John Deere 4045TFM 85 - What spare parts to keep?

[seaexplorer]

My catamaran had two John Deere 4045TFM85 M2 Diesels (2017, 1600 hours)

One day last summer in Cyprus, while slowly motoring back to the Marina after a short day sail, the starboard engine catastrophically failed without any warning.

It appears that a piston rod detached from the crankshaft and punched a big hole in the block destroying the block, crankshaft and piston.

My marina tech team disassembled the entire engine and cleaned and cling wrapped the parts.

I now have an entire engine (minus the block, crankshaft and one piston) as spare parts for my remaining diesel engine. I have replaced the broken diesel with a 50kW electric engine.

I want to know what spare parts are realistically worth keeping.

I've stored all the smaller parts, perhaps 100kg worth, in a forepeak bilge area where they are no trouble, apart from the extra weight.

But the large, heavy parts I'm not sure what to do with or whether I should keep them at all.
They are:
a) engine cylinder head
b) flywheel
c) ZF 63A transmission
d) manifold and coolant tank.

They weigh perhaps 150kg total and I don't want this weight on my boat (catamarans perform best if kept light).

I don't know enough about engines to assess the likelihood of ever needing these parts.

Any advice, suggestions or purchase offers are most welcome.

[GordMay]

FWIW:
JOHN DEERE 4045 ENGINE OPERATION & MAINTENANCE MANUAL
➥ https://dealers.doosanportablepower....I%20Zenith.pdf

REPLACEMENT PART GUIDE ➥ https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/co...ine-engine.pdf

[skipperpete]

Originally Posted by seaexplorer

My catamaran had two John Deere 4045TFM85 M2 Diesels (2017, 1600 hours)

One day last summer in Cyprus, while slowly motoring back to the Marina after a short day sail, the starboard engine catastrophically failed without any warning.

It appears that a piston rod detached from the crankshaft and punched a big hole in the block destroying the block, crankshaft and piston.

My marina tech team disassembled the entire engine and cleaned and cling wrapped the parts.

I now have an entire engine (minus the block, crankshaft and one piston) as spare parts for my remaining diesel engine. I have replaced the broken diesel with a 50kW electric engine.

I want to know what spare parts are realistically worth keeping.

I've stored all the smaller parts, perhaps 100kg worth, in a forepeak bilge area where they are no trouble, apart from the extra weight.

But the large, heavy parts I'm not sure what to do with or whether I should keep them at all.
They are:
a) engine cylinder head
b) flywheel
c) ZF 63A transmission
d) manifold and coolant tank.

They weigh perhaps 150kg total and I don't want this weight on my boat (catamarans perform best if kept light).

I don't know enough about engines to assess the likelihood of ever needing these parts.

Any advice, suggestions or purchase offers are most welcome.

Well, flywheels on marine engines never wear out so maybe knock the ring gear off it just and keep that. The ZF 63A definitely, manifold maybe and I’m undecided about the head, it could have been smacked around a bit when the conrod let go. Is it keel cooled or heat exchanger? I’d probably keep the injector pump, pipes and injectors too
Condolences on the loss of your engine, John Deere’s are usually pretty reliable, any thoughts on why it threw a rod?

[mvweebles]

I wouldn't bother with the flywheel, probably wouldn't bother with the head either. I'd keep the other manifold and tranny at home, available to ship in the unusual case I need them. I would not carry them on the boat.

[seaexplorer]

Thanks. Its heat exchanger cooled.

No one has any idea why this happened to a quite new engine. Even after taking the engine completely apart all they could tell me is that the rod had detached from the crankshaft.

The engine had always made a nasty clatter above 1750 RPM since I purchased the boat in 2022 but it had done 2500 NM and 500 hours since then. I had never run it at full power because of this.

It was doing less than 1750 RPM when this happened.

[rslifkin]

From that description I'd expect it was either a defect from day 1 and slowly got worse until it eventually came apart. Or something happened to cause internal damage prior to your ownership. The JD4045 has a generally good reputation, so if the other engine is healthy by every metric you can assess, I wouldn't expect it to be a common problem that you're likely to run into again.

Personally, I would have torn into it to find out the source of the noise rather than waiting for it to come apart.

[seaexplorer]

I think you might be correct that there was a problem from the beginning.

When I bought it I had little experience with diesel engines and was told the noise was from some vibration interaction with the hull rather than the engine itself.

In retrospect that engine also had a problem and stopped on the sea trial, allegedly because of a loose ECU cable. It was fixed and it ran fine (below 1750 rpm) after that.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Personally, I would have torn into it to find out the source of the noise rather than waiting for it to come apart.

From the OPs update that it made a nasty clatter above 1750 RPM, certainly sounds like the engine gave fair warning. I believe JD typically test runs their engines before sale. Certainly sounds like the end cap of rod bearing has some sort of initial defect or improper installation. A bit unusual unless the engine had been rebuilt for some reason.

Regardless, the manifold and the tranny are the only items I would purposefully retain (vs seek out a spare unless one fell into my lap as was the case here), and neither are likely fo be needed, but failures are not unheard of.