D17 governor issue?

[JP D17]

Hello Allis forum. I’m hoping for some insight from you knowledgeable/experienced peeps.
I was mowing a few days ago with my D17 when the engine suddenly began to “over rev”. Not just a little, but waaaayy high rpm. I immediately got the engine throttle lever to the idle position, and the engine did go to idle. After that, if I were to move the throttle lever slightly above the idle position, it would want to rev very high.
I checked all throttle linkages & rods … all appears normal/correct. There are no associated external springs (rigging-wise) on linkages or carburetor, and I’m not remembering if there may have been any spring(s) previously.
My buddy’s 80 yr old father (retired farmer) said it might be the governor coming apart and to check the oil for fragments. Regarding possible internal governor failure, I did drain the engine oil & checked it for metal bits by utilizing a magnet = yielded no metal fragments.
Any thoughts on the next likely step to investigate.
Thanks for sharing your insight.

 

[Farmalldude45]

Hello Allis forum. I’m hoping for some insight from you knowledgeable/experienced peeps.
I was mowing a few days ago with my D17 when the engine suddenly began to “over rev”. Not just a little, but waaaayy high rpm. I immediately got the engine throttle lever to the idle position, and the engine did go to idle. After that, if I were to move the throttle lever slightly above the idle position, it would want to rev very high.
I checked all throttle linkages & rods … all appears normal/correct. There are no associated external springs (rigging-wise) on linkages or carburetor, and I’m not remembering if there may have been any spring(s) previously.
My buddy’s 80 yr old father (retired farmer) said it might be the governor coming apart and to check the oil for fragments. Regarding possible internal governor failure, I did drain the engine oil & checked it for metal bits by utilizing a magnet = yielded no metal fragments.
Any thoughts on the next likely step to investigate.
Thanks for sharing your insight.

As another 80 yr old father, I agree. Governor failure. Not certain there is a path for pieces to get into oil pan, but likely. Good luck.

 

[funky_g00]

I agree governor failure. You should be able to remove the governor or a governor cover pretty easily on that engine and see if you have two weights and springs on the shaft. Don't run it until you rule the governor out, loose weights will destroy timing gears and they are not cheap.

 

[DrAllis]

Governor weights were worn out at the pivot pins. When this happens they can fly apart. Remove governor/distributor to verify. Mark exactly where the distributor rotor is pointing to before you remove the distributor. If you are lucky, the camshaft gear may escape damage. Most of the time the timing gears do get damaged. This requires the front of the engine to be disassembled to replace timing gears.

 

[JP D17]

Thanks for the insight. This weekend the weather is going to be decent, so I will crack it open to see what “Easter eggs” are within. Thank you much. (Oh, and I will report back ).

 

[JP D17]

So I opened it up, and you were correct — the governor had shed both of the weights. I found only the one weight when I removed the front cover from the governor, noticed a couple corners of the cam gear chipped off, and the governor + ignition gears in perfect shape.
I ordered new weights, pins, and clips, as well as gaskets for the oil pan and engine front plate cover. My next steps are to drop the oil pan as well as remove the engine’s front plate in hopes of finding the other weight, the pin clips, and other metal bits (gear tooth corners, etc). I borrowed a borescope to see what I can see as far as other damages etc since it will be opened up some. I figure my level of success hunting down the metal bits will largely determine if I will take it down for overhaul or not.

 

[JP D17]

Governor weights were worn out at the pivot pins. When this happens they can fly apart. Remove governor/distributor to verify. Mark exactly where the distributor rotor is pointing to before you remove the distributor. If you are lucky, the camshaft gear may escape damage. Most of the time the timing gears do get damaged. This requires the front of the engine to be disassembled to replace timing gears.

So I opened it up, and you were correct — the governor had shed both of the weights. I found only the one weight when I removed the front cover from the governor, noticed a couple corners of the cam gear chipped off, and the governor + ignition gears in perfect shape.
I ordered new weights, pins, and clips, as well as gaskets for the oil pan and engine front plate cover. My next steps are to drop the oil pan as well as remove the engine’s front plate in hopes of finding the other weight, the pin clips, and other metal bits (gear tooth corners, etc). I borrowed a borescope to see what I can see as far as other damages etc since it will be opened up some. I figure my level of success hunting down the metal bits will largely determine if I will take it down for overhaul or not.

