DT466 From 1984 S1900 Truck To IH5088 Tractor

[ComancheStarFarms]

I have a low mileage grain truck that we just haven’t used much the last dozen years or so.  And we have a “daily driver” 5088 that needs an engine rebuild.  How logical is it to move the motor from the truck to the tractor.  I’ve not ever replaced an engine myself but do have a decent shop & a winter ahead of me.  Would a 1984 truck motor even be a close fit for a 1983 tractor?  Thanks for any insight, thoughts or suggestions.  - Jonathan 

[nepoweshiekfarmalls]

I think that there are too many differences in the truck and tractor engines to make the swap work.  Maybe someone else will confirm. 

[Pete1468]

The whole front cover and everything on it, oil pan and rear plate will have v to be changed.  Almost same labor to overhaul what you have in my opinion.

[dale560]

1 hour ago, Pete1468 said:

The whole front cover and everything on it, oil pan and rear plate will have v to be changed.  Almost same labor to overhaul what you have in my opinion.

Exactly . If you have roller cam then you have to pull head. You need to pull cam to swap front cover backing plate.

[Matt Kirsch]

Truck engines and combine engines are a very common swap into tractors. I don't know where all this perceived complexity and difficulty is coming from.

Yes, you need to take the truck parts off the truck engine, transfer the tractor parts off the tractor engine to the truck engine, then put the truck engine in the tractor. You're not touching the internals of the engine, which is at least half the job. Not much more work than putting in a remanufactured long block, the difference being stripping the truck engine down.

From my own queries here, you can go up to 1993 for engines. After that the DT466 is no longer the same block as was used on the tractor.

[606 diesel]

We swapped one of ours before and used the pump and turbo from the truck engine, the response is slower than the tractors original motor but it has 190 hp and 2890 rpm and feels a lot faster going down the road. On ours we had to change the front and rear plates the water pump, exhaust ,and intake manifold, oil filter housing, keep the truck oil pump with the truck engine, the oil cooler, the coolant filter housing, and we had to relocate our fuel filters. Overall it is cheaper than a overhaul but more time consuming though given the chance I would do the same again. I think ours was a 1990 s1900 truck it did not have a intercooler a was a single axle 5 x 2 trans.

 

[Matt Kirsch]

What's so time consuming? You don't have to go inside the engine.

[234-IA]

What happens to the engineless grain truck?  Sell it for scrap?  Seems a shame.

[Jeff-C-IL]

If the truck is in solid shape, sell the truck....use the $$$ to rebuild your tractor engine.    That way somebody else gets a nice truck to use.

[ComancheStarFarms]

Thanks for all the great responses.  I thought about giving the truck away to a young farmer & may still do so with or without the motor.  But a neighbor farmer parted out a 1983 IH truck & claims it sold for 3Xs the price he paid for it three years prior - and didn’t do any of the disassembly work.  So it may make more sense money wise to transplant the motor & part out the remainder of the truck.  From all the good responses it seems as if Matt Kirsch has a solid handle on how & what needs to be done.  Thanks to all - a very helpful thread with lots of good pros & cons! - Jonathan 

[acem]

The engine can be swapted out. A lot has to be changed but it is doable.

However a grain truck with dt466 is worth several thousand dollars. You can buy a good used dt466 from a combine and have money left over. Or you could rebuild yours.

If you want a used dt466 pm me.

Thx-Ace 

[766 Man]

5 minutes ago, acem said:

The engine can be swapted out. A lot has to be changed but it is doable.

However a grain truck with dt466 is worth several thousand dollars. You can buy a good used dt466 from a combine and have money left over. Or you could rebuild yours.

If you want a used dt466 pm me.

Thx-Ace 

  Yes, this is what I see when others have similar issues.  If like the area combine parts yard I use often the engine is sitting there ready to load for minimal additional money.  Pulling the motor from a truck seems like a lot of extra effort for not much gain.  All that aside I would just pull the engine down from the 5088 and if the cost is reasonable build it back up.  Sell the truck complete to someone who can use it.  It saves from having to store a hulk of a truck plus a tractor engine.  Neither get better with the passage of time.  

[dale560]

Pulling the cam  or getting the camshaft out laying motor on the side if you have solid lifters. The cam or gear needs to come off to change back plate

[Injpumped]

If the 5088 is just tired, you'd be better off overhauling it's 436. If it had a ventilated block or rod knocking meaning crank will be junk, the "running" engine swap may be a little easier. Like said above, there's a lot of parts to swap across. Basically you'd strip down to the log block. Then you start using the tractor after swapped, only to find it was more worn out than you though lol!

[CDN 400]

3 minutes ago, Injpumped said:

If the 5088 is just tired, you'd be better off overhauling it's 436. If it had a ventilated block or rod knocking meaning crank will be junk, the "running" engine swap may be a little easier. Like said above, there's a lot of parts to swap across. Basically you'd strip down to the log block. Then you start using the tractor after swapped, only to find it was more worn out than you though lol!

Exactly what Ed just said. I did one a year ago for a guy and time I figured up my time he should have just rebuilt the old one. You will have it stripped to the bare block with the pan off any way, all that's left is pull the head and jerk the pistons and liners out. Your truck might be low mileage but you have no idea what shape the sleeves are in as far as cavitation goes. I know some leave truck parts on which is cobbled mess that don't work correct. It's your time but I have done it and would never do it again.

