Dozer, why you overheat?

[which_chick]

Took the dozer (1972 IH 500C crawler tractor, it looks like this from the driver's seat) up the road to scrape off the 3" of frozen sleet shit we got on Monday Night. I'd been hoping it would melt but... no. And it has an inch-thick crust that supports my weight. So... road needed to be scraped off. Dozer went up fine and back fine to almost-home and then boiled over the radiator. So it's not happy. I drove it the last hundred yards to the shed and parked it. But, it was dark so I couldn't do much in the way of investigating. It was running when I shut it off, but I dunno. Not Good to overheat the machinery. And we still have winter left.

Ugh. I'm gonna peer at it this morning to see what I can see. (I am NOT A MECHANIC.) But the roads in the valley aren't done and it's a three day weekend coming up and the summer people are gonna all be up in my ass about why aren't the roads done and I'm going to be "LOOK MY MACHINERY IT IS OLD AND CREAKY" and also "WHO AMONG YOU CAN REPAIR A FORTY-SIX YEAR OLD ENGINE?" and when they go "Lo, verily we understand this truth and you are wise, but is there not a perfectly cromulent plow truck?" I will have to reply "S'trewth, there is a plow truck but alas I cannot get it to engage in the driving of four wheels, only the driving of two wheels. Also it was born in 1983 and thus has the years of thirty six." They will be displeased with these responses, I am sure.

I'm hoping it's a fan belt.

Comments

[which_chick]

The fan belt is held in tension by the alternator motor, which is alloted a slot in which it can pivot, kind of, to make there be tension.

When I checked this morning before going to work, the fan belt was sloppy loose. That's not good. The fan belt runs from the alternator to the fan and it needs to be tight enough for the fan to spin 'round. The fan NEEDS to spin round because the dozer goes, like 4 mph on a good day and does not generate enough airflow to cool its radiator by way of speed. (Cars also have a radiator fan that usually you can hear kick on if you're sitting in traffic or whatever but they mostly don't have to run it all the time. Dozers need to run the fan pretty much most of the time.)

Here's a picture. This picture is for the gasoline engine (I have the diesel engine) but it's the same picture for both of them. The alternator is the round thing kind of in the middle of the picture. The adjustment slot is visible above the alternator.



Basically, you loosen the two bolts a little (W and T, if you can read the blurry text which accompanies the picture) and then move the alternator along the slot which restricts its movement until the belt is tight enough (deflects 3/4" with 25 lbs of pressure, by which they mean "pretty tight") and then tighten up all the bolts and Robert is your mother's brother. Or something.

Assuming I have not blown up the engine by way of being a fuckwit, this should fix the cooling issue. I will, natch, check fluid levels and stuff first before I fire her up this afternoon.

[which_chick]

The fan belt adjustment was the problem. I also poured in a gallon of antifreeze and about half a gallon of water to top of the radiator. (There is a pinhole leak in the radiator which steams for the first twenty or so minutes of operation. So, there are some fluid losses every time I run the thing but usually it's not horrible.

Ran it for two hours, it seems just fine.