Hey guys. My boss is wanting a bucket truck. He found one with a cat 3126 motor and Allison 3030 trans. I didn’t find very much recent info on this engine. Are they pretty reliable? It won’t be used much. Thanks for any insight guys.
CAT 3126 engine reliability
- Thread starter zakkb787
- Start date
They're huei Engines, decent not great HP most drink fuel, don't neglected oil changes, I wouldn't run one otr...
Local occasional work wouldn't have a problem
Local occasional work wouldn't have a problem
We are only getting like 5k hrs out of the fuel pumps on the 3126. Which might seem like a lot, but on non HUEI pumps we get 10k-15k. Thats with cat parts not aftermarket. So like Adam said change the oil.
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My service truck is a 3126 and over the last 3 years I have put about 150k on it and now the clock is at 280k
Still has good power for what it is. They aren’t near as strong as the 8.2L Cummins but they will achieve the same goals. My service has seen more muddy than most lifted trucks, I’m not afraid to chain up and go to the customer, tractors don’t always break down in the most convenient spots. She hasn’t been abused but she has definitely earned her ground.
With that being said the repairs that were done were
Galley plug on the head leaked not a huge fix but still a problem
Injectors at 260K
Oil cooler leak 275k
Turbo drain leak 275k
Oil filter head leak 275k
Air compressor leak 260k
Fuel filter head leak at 250k
They leak and leak and leak but if you stay on top of repairing the leaks they will last quite a few miles.
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Still has good power for what it is. They aren’t near as strong as the 8.2L Cummins but they will achieve the same goals. My service has seen more muddy than most lifted trucks, I’m not afraid to chain up and go to the customer, tractors don’t always break down in the most convenient spots. She hasn’t been abused but she has definitely earned her ground.
With that being said the repairs that were done were
Galley plug on the head leaked not a huge fix but still a problem
Injectors at 260K
Oil cooler leak 275k
Turbo drain leak 275k
Oil filter head leak 275k
Air compressor leak 260k
Fuel filter head leak at 250k
They leak and leak and leak but if you stay on top of repairing the leaks they will last quite a few miles.
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My brother had one in an FL70 dump truck. Was reliable, needed injectors at ~260k, was a turd 99% of the time so he put a TS box on it, didn't do jack :rofl: But it would randomly run like a raped ape for a day or so then go back to being a turd 
If you can't find much on it, it probably will run on just about anything especially the tick yellow oily diesel. Modern fuel is going to be hard on them b/c they were designed to use the sulfur in fuel as lubrication. Might need to dope the fuel with 2 stroke to help it live. And off road fuel is the same as OTR fuel just dyed red, so neither has sulfur left anymore.
Like others say, maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.
Like others say, maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.
Lol I don’t know of any engines that last with no maintenance... Not a power house but reliable enough. I worked on a few when I was with cat, nothing major just pumps and injectors.
had several at a ski resort I worked for that were used as standalone engines for backup drives, they had the absolute worst run cycles being fired up in temps near freezing and ran to high rpm cold and shut down cold after several minutes and held up great over the years. only had trouble with the cooling systems but only because of their environment.