[ComancheStarFarms]

Looks like the voting is about 90% to forget the idea of swapping truck motor into the tractor.  I appreciate everyone being so helpful - too bad the rest of the US didn’t grow up as farmers!  Several of you have gotten me thinking harder about my truck DT466 - - and 400 series IH motors in general.  When does the cavitation actively occur?  Is it when the motor is running or is it eating away just sitting there in the shed.  And does fresh anti-freeze replacement every year or two years prevent the cavitation?  Thank you again to all! - Jonathan 

[DWF]

I had a 73 TD15-C crawler with a DT 466 engine that I bought in 1994. It did not have the coolant filter that has additives for anti-cavitation. I never at that time knew anything about additives, so it was just ran and probably changed anti freeze once due to a leak. Ran it until 2007 when I junked the 15C, not because of the engine but the rest was shot. So I ran it 13 years without doing any more than normal oil changes.

DWF

[606 diesel]

Changing antifreeze every one or two years is one way to do it, or you can get liquid coolant additive from napa and their test strips check and add as needed, then you don't have to change antifreeze as often.

[dale560]

2 hours ago, ComancheStarFarms said:

Looks like the voting is about 90% to forget the idea of swapping truck motor into the tractor.  I appreciate everyone being so helpful - too bad the rest of the US didn’t grow up as farmers!  Several of you have gotten me thinking harder about my truck DT466 - - and 400 series IH motors in general.  When does the cavitation actively occur?  Is it when the motor is running or is it eating away just sitting there in the shed.  And does fresh anti-freeze replacement every year or two years prevent the cavitation?  Thank you again to all! - Jonathan 

Cavitation occurs in a running motor. Lots of people explain it as electrolysis. Pin holes caused by the water pinging off sleeve. In early repair manuals it was always opposite side of injector. Or the side of sleeve injector tip was angled to. The heat of injector firing and vibration caused the water on that side to react with sleeve.  Corrosion or rotting of sleeve orings usually is caused by sitting and age.  Read an article years ago on sleeve pitting. It basically was the theory that high hp fast running motors for there cubic inches were subject. The idea was fuel and heat from hp created was causing vibrations and air bubbles in the coolant. Their description of what was happening was on of the atoms or electrons in the combination that makes up water was being broken out and sent out towards the hot spot in a violent reaction that occurred. Basically having parts of the h2o molecule  firing away at the cylinder or sleeve due to a reaction of heat and vibration when they impact sleeve they erode a particle each time making a hole eventually. Wish I would have kept track of article it made a lot of sense on the subject.

[TeachersPet1066]

9 hours ago, ComancheStarFarms said:

Looks like the voting is about 90% to forget the idea of swapping truck motor into the tractor.

Next ask them what rebuild kit to buy…

17 hours ago, Matt Kirsch said:

I don't know where all this perceived complexity and difficulty is coming from.

My DT466 from a truck (roller cam with Wimer turbo, pump, injectors) runs nice and wasn’t much more time.

[Matt Kirsch]

12 hours ago, ComancheStarFarms said:

Looks like the voting is about 90% to forget the idea of swapping truck motor into the tractor.  I appreciate everyone being so helpful - too bad the rest of the US didn’t grow up as farmers!  Several of you have gotten me thinking harder about my truck DT466 - - and 400 series IH motors in general.  When does the cavitation actively occur?  Is it when the motor is running or is it eating away just sitting there in the shed.  And does fresh anti-freeze replacement every year or two years prevent the cavitation?  Thank you again to all! - Jonathan 

I don't get the sudden turn of opinion. Used to be "the thing to do." Don't bother overhauling, there are tons of old trucks and combines out there with perfectly good engines, just get one of those and slap it in... What happened to that advice? THAT used to be what 90% was saying.

Cavitation isn't a 100% guaranteed thing. You'll see folks claiming to have run nothing but bog standard coolant in their 400 series engines for decades and junking the equipment not because the engine was shot, but because the rest of the machine was beyond economical repair. For me, the original DT414 in Dad's 1066 eroded a hole in a cylinder liner because of cavitation even though the engine had the coolant additive via the filter.

Overall though, running the additive reduces your chances of damage due to cavitation, which you can get in three ways that I'm aware of: One, through the coolant "filter." Two, through an additive you pour into the radiator. Three, through "diesel coolant" which is available through NAPA and probably other sources, which has the additive already mixed in. As always I am open to correction on this.

[dale560]

I am not saying don’t change it. Just ends up being a lot of work to go from truck to ag use engine. Did more than a few full changeovers. The simplest most economical is if you found a known good combine engine or from a tractor.

[Jeff-C-IL]

I always felt that these engines are so easy to rebuild, that its always easiest/cheapest to rebuild it as long as the block & crank are good.   As others have pointed out, you have to take the truck engine all the way down to the long block anyway....it's only another hour to take off the head, pull the pistons, and knock out the sleeves.   You put in the same basic $$ & work, and know you have a "new to spec" engine when you are done.   Of course, always get the head redone, too.    

[Matt Kirsch]

You have to get the head redone, have the block stripped and line bored, cam bearings changed out, crank turned, install those new sleeves, gap all the rings, fit the pistons, new crank bearings, etc. That seems like more than just an hour to me.

[234-IA]

Thing is, in the end you know what you have if you go through the engine.   It makes a difference that ComancheStarFarms knows what they have with the truck engine-  but for something out of a salvage yard...  unless someone has the documents you *don't* know. 

When I was in their shoes a couple of years ago I considered going with a used combine engine,   a C-IH reman, or out-of-frame overhaul.  I gave up the used engine option fairly early because I figured I was going to feel like a real monkey if, two or three years down the line, the combine engine laid down on me for whatever reason.