Volvo EC15B mini - engine removal & injection pump overhaul - plus ......

[jackpreacher]

Cylinder Head and rocker assembly rebuild

lay in the cylinder head bolts.jpg
Lay the cylinder head bolts in position and twist them in by hand to ensure there is no cross threading. It is recommended that you replace cylinder head bolts. There are 2 sizes for the L3E engine and I bought a couple of each as spares. They have to be torqued up gradually in a specific order which is in the workshop manual. PM me if you need this information.

NEVER EVER over tighten these bolts as they become tighter as the engine is heated up to operating temperature and could easily break

I used my old bolts because Ebenezer Scrooge is a close family member........

Re-insert cleaned glow plugs.jpg
The glow plugs could be replaced at this stage but mine were working fine on the bench test so I just cleaned them up and reused them.


re-insert the pushrods in the same sleeve they came from originally.jpg
Reinsert the pushrods in the same sleeve as they came from. Check them at each end for burring and roll them on a flat surface to test for straightness - as if you were testing out drum sticks .......[what??]


reinstall the rocker arm.jpg
Lay the rocker arm assembly in position and ensure the pushrods are snugly fitted underneath the rockers.


insert the 3 rocker arm bolts.jpg
There are 2 bolts on either end of the rocker assembly that have extended studs to receive the rocker cover bolts [next photo]. The middle one is a regular bolt.

torque up the rocker arm bolts.jpg
Torque up the rocker assembly bolts to spec.

refit rocker cover.jpg
Refit or replace the rocker cover gasket. This is your chance to paint it fluorescent green.....

rocker cover fixing nuts.jpg
There are two nuts for the rocker cover.
Job's a memory.

[jackpreacher]

Water Pump & Thermostat testing

Earlier in this thread Muz & I discussed the overheating of the engine - I was concerned that the L3E was putting out too much heat and Muz made a few suggestions which, if you have an EC15 you should take seriously - he has six EC15's and the knuckles to go with them.

So, The next photo series describes how I thoroughly tested the thermostat to ensure it was opening at the correct temperature. The thermostat is designed to stay closed and circulate the coolant around the engine until operating temperature is reached, then it opens to allow some hot coolant to go to the cab heating circuit. The electronic part of the over-temperature controls are something that I'll test once Doug is working fully.[SPOILER: ..he is........]

Thermostat Housing in a vice.jpg
The thermostat housing in a vice. Remove the 2 bolts and prise the cover off to reveal.....

Prise off the cover to reveal the thermostat.jpg
...the thermostat. It'll probably have some light scaling [brown gunk] that needs to be cleaned off, so prise it out and clean it up or replace.


Remove thermostat then unscrew the over-temperature sensor.jpg
Unbolt the over-temperarture sensor. This is the one Muz pointed me towards earlier in this thread and I had short circuited it in-situ to see if the electronic 'brain' under the seat was working.


The over-temperature sensor.jpg
Remove and clean the sensor. I replaced the washer/seal and refitted with some PTFE tape.


Place the thermostat in a bowl.jpg
To check the functionality of the thermostat check it is closed at room temperature [it is in this photo - note the position of the spring]. Chuck it in a bowl and pour boiling water on it......

pour on boiling water.jpg
....use a thermometer - in this case a meat thermometer - to see if it starts to open [spring compresses] at approximately 90C to 95C. It may vary slightly.....

checking the temperature with probe.jpg

Thermostat opening.jpg



Waste of time testing the overtemp sensor.jpg
I wasted 15 minutes of life by testing the over-temp sensor with boiling water and a meter. This should go closed circuit at 105C...IIRC



Water pump & thermostat parts.jpg
Here are all the components of the water pump and thermostat assemblies. They are connected together by a small pipe with O-ring and bolted to the front of the engine.

Check the water pumjp bearings.jpg
It is worth checking the bearings of the Water pump for integrity. If in doubt spend the money on a replacement. Mine was fine.

Bolt water pump and thermostat onto the engine.jpg
There is a new gasket required for both the water pump and the thermostat housing.

Job done.

[jackpreacher]

Air inlet manifold, Oil Sump, engine mounting brackets, starter motor

Torque up the bottom pulley.jpg
Torque up the bottom pulley


Install air inlet manifold and gasket.jpg
Refit the air inlet manifold and gasket.


fitting.jpg
Refit the Fat Air Pipe mounting flange [for want of the proper name for it] and gasket.


