Fiat 50 c crawler info

[Ian.Stewart-Koster]

Thanks again for the feedback.
Mick, the original poster contacted us re getting some injectors for his 50.
I've photographed what we have here, for his information or benefit. The injectors on the 55 are a bit different...
These are from the 50L:

URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat50-injectors-3410.jpg

This is the 55L-it is 'spare parts' material, (but it is a different kettle of fish I think-though I have not seen what the 50 injector looks like when removed...(that's WD40 all over it so we can get it off a but more easily, maybe...)):

URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat55-injectors-3413.jpg

These are the injector pumps: 50L:

URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat50-injectorpump-3411.jpg

and the injector pump from the 55L:

URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat55-injectorpump-3412.jpg

Our son who owns the 50L, spent the afternoon starting to disc a small paddock here:

URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat&Sundercut-3404BEST.jpg


URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat&Sundercut-3432BEST.jpg


URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat&Sundercut-sunset-3422.jpg

We have not taken steps any further re fitting the hydraulics across-need to get ordinary work done again to pay some bills, and am kind of hoping we may learn the whereabouts of something for parts that might make the job easier!

I appreciate the feedback a lot-thanks!

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Ian.
You're most welcome to the 'feedback'. Feel free to ask anytime. Thanks for the photos. It's good to see the old girl can still get out there and earn her keep.

Geez, itza long time since I had wunna those 'disky' things follerin' me around a paddock, 1965 to be a bit more precise. If my mem'ry serves me rightly, the last time it wasn't one but two of 'em in tandem behind a WW2 vintage 2T series Cat D4. Two x 14-disk Sundercuts, one bare and one with a seeder, hooked up nose-to-tail, and the D4 handled them with ease in 3rd gear, sometimes up into 4th. Mind you, 2 x Chamberlain 18-disk plows in tandem on a bridle beam arrangement had the poor little jigger down in 2nd.

That same farm where I was pulling the 2 sundercuts with the D4 also had a Chamberlain 40KA with an 80 hp Ford diesel conversion in it. I sometimes used to use the Chamberlain-Ford to pull the tandem plows for a few hours at night when the boss wasn't seeding with it. The C-F would pull them way faster but when you came to a sandy creek bed, you had to STOP and lift both plows out of the ground so that the C-F could pull then through. With the D4. although it travelled slower, when you came to that same sandy creek bed, you simply changed down a gear, crossed over until the TRACTOR ONLY was back on firm ground, and changed right back up again. I think they call it traction.

Looking back with 45 years of hindsight behind me, I would have loved to have hooked the 2 tractors together with a short, STRONG chain. I reckon the 36 hp D4 would have dragged the 80 hp Chamberlain-Ford, bucking, scratching and bellowing across the yard, even though the C-F was on duals.

Just my 0.02.

[Ian.Stewart-Koster]

Hi again, it's a different piece of advice we're looking for now... (*puts cap in hand*)
Our son, Nick, managed to scratch up most of the paddock with the Sundercut, except for about half an acre and by then it was too dark to see, so he stopped. The next day we had 15mm rain, so there it stayed & the following afternoon it was OK to try & finish the job.

He started the crawler, and drove it for about 80 metres, when it suddenly started struggling, and then even in first gear it was gutless, and the engine started speeding up & slowing down a few times, like something being starved for fuel, and then it made some horrible rattly grinding noises that seemed to sound like they came from the back left drive gear, except it was in neutral & stationary.

He shut it off & had a look, then tried to start it again, and it made horrible noises again-as if some gear was trying to engage in a gearbox without the clutch being off and was being unsuccessful, he said. It wouldn't start after that. He stopped. It was as if something in the engine was a bit jammed.
That is odd, as he'd only honestly run it for a minute to warm up, then maybe a minute to go the 80 metres in 2nd gear, and not on high revs.
I heard this from about 100 yards away as I was stuck on a different job I couldn't leave, so I'm only going by his description.

We thought about it for a bit, and checked inside the back inspection plates-anyway that was all looking normal.
The gearbox looked normal too-except the oil was a bit stinky as gearbox oil is-must have had a little water in there once, I'd guess, perhaps, too.

This evening, we had a go at trying to start it again, and it would turn over, and white diesel smoke came out of the exhaust, but it wouldn't fire up this time.
It wasn't 'grindy' noisy, but was 'scrapy' noisy he said-though it's hard to identify noises inside all the noise from the pilot motor...

Our questions are-what is the worst it could possibly be, based on that crude non expert explanation-does anyone have any idea?
We were told the original owners had 'done the engine up', and also the final drives, 25 years ago then ceased to use it after getting it all fixed.
I'm wondering if maybe something wasn't tightened properly & has maybe come adrift internally...
I'm hoping it's not the big bearings on the crankshaft, or broken rings...

