Caterpillar 3116 Marine Engine Problems

The 3116 had lots of early problems soft blocks head injector problems.

Caterpillar 3116 marine engine problems.

I ve rebuilt a bunch of the 3116 and 3126 engines. And get a cat survey. 3116 why we hate it. I don t know a lot about marine diesels and was looking for some input i am looking to buy a 1984 egg harbor with 2 cat 3116 ta 300 hp engines he has all documented maintenance and has said they have been well cared for my concern is they have 5000 hrs on them he says the boat was a charter and most of the hours was trolling hrs.

This is why not good for bucket trucks driven by pto. Make sure you get a complete cat history on the motors. Cat do not like to be idle. Caterpillar upgraded the oil cooler gaskets because they all leak.

They also changed the high pressure oil line design a few times also leaked. When you have hundreds of thousands engines on market you always will find hundreds of people who complain about. If the engine is equipped with a freon compressor air conditioner the belt for the fan drive the alternator and the accessories will have an automatic belt tensioner. You can help the adept ape channel for free.

Any cat 3116 3126 or c7 are good engines. One still running with 650 hours will probably last awhile longer. It is extremely hard to time the fuel system and like the vw on the automotive side working on the cat 3116 requires special tooling you can only buy from caterpillar. Make sure you use anti seize on all bolts especially the front cover.

Adjustment alternator belt illustration 16 g00285332 1 adjusting bolt. It was a good engine. Most of problems are due to misuse or poor maintenance.