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[4wdtom]

So I opened it up, and you were correct — the governor had shed both of the weights. I found only the one weight when I removed the front cover from the governor, noticed a couple corners of the cam gear chipped off, and the governor + ignition gears in perfect shape.
I ordered new weights, pins, and clips, as well as gaskets for the oil pan and engine front plate cover. My next steps are to drop the oil pan as well as remove the engine’s front plate in hopes of finding the other weight, the pin clips, and other metal bits (gear tooth corners, etc). I borrowed a borescope to see what I can see as far as other damages etc since it will be opened up some. I figure my level of success hunting down the metal bits will largely determine if I will take it down for overhaul or not.

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Unless they updated the "17" engine fron WC, WD and 45 with dowel pins you need to center the front cover on the crankshaft when you install it. There is play in the bolt holes so the cover can be moved up and down, left and right to center the seal on the crankshaft.

 

[JP D17]

Unless they updated the "17" engine fron WC, WD and 45 with dowel pins you need to center the front cover on the crankshaft when you install it. There is play in the bolt holes so the cover can be moved up and down, left and right to center the seal on the crankshaft.

Good info to have … I had not heard that before (that could have led to a bit of a head scratcher! Lol!! Thanks much

 

[Brian G. NY]

So I opened it up, and you were correct — the governor had shed both of the weights. I found only the one weight when I removed the front cover from the governor, noticed a couple corners of the cam gear chipped off, and the governor + ignition gears in perfect shape.
I ordered new weights, pins, and clips, as well as gaskets for the oil pan and engine front plate cover. My next steps are to drop the oil pan as well as remove the engine’s front plate in hopes of finding the other weight, the pin clips, and other metal bits (gear tooth corners, etc). I borrowed a borescope to see what I can see as far as other damages etc since it will be opened up some. I figure my level of success hunting down the metal bits will largely determine if I will take it down for overhaul or not.

This happened to my D-17 a few years ago. Luckily no damage to any gears. I just happened to have a set of NOS weights and pins I kept on hand for my WD-45. Same exact parts. After tearing it apart, I found the governor thrust bearing and all the bearings in the PS pump were bad but I was able to find replacements on ebay for all of them at a very reasonable cost. I saw that removing the oil pan is not nearly as easy as you would think so I used a bore scope and a few "extractors" including some that are one-off tools I made specifically for the task to "fish out the "shrapnel" piece by piece. The weights are non-magnetic which added to the challenge.
I am especially proud of the one I made from a piece of brake line and a steel guitar string. It worked really slick!
I got all the pieces except one of the little clips which did turn up the next time I changed the oil.

 

[4wdtom]

This happened to my D-17 a few years ago. Luckily no damage to any gears. I just happened to have a set of NOS weights and pins I kept on hand for my WD-45. Same exact parts. After tearing it apart, I found the governor thrust bearing and all the bearings in the PS pump were bad but I was able to find replacements on ebay for all of them at a very reasonable cost. I saw that removing the oil pan is not nearly as easy as you would think so I used a bore scope and a few "extractors" including some that are one-off tools I made specifically for the task to "fish out the "shrapnel" piece by piece. The weights are non-magnetic which added to the challenge.
I am especially proud of the one I made from a piece of brake line and a steel guitar string. It worked really slick!
I got all the pieces except one of the little clips which did turn up the next time I changed the oil.

View attachment 133846View attachment 133847View attachment 133850View attachment 133851

How easy is it to pull the engine on a 17? I am more familiar with the WDs. Maybe worth it for pan removal/cleaning and front cover assembly? I know it is always a lot easier to do the pans with the engine upside down on an engine stand. And being able to easy see the front cover too.

 

[JP D17]

Brian, your experience finding the “shrapnel” is encouraging, and I’m a fan of the innovative one-of tools. It’ll be another 10-12 days before I can get the in-depth search going inside my engine. I’ll report back

 

[JP D17]

I got a good number of bits & pieces out. Rigged a small set of various flexible tubing to make a vacuum (like during the dentist visit) and removed a good number of smalls. The pic with the piece circled in red is the last one, but it is wedged/jammed/worn into its current position and can’t get it to budge.

From what I can tell via the borescope after getting things cleaned up inside, the governor, cam, and main crank gears all look pretty decent (all things considered). Next step is to try and get that last remaining stuck piece to come loose … gonna pull the spark plugs and see if I can rotate the engine backwards just a bit and maybe that piece will get loosened up, otherwise I will have to pull the radiator etc off to access / pull the fwd engine cover to better clean around the gear & truly assess the damage.