Bolt on the throtte holder.jpg
The Governor-to-IP cover needs to be reassembled with both the throttle stay bracket and......

bolt the dipstick holder onto the governor cover.jpg
....the dipstick stay bracket at the same time.


install the oil filter.jpg
Refit/Replace the oil filter. Note the RHS engine mounting bracket has been bolted on. I had put the LHS side on at the same time but had to remove it because.....

screw in the oil pick-up tube.jpg
.....the oil pick-up tube has to be screwed in and locked. The LHS mounting bracket gets in the way of this

Place new gasket on oil sump.jpg
Position a new oil sump gasket on your very clean oil sump. I'll risk stating the bleedin' obvious - if the sump is nice and clean then you'll easily spot a sump leak.

refit oil sump.jpg
Refit the sump.


refit LHS engine mounting bracket.jpg
NOW you can refit the LHS engine mounting bracket.

refit the starter motor.jpg
Refit the starter motor and torque to spec.

Nearly there.

[jackpreacher]

Engine tray, exhaust, fan belt, alternator

Thoroughly Clean the engine tray!.jpg
Clean the engine tray thoroughly..........ha ha ha ha ha..ho ho ho ho...


Lay the tray on wooden blocks under the engine.jpg
Line the tray up under the engine, then slowly drop the engine down where it'll rest on its sump - which is a BAD, BAD thing, so quickly raise the engine up......

Lay the tray on wooden blocks under the engine 2.jpg
....and place some suitably sized wooden blocks under the tray to raise it at least 5 inches above the table.

install the exhaust at the same time as the 4 tray mounting bolts.jpg
Now you can lower it safely without the sump hitting the table. Unfortunately I didn't record the exhaust being re-attached but it is done at this stage BEFORE the mounting bolts are placed in their relevant holes, in fact this photo shows the location where the exhaust mounting bracket goes in between the tray and the engine mounting bracket. Apologies.


Fuel pipe #3 first.jpg
Once the tray was secured by the four mounting bolts I installed the fuel pipes. It's easiest to access the connecting nuts by doing pipe #3 first.


breather hose.jpg
Fit the breather tube...note the blue glove wrapped over the air inlet to stop ingress of, well, anything really....However, if you're Australian you can probably stretch the carcass of a Koala over the aperture.........then go for a beer.....


bonnet catch on.jpg
There are two bolts that secure the Counterweight/Bonnet quick release mounting to the engine tray. These can be adjusted for horizontal movement later on when the bonnet has to catch the latch.

bolt on fan assembly.jpg
Attach the fan assembly and take this opportunity to replace the fan belt.

install the alternator.jpg
Attach the alternator. The bracket spacer on my L3E is at the back end of the alternator. Check the belt runs 'true' in the vertical plane when located in the three pulleys.

use a lever to attain corect fan belt tension.jpg
Tension the fan belt by moving the alternator with a lever - be careful not lever against anything breakable.....I can't remember what's behind the screwdriver now but at the time I remember thinking that I had to be careful.......

secure alternator top bolt.jpg
...and lock the alternator in position. Don't forget to tighten the lower bolt as well.

reattach the earth strap.jpg
Re-attach the earth strap but leave the bolt on the engine block loose as the electrics from the digger engine bay will attach here.

[jackpreacher]

Radiator and Fuel Tank

blow through the radiator fins.jpg
Thoroughly clean the radiator fins. I used compressed air but a pressure washer may be more suitable?? My radiator was fairly clean and it was easily possible to see straight through the majority of the fins.


offer the radiator assembly up to the engine tray.jpg
Offer the radiator up to the engine tray. There are two threaded studs at the bottom which locate the rad in place.


attach bottom hose 1.jpg
I forgot to mention that the bottom hose should be removed from the radiator and attached to the thermostat/water pump housing first!


attach bottom hose 2.jpg
There is a hose clip that secures the hose to the engine and keeps it away from the fan belt. My hose clip was present but the bolt was missing hence there was some superficial damage to the hose - nothing catastrophic [yet] but it will need replacing soon. However, I'm aware of it now so I'll keep an eye on it every time I use Doug.

attach bottom hose 3.jpg
Attach the bottom hose to the radiator. The radiator is still 'loose' and able to be moved back and forth in it's bottom mountings.

Fan belt too close to bottom hose.jpg
The closeness of the fanbelt to the bottom hose............


attach top hose.jpg
I think I'm pointing to the superficial hose damage in this photo.....


Fully insert the radiator suspension mounts through the radiator frame.jpg
Insert the radiator mounts through the rad frame....


bolt the rad suspension supports up.jpg
...and bolt in place. The rad is now secure.



attach top hose.jpg
Don't forget to attach the top hose.


Install fan guard.jpg
Install the fan guard with two bolts


Install Fuel Tank and pipes.jpg
Install Fuel tank.........[rushing now....]



Keeping the bolts in order.jpg
How I kept the nuts and bolts in order.


TBC next week.

[ianoz]

Carefull with Pressure washers on radiators Jack , Easy to bend/damage fins .

