Cat 6.6L, high copper

[sdan27]

This is an analysis from a Cat 6.6L engine that powers our Mac Don self-propelled windrower. We bought the machine new and Cat had a recall on it to replace the high pressure fuel pump. It worked fine before they did the recall but after that it would sometimes have a no start so you'd have to turn the key off, wait a few seconds and then try again and it would start with a large puff of smoke. We got a Cat tech to come back out and found the pump they put in was bad so they replaced it again and it has been good since then. We changed the oil at the same time because it probably had a lot of fuel in it. I installed an LF777 bypass filter and took this sample without changing the oil. The sump holds about 4 gallons and am using Service Pro 15w-40.

Hours 585
Oil hrs 340
Iron 32
Chrm 1
Copp 107
Sili 9
Sod 2
Pot 1
Moly 8
Boro 4
Magn 751
Calc 1229
Phos 1007
Zinc 1201

Fuel Soot .4%
H2O Visc 13.8
TBN 7.18
Oxid 11
Nitr 8

With the high copper numbers I'm definately going to change the oil before we start using it again next spring. The analysts figured it was probably copper leaching from the oil cooler. They said I shouldn't have to worry about it until I possibly begin seeing coolant in the oil. I've seen on several other UOAs on this site that copper leaching seems to be an issue with Cat engines in particular. Given the issues we've had with recalls and that we've only used this piece of equipment for two seasons and with fewer than 600 hours on the engine I'm a little disappointed with how things are going with it so far.

 

[sdan27]

I did a sample another piece of equipment after this one with a Cat C9 in it and my Copper was over 200 ppm on that one which seemed kinda crazy to me. I had taken a previous sample on the C9 last spring, 300 engine hours earlier and the Copper count was only 1 ppm. Both samples I took with the same vacuum pump that I got years ago from Blackstone so I took the pump apart and the inside of the tube looks to be copper colored so I wonder if somehow the high count could have been coming from there. I ordered another pump through Polaris Labs and it has a plastic outer tube. I spoke with one of the analysts there and they were not concerned with the high copper count and said I should not be worried to continue to run the oil in both.

 

[yucca]

Cooler core leaching. If your companion elements are within normal spec I would not worry.

Pretty normal with Cat engines.

 

[dnewton3]

The high Cu in itself is only cause to continue cautious observation, not take action at this point.

Interesting that the cause of the two readings may have been the sample equipment; not impossible, but odd.

Other than that, the UOA for this equipment looks decent. The other wear metals are fine, the Vis is good, the soot is low, etc. Good to go at this point. Just monitor the Cu and see what happens. Perhaps the new sample pump will aleviate the issue.