**the deeper I get into this project, the more I’m becoming a believer in adopting a governor weight replacement plan to avoid this event again.

 

[Brian G. NY]

I guess yours is a little more "shrapnelized" than mine was!
Looks like you've done a good job so far.

 

[DrAllis]

Back in the day, when these tractors were still used a lot, I usually would include governor weight/pins/clips replacement as part of a really good tune-up. I always felt at the 2000 hr mark they should be replaced (preventative) and then at the 4000 hr mark when the engine was overhauled. Timing gear teeth condition is critical. When the gear teeth are worn badly (or damaged) the governor weights get rattled all the time as they spin. This promotes soon failure from the shaking.

 

[JP D17]

Update: The good, the bad, and the ugly!
A couple days ago, I disassembled the front end, pulled the timing cover off and retrieved the last known remaining chunk of weight (pic), and was pleased to not find more “shrapnel” (I attribute this to having utilized a homemade tiny hose to vacuum inside the housing during initial attempt to remove debris). The LACK OF SHRAPNEL then caused me to become more suspicious, and feeling a bit of dread as I knew that I hadn’t recovered all the weight pieces and noting the gear wear on the pieces that were recovered. I dropped the oil pan, and yep, more small shrapnel bits as well an alarming bit of “glitter” (likely from weights being worn by the gears) (sorry, no pic as hands were quite oily).
The GOOD: other than a couple back-side corners being knocked off of the timing gear teeth, all three gears look surprisingly intact & functional.
The BAD: additional shrapnel bits + “glitter” or micro-contaminants in the oil pan means these bits migrated over the fwd lip of the oil pan and contaminated the engine’s oil reservoir; micro-contaminants likely circulated through the oil galleys & bearings.
The UGLY: prudence says engine tear down & rebuild (darn you Prudence!)

From what I could see, the cam looks like new = no visible wear or hot areas. I’m going to open the oil filter and see what’s in there, remove rocker box and see if any micros in there. If nothing remarkable, I’ll give everything a good cleaning and button it up … otherwise Prudence will be tasking me with a much bigger project.

 

[DrAllis]

Peel back the baffle carefully on the floating oil pickup screen. Clean the screen and reassemble. The engine didn't run long enough to swallow a ton of crap and the screen stopped it anyway. Dress ANY gear teeth that have damage. Those 3 timing gears must operate smoooothly or they shake the crap out of the governor weights and they explode again !!!! Set the camshaft thrust bolt to gently tight and back off 1/6 (a flat) turn and lock the jam nut.

 

[DrAllis]

Place your oil pan end gaskets around a can (correct diameter to fully close them end to end) and clamp them to the can with a piston ring compressor. Get started on this and in a few days they will take the proper shape.

 

[JP D17]

Has anyone else opened up an AGCO 70240912 oil filter? During this journey through my governor “event”, I open the oil filter to see if any metal particulates were captured there and was surprised by what I found; I was expecting more traditional accordion-style filtering media -vs- what the media was in the AGCO. This was the first time I has pulled the filter since getting the tractor, and first clue that something was a bit unique was the vertical oil tube attached to the oil filter bracket (for years I changed oil/filter on my Dad’s later model D17 which uses a “modern” style mount/filter). Anyway, I understand how the “woolly) media filters the oil, but referencing the pic, I’m curious as what the seed/chaff looking material is that is combined with “woolly” media, and curious as to its purpose. A question to the Allis community is which filter media works better: the woolly-media style or a modern accordion-media style? If opinions favor the more modern filter, then a follow on question is: is there an available mount for the modern filter element?

Oh btw, yes there were particulates in the filter media … and in the cylinder head … so we are doing total disassembly. :-(

 

[DrAllis]

You have gotten into an area that many don't understand. Your "bypass" style oiling system came from the 1934 WC and carried on to the WD, WD45 and early D-17's, which yours apparently is. In about 1960 the D-17 engine got a "full-flow" oiling system that used a Fram PH-8A style filter. ALL the oil goes thru it all the time. A much better system for keeping the engine cleaner inside. You cannot just hang a full-flow filter on your engine. The oil pump is different. The block is drilled differently to direct the oil in a different path. I have converted many older engines to the new full-flow system, but it's a process and best done with a bare block to drill and tap the holes. As I said earlier, your oil pump screen should have stopped anything from going farther upstream.