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Stirfryd · 07-05-2010, 05:17

Good News: the engine quit making oil. After having the injection pump and injectors rebuilt all was well. We thought about sailing for the first time in a year and a half after the "renovation". I have run the engine for about two hours since the injection pump was rebuilt. Started her up yesterday and listened to the oil press. alarm for 30 seconds and then saw 0 on the gauge. Hummm? Shut it down. checked the connection at the sending unit. Same problem. Wasted two hours driving to the Perkins distributor in Jacksonville, bought a new sender and installed it. Fired it up. Still no oil pressure. Bought an off the shelf car oil pressure gauge that is direct pressure. It has the tube that the oil must travel through to the gauge. Still no pressure and no oil in the tube. The engine runs like it always did with no new noises. Obviously I'm not running it for long. At this point I think it's safe to say I'm not pumping oil or there is a blockage. Keep in mind the interior of the engine, lines etc. got a nice cleaning when I pumped a gallon of diesel in on top of the oil last month before the injection pump was rebuilt. Now I'm thinking maybe a clog or something got dislodged and is blocking somewhere? Looking at the oil pickup and the oil pump assembly in the parts manual it would seem unlikely that it could fail or any thing come loose. I am completely baffled. But I will at least change the oil and filter again to see if I can get any answers. Has anyone been here before?

Stirfryd

cburger · 07-05-2010, 07:17

I have been through the complete 4.108 rebuild and was married to the project off and on for three years, different motors and three different mechanics before I found one who could do what he said he could do, ( I feel your pain). Can you please explain pumping diesel on top of oil as i have never heard of this procedure? No oil could be a number of things, are you using genuine Perkins oil filters as they have a feature to hold oil in reserve in the filter and as I have been told using anything else can cause the alarms to sound upon starting?

Stirfryd · 07-05-2010, 07:29

This wasn't a procedure. Forgive the vagueness of the post. I was referencing my previous post "4-108 fuel in oil", where I was making oil volume when running the engine. It ended up being fuel in the oil due to a faulty fuel injection pump. My engine ran for a little while with thinned oil is my point, and may have disslodged some sludge or something that has blocked/clogged a line or filter? Why would I have fine oil pressure 2 days ago, and none when I restarted yesterday? Preplexed... Has anyone heard of an oil pump failure?

Maddog · 07-05-2010, 07:54

I'm guessing it could happen, sump pump failure. They are pretty robust. Replacing the pump means yanking the engine, then the pan and everything that goes with it. I would exhaust all the small simple things first.

I only speak for myself and my engine in its current state, (4-107 w/ 2200 hrs). If I had to go to the trouble of lifting the engine off the mounts, I think I would go all the way and do a complete rebuild. That's just me.

My advice is worth what you paid for it.

cburger · 07-05-2010, 08:19

Oil pumps fail all the time. When we refreshed our Perkins that was one of the firts places that was looked at. As the above poster mentioned due to the location of the pump I decided to rebuild it as GP.

Stirfryd · 07-05-2010, 13:05

I think we are down to the strainer being clogged. Definately no oil pressure at the pump outlet (pulled the supply line and cranked engine with no oil pumping out). Due to the fact that I ran diesel through the engine, and have run her for about two hours, I can't help but think that the sludge in the bottom of the oil pan is now up to the level of the strainer. I will drain the oil on Monday and fill her with some diesel, agitate, and pump her out a few times and let you know how it goes. Other than that, things aren't going to be looking so good. Anyone else have a suggestion?

Stir

markpj23 · 08-05-2010, 04:03

Have you checked for bits of bearing material (babbitt) in the oil or diesel you've removed from the crankcase? If this is what's clogging the strainer then you are looking at a rebuild for sure.

The post about the by-pass in the oil filter is a good one. Make sure that's not the culprit.

Best of luck with it!

Stirfryd · 09-05-2010, 10:52

Mark,
Unless this material is extremely difficult to detect, I don't have that problem. I didn't see anything in the oil during the last two changes but they have both been recent and the engine didn't run for long (+/- 5 hours) since both changes. I'm still brainstorming but this is a total mystery. 55 psi one day, 0 psi the next time I started it.

Chief Engineer · 09-05-2010, 10:56

If you want to be daring, take the oil pressure sender unit out.

Pull the stop cable

Put a couple oilsorbs/towels out

Have somebody crank the engine for just a couple seconds.

Observe and report back.

Stirfryd · 09-05-2010, 17:05

Hi chief engineer. Yeah, I switched senders, motored with the sender out, motored with the external oil line that goes to the oil cooler diconnected at the exit point on the block. Not a drop came out of any of these holes. This is a real bummer. Can't see why a pump would just give it up without warning. I just finished blowing compressed air through the pump outlet on the block with a rubber nozzle. I could clearly hear the air going into the crankcase. I let the motor sit overnight with 2 gallons of diesel fuel in the sump. Drained it. Filled it and tried the hail mary. Still no oil came out of the pump outlet to the oil cooler. Unless I'm reading the diagram wrong, the oil leaves the pump and goes to the cooler first, then the filter, and then back into the block where it is circulated. I think I'm down to lowering the sump and taking a look.

Minggat · 09-05-2010, 18:07

I once had this problem when I repowered from 4-107 to 4-108. I "primed' the new (remote) oil filter and started by cracking the line feeding it. It was air blocked. Once I finally got all the air out of the filter feed line I then went downstream bleeding fittings until it was resolved.

Hope that helps.

shakey doug · 09-05-2010, 19:30

The sudden loss of oil pressure in 4.99 4107 & 4108 perkins is quite common in ag circles. Remove oil fiter assembly ,remove all back ground noise ,ie radios ect, feed a length of 16g wire or similiar down oil outlet hole and listen for click when relief valve snaps back to position be patient as this can be hit or miss.
This problem can be brought on by over revving a cold engine at start up or after a oil dilution issue where extra gunk becomes dislodged jamming relief v/v open.
Good Luck, Shakey.

AmericanVagrant · 25-10-2017, 20:22

I'm resurrecting this thread because I came across it while troubleshooting my own Perkins 4-107 no oil pressure debacle, and was a bit peeved about the lack of conclusion.

The circumstances of my issue were very similar, primarily in that my system was more or less dry and then refilled, following which there was no oil pressure. Overview:

Verified in multiple locations there was no oil pressure
Verified the oil level was sufficiently high
Verified after running for about 10 seconds there was no pressure building

My issue was solved by first doing my best to prime the oil galley coming into the oil filter (the lower port, for me it goes first to the cooler). In addition to this I bypassed the cooler to further reduce restrictions.

After priming multiple times I was able to verify that there was finally some flow by disconnecting a line and recording a video while cranking the engine over. So I reconnected the line, started her up and let it run for a bit until the pressure jumped up. Once the system was primed I reconnected the oil cooler.

I spent the better part of the day troubleshooting this problem, which was very frustrating because of all the engines I've ever worked on, I have never had the oil pump fail to prime itself. I was close to pulling the engine because I thought it had to be failure with the pump itself, and getting to it without at least lifting the engine up is pretty much impossible.

I'd be curious what the OP's solution was.