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is the cross part of your U-joint a ring shape or doughnut?  mine was on my oliver.  like blake and others say with that style you can collapse the driveline until the doughnut shaped cross part of the joint slips over the driveline on either side without removing the engine. however if some more modern u-joints were at sometime pressed in that were standard cross part you would not be able to collapse it enough to remove the driveline.  the driveline that Zimmerman sells complete has u-bolts that hold the joints to 1 side of the yolks so it can be disassembled and installed without removing the engine.

well my wife went to use it on our little farm and it started great like allways and idled great but she went to work it and it lost power and would barely move itself.  I went out to look at it suspecting a fuel issue.  I adjusted the 2 screws on the carberuator,  the one with a T handle on the bottom and the one higher up on the throat of the carb. I don't have much experience with these carbs. it looks like an updraft.  the adjustments made no difference unless I screwed them all the way in.  I am going to put a compression tester on it as it seemed to turn over much easier than before.   it has a water pump I looked at it and  it does.   I tried to identify the engine but the tag is missing completely.  it is a flat head.  I am about to take a long vacation from work and pending the compression test I may tear the engine down. when I ordered the gasket kit it was by chasis ser number.

I may have the info in my book but does anyone know the compression spec's off hand?   

I will look into those possible ways you mentioned blake that the oil can get into the water.

yea that was my concern as well. I have a complete gasket kit for the engine when I get time I will tear it down and see if I can find any cracks or the like. seems like if it was a bad crack it would leak back into the oil as soon as there was no oil pressure to hold it at bay. maybe not that 3406 never leaked back but it was not a crack just an o-ring.  the previous owner claims the engine was a fairly fresh rebuild and it does sound very good when it runs.  I know you can crack a block with hydraulic pressure when torqueing bolts if you have oil in the bolt hole.  a farmer down the road had that happen to his new block.  Detroit drills a relief hole into the bolts.

I noticed on my OC3 that I have a copious amount of oil in my coolant.  does anyone know of a common culprit for that?  I have not had time but I plan to flush the coolant system with cascade dish soap change the coolant and see if it continues to make oil into it. it is possible the previous owner put contaminated coolant into it.  we had a 3406 cat marine engine that was making oil into its coolant my company decided to replace the head as a tug boat cost 10-15 k a day and downtime was not optional for us to tear it down and see why.  when we swapped the head we found a little ole O-ring was bad under the head.

I am new to these thermo syphon... do they make any pressure at all when running heavy? 

I looked at my oliver over the weekend..  that bell housing is so small I am not sure I could find a engine that would fit between the frames.  hopefully I wont have to as like I said my engine does run really good.  I bought a complete gasket kit for it and I plan to tear it all the way down and overhaul it preventively. 

my best advice at this point is to try and find a parts machine what you could rebuild the engine on. of course that would be "another project" good luck hope you get something figured out for it. 

try calling Zimmerman if you haven't he may have a new cylinder head laying around.

another concern I just thought of you would want to disable the valve on the dead hole so gas couldn't get into the cylinder.  the gas would slip right past the bad piston and get into your oil.  you would essentially want the valve to stay closed.... I have not had a herc apart yet so couldn't say for sure how you would accomplish that.

we have a D9 at work has a dead hole.  the piston is intact though it just has no compression.  the only concern I would have if yours will run on 3 is if you remove piston and connecting rod may cause imbalance and take out other components. that D9 has been running on 5 for the whole 18 years I have been here. I think it would be better to put a piston in the hole as long as it wont hang up then removing it completely.  just an opinion though hard to say when out of the box like that.

wow that really sucks sorry to hear it man.  I know if my engine ever has a critical failure I plan to fully repower it with a small modern diesel,  I will have to of course fabricate all the engine mounts but the beauty of it is how it connects to the transmission by driveline.  therefore I would not have to worry about matching bell housing so long as I have a clutch type PTO. I could even use a standard PTO if I didn't mind fabricating a lever I could reach from the operator seat and dedicating 1 hand to its operation.  find them as an package on old pumps mostly in my area.  can get really good engines off light plants at auctions fairly cheap but would have to get a PTO to match the bell.  I like perkins and john deere for small reliable diesels.

fortunately for me my engine currently runs very well.

I have a compression tester I use before I buy equipment anymore.  it really don't take long to test each cylinder

just finished overhauling my final drives and front idlers.  my OC3 is back in business

oh to answer your question when you have the flywheel off if I judge the pictures right there should be a gap between the bell housing and the crank.  I would put a small pry in there and just see if it "klunks" when you exert a little force on the pry.  it probably wont as if it did you woulda heard it when you had it running but it is an easy test.  it is probably not bent either but we had the very end of a lugger crankshaft installed on a tug boat bend right at the flywheel when they hit a log.  we went through a few seals before we figured it out.

I looked at some of those pictures and that the seal matches to the flywheel is actually good as if it came to it you could replace the flywheel and have a brand new surface for your seal. 

I am new to these herc engines but every time I have ever had to replace a seal there was always something either up-stream or down-stream effecting things.  I always see a leaking seal as evidence of some other problem and start hunting..   again im new to these hercs. good luck and hopefully you get the leak to stop.

if it is leaking as bad as you say I would check your crankshaft for slop as well as end play and I would dial it to make sure the end is not bent as all of those can take a new seal out almost instantly.  then I would look at that surface where the seal rides for irregularitys or grooves.  I have had to use speedy sleeves on bad surfaces before.  tip  if you are to install a speedy sleeve use an electric pan and submerge in oil at 400 degrees for an hour before slipping it on.  btw  seal and speedy sleeve are matched set.

well I was considering buying it for 1K  but my wife misled me as to his asking price.  seems he had 1k into the tracks and he is actually asking 2600.  I bought mine in operating condition for 3k.  needless to say we will not be making a deal. since I bought mine the front idler wore out and is flopping around.  the track pins have also got very loose.  all things I checked closely before I bought it.  I think it must have been stiffened up from setting and loosened up when we put some hours on it.  I have a 100 ton press at work that I can use to service the tracks I will just have to remove the cleats in order to feed the links through.  Zimmerman has the front idlers rebuilt but I may look into rebuilding my self once I see if the idler housing is or is not damaged. 

that old feller does not realize that working on these are labor of love as you will not get your money back if you should sell it. I think he see's my interest as $ signs but to be honest I would not even consider more the 1 k after looking at it.  Zimmerman has track kit for 750 for both tracks

hi all!!  so I am considering purchasing a second OC3 that is for sale locally.  what entices me is that the old feller was in the process of a restoration in which he made it as far as completely re-pinning the tracks.  what concerns me is that is as far as he made it and it has remained dis-assembled for an unknown amount of time.  I have not yet seen it in person but my wife says it the same configuration as mine.  the old feller is asking 1000 for it simply because of the repined tracks. I don't think I could re-pin my own tracks for less.  does anyone know what a fully restored OC3 should go for on average?  I know that one could not expect to get any return off restoring one in bad shape but I just want a number to throw out as I negotiate. my other concerns are rain into the engine and freeze breaking cylinders head and block as well as rust.

congrats!!  sounds like you got a solid platform to build on.  have you checked the final drive fluid?  I just bought my OC-3 and when I was checking it out I looked for final drive leak "track marks" and found none. that was because there was no fluid in them and probably had not been for long enough to fade out all evidence of leaks. lesson learned but no matter mine is solid in many other ways, I may have negotiated more on the price had I known though. 

hand start you say?  my company shipped an old hand start tractor one time... only time I have ever met one.