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IH 4700 air tank has oil


rpsinc

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I have a 2001 4700 DT530 that I bought a year or so ago. I havent used it much and while preparing for a trip today, I decided to drain the air tank to see how much water it had. WELL, quite a bit of water drained but what was pretty unsettling was also quite a bit of oil too.

 

Any body else have this happen and where did the oil in the tank come from? Just trying to get an idea where to start looking.

 

Any way engine oil can make its way to the air system?

 

Thanks in advance for the help

 

Marcel

Marcel

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Drain the tank well, park on a bit of a slope if your drain valve is at the front or rear to get the tank really empty. Once empty start draining it once a week and see how much water and oil you are getting over that time period. If it is an ounce of oil and you have driven less than 1000 miles I'd say there is an issue. I'm sure there is an "official" test somewhere but my method should be good enough to start with.

 

If there is a lot of oil you'll want to take the truck to the dealer for a look at the compressor, it is usually on the front driver's side of the engine and is lubed with engine oil as was mentioned above.

 

Personally I always drained my air tank when I was through driving for the day, kept the water and oil amounts being vented small and made sure that I didn't wake up to a frozen tank during the winter. It only takes a few seconds to drain the tank, just until it stops spitting - no need to fully empty it, so doing it often is a good idea. If you don't have a pull handle on your tank you can usually add one easily or I believe there is an optional electric drain valve you can get that is even easier to operate.

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A possible cause for oil in the air tank could be due to worn rings on your air pump piston. Does it take a long time to build air pressure in the tank? You could disconnect the pump air exhaust line, install a pressure gage, roll the piston to TDC and see how quickly it looses pressure back through the rings (drawdown).

Greg

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It doesnt seem to me like it takes long to build pressure(less than 5 minutes from 0-120), but it is my first experience with this. Although, it does lose air completely in 1 day. Not sure if that is typical, but that is the condition I have. I like the pressure gage idea, although I have one on the dash.

Marcel

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Yes, losing air pressure in a day is normal. The gage on your dash tells you the pressure in the air tank. The main cause for getting oil in the air tank would be through the air pump itself. You should have a oil line feeding engine oil to the bottom crank case of the air pump. The air pump piston could be worn allowing oil to pass past the piston into the air tank. One way to check this is similar to doing a compression check on a motor. I will say I haven't done this to a air pump, but it seems like you could remove the air pressure line and install a temporary pressure gage. You would then roll the piston to the top and your gage should read 120+ psi, then time how fast the pressure drops off which would determine if your pump piston is worn.

You could remove the pump and take it to a diesel garage to have it tested. Removing the pump is not much harder than removing a alternator on a motor.

Just throwing out some suggestions here.

Greg

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