The oil was OK. We'd run it & drained the old filthy gunk out last year when we got it. We then put an industrial 40W oil in to run it for a bit to help clean & flush the innards. That's what's still in it. It's a browny colour, not black, right now, but we've just drained it out, in preparation for taking the sump off to have a look from underneath- except that the springs are in the way, so I guess we'll have to jack the radiator end up & remove the springs, before getting access to the whole sump...

It's not quite the kind of father/son Easter project I was planning as I'm not mechanically minded unless it is something easy, like changing oil or gaskets.

Any ideas, hints or advice would be gratefully appreciated, thanks!
Ian

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Ian Stewart-Koster.
You have me at a loss here, M8. I suspect that you may be on the right track in removing the sump. Not because that is where the problem is but possibly because you may need to remove the pistons.

I can't help the feeling that the blue smoke coming from the exhuast in one of those photos above of your son plowing might be a clue.

Just a hint for future reference - you can make a 'stethoscope' of sorts by placing the 'sharp' end of a long screwdriver on various parts of an engine or transmission and placing the other - handle - end against an ear. You can use this trick to get a better 'fix' on just where a noise might be coming from. I once did this on an International TD25C to locate a bent pushrod after the fitter had pulled, dismantled and checked both the torque converter AND the transmission looking for the noise. Funny thing: it's a lot easier to pull the rocker covers and rockers to extract a bent push rod and straighten it than it is to remove the torque converter or transmission, strip it, check it and replace it.

You can also do the 'stethoscope' trick with a piece of plastic hose around 1/4" to 3/8" I.D. with a piece of steel rod inserted fairly tightly in one end. This has the added advantage of being somewhat more flexible than a screwdriver.

Also, as a 'last resort', you can use a real, gen-yoo-wine plug-both-ends-into-your-ears stethoscope, either the medical or the mechanical variety. I think the mechanic's version is better for mechanical work 'cos the steel rod pickup can be a little more site-specific than the cup on the end of a medical stethoscope and gives better reach too.

Let us know how your 'Easter Project' goes, please. Photos would be a help if possible so that others, me included, might learn from it.

P.S. You don't need to put your cap in your hand on here unless you have been a big mouth about something and had it blow up in your face. We're pretty much all here for one of two reasons, to help or to learn, and some of us are here for both reasons.

[Ian.Stewart-Koster]

Thanks Deas,
actually, we do have a 'proper' mechanic's stethoscope with a couple of feet of plastic tube between the probe & the Y- inherited from my father-in-law only a couple of months ago along with a nice old Nuttal lathe & a biggish 3-phase drill press. It's just that using the stethoscope didn't occur to any of us in the haste to stop the engine before something more expensive might have happened.

We've just gone & shifted our gantry to be over the top of the crawler, which is a more useful place for it than where it has sat for the past few years. Nick is just trying to figure out where to start re the sump-it looks like the front springs & all that associated stuff has to come off first, so a tree stump will have to go under the front of the block or radiator first, to prevent the engine being affected by gravity & turning into a large potato masher, I think.

You might be right re the blue/white exhaust, also. I hadn't thought of that before.

Thanks for the rest of the options re stethoscopes. They can still be useful!
I'll get some more photos when we get to see something helpful or photogenic. Perhaps someone else in the future can benefit from this dialogue & pictures, one day, too.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Ian.
I am not familiar with the Fiat equaliser spring arrangement but I have been told by an italian fitter that they were not a whole lot different from the Cat D4's of the time. If that is the case, jacking the front up a bit and arranging something SUBSTANTIAL to take the weight and leave you clearance above the spring ought to just about allow you to slide the spring out one side or the other.

Personally, I would recommend making a saw-horse style arrangement with legs that stand JUST inside the front of the tracks to allow you plenty of room to slide in and out under the front of the engine in case you have to do a bit of that. I made one out of 6"x3" RSJ with BIG feet under it for a Cat D9G back in 1971 - worked like a dream. A billet of tree trunk under the front engine mounts will do the job but can be a trifle restrictive if you need to get in and out under the machine a few times or work under there a bit. The saw horse arrangement is a LOT easier. If you make it for the LOWEST tractor front end that you have, you can always block up from there, which makes it multi-purpose - - - - - even if you NEVER - hopefully - need it again.

If you can arrange to get the tractor up on a couple of sleepers or similar, one length-wise under each track, before you start, it will likely make any under-tractor work a bit easier and less unpleasant. It is amazing the difference that 5" or 6" of extra clearance can make in these situations. Then a thin sheet of ply might be a touch of 'luxury'.

'Course, getting it over a mechanic's pit is the ideal but do you have wunna them in your 'toolbox'?

Hope this helps

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Ian.
Just wondering how the 'Easter project' went, or even if it went.

