L175 Low oil pressure

[Tagreen820]

As its well known, the cam plug can pop out of the front of the cam causing low oil pressure. Well i assumed i had this issue and bought gaskets and removed the front gear case cover only to find that my aluminum plug was right there, nice and tight. While i was there i removed with a dremel and then tig welded the hole closed.. But why the low oil pressure. U may say bearings are shot.
Or oil pump is worn out. But nope that stuff was fine.....a small chunk of aluminum flashing from the casting had made its way to the pressure releif valve and wedged itself inbetween the ball bearing. If i had remotely thought this was possible i could of saved a hundred cash and several hours. I throughly cleaned and removed all flashing from the gear case and have great oil pressure. From 14 max to allmost 60 psi tach quit at 2300 hrs on this motor. Im really suprised i was ready for a rebuild.
Hopefully this helps someone save time,and money.

 

[DaTow'd]

One of our Kubota tractors is the same model as yours and when I bought it I saw that the oil pressure switch wire was cut. So I stripped the wire and wrapped it on the push on connector-when the engine started oil light went off and when I killed the engine and left the key on I could see that it must have OK bearings as it was a few seconds before the light came back on.
But after running the tractor for a few hours I'd see the oil light flicker. So I installed a 0-80 psi oil pressure gauge it -- the needle move just off zero so I tested the gauge with shop air and got 120 psi --gauge was good- so I hooked a 0-30 psi gauge and got 6psi.
I rebuilt the engine with the 0-80 gauge back on and got 60 psi at high idle then it dropped to zero- you guessed it the back frost plug on the cam blew out.
So I tapped the cam and put a pipe plug in.
No problems with the engine for the last 20 years

good tip on checking the oil pressure relief
cheers
Hank