[Muz]

Coupla things .. infact three .. first .. heads up, to more excellent detail of the rebuild Sir

Second .. your radiator looks blocked to fook
And third .. if you do have main radiator hose chaffing .. check you engine mounts ...

Because the diesel tank sits on the left side of the engine, constant fuel overwashing when refilling, rots the engine mounts.. which allows it to move more than it should be able to and so chaff a rad hose

[jackpreacher]

.. your radiator looks blocked to fook

I'll bow to your experience there Muz and clean it again on Monday - I did run the air over it and could see all the way through but there was loads of muck came out.
How do you clean the rad in-situ. or does it have to come out?

.Because the diesel tank sits on the left side of the engine, constant fuel overwashing when refilling, rots the engine mounts.. which allows it to move more than it should be able to and so chaff a rad hose

...hadn't even thought of that, in fact when it was reinstalled and running there was some new vibration noises that I could damp by pressing on the exhaust bracket/bush just by the hydraulic pump. Anyway, to clarify, the hose clip bolt was missing on the first partial strip-down months ago and I replaced it then so probably halting the hose rubbing on the fan belt [it made a neat groove]

[jackpreacher]

Carefull with Pressure washers on radiators Jack , Easy to bend/damage fins .

Agreed! see answer above

[Muz]

I'll bow to your experience there Muz and clean it again on Monday - I did run the air over it and could see all the way through but there was loads of muck came out.
How do you clean the rad in-situ. or does it have to come out?

Air wont shift all the crap .. its high pressure water you need .. but as Ian says to much, too close, will damage the fins, so either back off with the lance in distance, or turn the pressure down a bit, if your washer has that facility. Either way the trick is to leave the engine running at full bung to increase the disruption of crap in the fins ... just watch this method though .. as quite often the air intake hose on machines sits next to the rad .. and you dont want water in there although a 'small' amount of spray wont hurt

...hadn't even thought of that, in fact when it was reinstalled and running there was some new vibration noises that I could damp by pressing on the exhaust bracket/bush just by the hydraulic pump.

Dont know if all the bits were there when you stripped it, bit theres an 'L' shaped bracket to secure the tail pipe to the fly wheel housing that might be missing .. as they were a pig for vibrating off .. the tail pipe should have a raised section near the exit where a captive nut used to go, but often rattled out .. thats where the bracket went .. and if you dont have it it makes a lot of noise and ultimately lead to a pipe fracture as it needs the support that it gave

[Muz]

How do you clean the rad in-situ. or does it have to come out?

You should be able to do it in situ , just release the oil cooler forwards and you can access the rad directly almost enough, or though the vents infront of the counter weight at the side by angling your jet nozzle accordingly

A clean rad is seeing all the way though the whole thing, and unforntunately these days, as engine tolerances and dynamics become tighter, the efficiency of the supporting parts needs to be higher .. as I constantly see engineers reduce the sizes of things like radiators in order to save on production costs.

Give you an example .. my 4.8 V8 BMW has a rad about 2 foot square, but my last Hitachi EX135 13 tonner with a three litre diesel 4 cylinder had a 3 foot square Rad .. now I know it was an in situ engine.. but very much lower performance !

Bad digger design doesent pay enough design time to factors like this .. and the EC15 is a good tool .. but IMO its rad is a bit too small and does need attention

[Muz]

I lolled at that .. looking at it the other way .. the X5 wouldnt look too good with a 3 foot square rad grill on the front .. or maybe it would .. it would be more like one of those Yank enchiladas

[ianoz]

The X5 creates airflow along the road that an excavator can't .
Mate was telling me with his Gocart motors ,idea running temp,and meltdown temp are so close .Fuel mixture is critical , too lean and motor overheats .

[Muz]

The X5 creates airflow along the road that an excavator can't .
Mate was telling me with his Gocart motors ,idea running temp,and meltdown temp are so close .Fuel mixture is critical , too lean and motor overheats .

Yeah but it could be stuck in traffic all day too .. the flip side of this is that in cooler climates .. people want to jump into a car and have instant heat when they turn their engines on ... that V8 block warms my garage nicely when I park up and its still hot several hours after Ive done so

[jackpreacher]

Doug is almost fixed. I graded the drive on Friday and he was a gentleman, plus no smoke at all so he doesn't smoke out the garages - therefore I won't be going ahead with the electric conversion although there is another conversion project looming [more on a new thread].
The hydraulic relief is still set at 85Bar which is just about half of what it should be. This is where I'll need some advice - should I ramp the reliefs up to the full 170Bar or go up in stages?

BTW the radiator was choked in the photo a few replies above but it was cleaned out after that. Tomorrow I'll drop the Counterweight, release the oil cooler and use a wide pressure spray on the rad to finish off what should have been done earlier.