[Ian.Stewart-Koster]

Hi Deas,
thanks for the interest!
It took Nick a while to get it jacked up, supported, and then get the front springs off & the sump off.
We/he ended up using some stumps, and some railway line to bridge across the stumps, so we could still wiggle under the radiator to get in underneath. We jacked the back end up & got a bit of a railway sleeper under the tracks there, but not at the front.

Here is a photo of some of the bits of metal we found in the bottom of the sump.

URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat50-L-enginebits-4139.jpg


URL of the original image: http://www.aussieheavyhorses.com/ASSETS/Fiat-50L-55L-crawler/Fiat50-L-enginebits-4141.jpg

One part only, looks to me like maybe a part of a ring, though it's small, it is thicker than the rest.
The rest are really thin & flat, and maybe 2.5mm wide. I have no idea what they could have come from.

We had a bit of an idea that maybe the oil we put in to run it for as while to flush out old gunk & grime may have allowed some carbon to dislodge & jam a piston or gunk its rings up somehow-hence putting it under load the way it was before he stopped...

You can put a bit of pipe in on the harmonic balancer and rotate it, with a stillson, by hand, without onerous effort. It turns steadily as the compression goes on, then it eases.

So far I don't have any conclusions. Putting a torch up into the cylinders from undernewath & looking as you turn the engine over did not bring to light anything that I could see that would cause alarm. But I am no mechanic at all.

I'm wondering if we need to get the head off to get the pistons out to look at the bores & rings better...

Someone has had the sump off not long ago-there was a bit of a modernish cormflakes packet being used as the sump gasket, and piston & conrod #3 looked quite new- shiny-ish and light grey, compared with the goldy-brown look of the other three.

The bloke we bought the Fiat from was no help, and has not responded to my queries about how I can contact the people he got it from, depsite me asking him politely about five times in as many months.

There were a coulpe of bits that resembled those bits, which broke up if you put a screwdriver on them-so they must have been carbon, I guess.
I'm wondering if maybe the oil pump gave up pumping for a bit...but really have no idea at the moment.

[Deas Plant]

Hi, Ian.
You've got me, M8. All of those 'spare parts' in your photos look to be of a far greater radius that I would have expected to find in an engine of that size. Even the piece that looks like it may have once been part of a piston ring seems to have a far bigger radius than the 4-odd inches bore I imagine your engine would be.

If you found part of a cornflakes packet being used as a sump gasket and one piston and con-rod appear quite new, I'd say you are right about someone having been in there in the fairly recent past. I hate to say it but I suspect that it may have been bodgied up to get it going for selling. BTW, the golden brown colour on the other pistons and con-rods is quite probably varnish from older oils - murder to try to remove but should be removed as much as possible when using more modern oils. Something like acetone may get it off.

I suspect that pulling the head might be a good move about now, even if only to check to see what other 'mischief' may have been perpetrated on the old girl by previous intruders into the engine. I am still scratching my head about what the wider, thinner strips might have once been.

The engine oil pump is one thing that I would be checking for sure before I tried to put it back together. That could ruin your day for a week or more if you did put it back together and a dud oil pump sabotaged all your efforts.

Have you checked the the mains and big ends for any discernible movement yet? I am not familiar with the innards of Fiat engines but it is possible that they may have had twin bearings side by side in the mains or big ends - or both.

What little I saw of the early Fiats left me with the impression that they were a fairly well made tractor and probably worthy of a little effort to get running again. I did see somewhere that a company in either Melbourne or Adelaide was making rings. pistons, bearings, etc., for many older engines but for the life of me I can't find the note now. It is just possible that somebody like OzDozer or Billy- over on the Antique Caterpillar Machinery Enthusiasts forum:

http://www.antiquecaterpillar.org/

may have some information about them. You do have to register to post or PM somebody but it's free.

Hope this helps.

[Ian.Stewart-Koster]

Thanks for the reply, Deas.

A friend suggested maybe thrust washers/bearings might have donated those broken parts-if there were any.
Nick has pulled the oil pump apart, and it all looks 'normal' - nothing abnormally shiny nor missing. No apparent valves there either- just castings/housings, the drive shaft & the two gears.

He then took the head off.
We've had a look at the cylinders, and they didn't look too bad either- but I only had a quick glance & had to get other stuff done.

There was something interesting though- NO head gasket at all! Not sure how they managed that. The pistons have a spherical 'hole' in the middle, which is I guess where the diesel gets injected into.
Sadly, two head bolts broke when the head was being undone. That's an issue with those Fiats where the head bolts go through the water jacket, and they'd rusted a bit narrower in the middle & sheared off rather easily-so the remnants now have to be removed...yuk.

Another friend suggested taking the timing cover off & checking the timing on the injector pump. Nick will probably take the radiator off first-except that the engine is propped up on the radiator at the moment. I'll upload some photos in a day or three-I'm just a bit behind in work at the moment.