only been running 5-6 mins here and under no load.

 

[hiluxstihl]

no sure way to tell! we had an 88 885 super rebuilt a few years ago, first to mind is gasket again, then cracked liner, then cracked head, you may strip it to find out!

[TreeswingerPerth]

Sounds like the head again , compression leaking into a waterways causes the water to blow out the rad pressure cap , it'll be worse under power too .

[doobin]

You sound like you know your stuff, but did you follow the correct torque pattern and recheck after a few hours operation? Good clean head bolts, lightly oiled?

[farmer rod]

a good indicator (of bad news) is to open the throttle quickly with the rad cap off, if it belches out more bubbles, then it looks like the head gasket again.

 

couple of hours should have it sorted !

[Ryan]

Cheers for the input folks. I suppose it will be just a matter of taking it down and investigating. The head was torqued in the correct sequence, torque and final angles but was not re torqued after running a while. Just on the subject of head bolts, the top of the head wad wet yesterday with some water getting blown back from the filler cap and I noticed a few tiny bubbles coming from round one of the head bolts beside no. 3 injector.The only way compression could leak into the bolt hole would be if the head was cracked? I hope not. Ill get her pulled down on Friday evening and investigate.

[hiluxstihl]

gasket again, maybe try get a thicker one? i assume you as good sterelised the mating surfaces??

[Rich2484]

I do take it that on re build you used new rings around the bolt holes?

 

Try re torquing the head down as it wasn't done after a run in period. You may find it will stop with just this.

[w6cloggs]

I had this issue with my 956xl I thought head gasket so I ring our local chap who is time served IH man . He says unlikely to be head !!!!! I was not at all sure but asked what else ?He says they have a sleeve in the head for injectors,they look like copper.He tells me when you do a head always change them

He says he has a way of drawing them out and changing them with head still on tractor.so I said well lets change them anyway still not thinking it would be the cure and thinking the head would be coming off anyway !

He was right when they came out you could see where possible 2 out of the 6 had been passing from combustion side into water space

Job sorted

[Ryan]

I do take it that on re build you used new rings around the bolt holes?

 

Try re torquing the head down as it wasn't done after a run in period. You may find it will stop with just this.

 

I cannot remember Rich but anything that came with the headset was fitted. I must try re torquing the head before I do anything else.

 

W6cloggs,I wonder has my 4 cylinder engine got the injector sleeves you mention. Another thing to investigate. Turning out to be possibly not just as simple as a head gasket.