GlennRMK

Saw an 04 Cummins in the shop today with 102,000 miles(2k out of warranty) with a piston that was beat to crap(#2). Valve dropped down on top of the piston. Didn't touch the cylinder wall. Looked nasty!

Anyone else had this happen?

It was on a company work truck that looked pretty abused, but 102k seemed low for such a failure!

No programmer or box either.

Cummins610

My buddy did. 250,000KM edge juice and a II turbo. All he did was tow

MikeyB

'03-04 is prone to dropping valve seats due to high EGTs but haven't heard much about the valves themselves. Did the valve or rocker break?

MikeyB

rich

dropped a vale #4 at 14ok in my 03 new piston, valve job and honed the cylinder and it was good to go

GlennRMK

I did not see the head so I couldn't tell you it looked like.

For some reason the guy bought a used motor instead of doing a piston and fixing or replacing the head.

82lavey

I had a 03 250 hp all stock drop a valve killed the head destroyed the piston and messed up the block replaced it with a 05 used motor useing all of the 03 electronics but it does have some kick to it now

GlennRMK

Sounds like a problem here and there. Not real common I guess.

I guess if it happened to me it would be a good excuse to firering and stud the head.

Minwy

High rpms are one of the main causes of dropped valves. IF the valve stem did not break, chances are the piston contacted the valve at some point in the engines recent life.

tcr

I dropped #2 and it stamped the piston as well. As you can see I upgraded a bit in my sig, head and all.

Topper

It's very common on 03's to work a valve seat loose and when it comes loose it will make the valve tilt a little and the snap. I have learned from experience... I also know that Cummins had so many troubles with the 03 head they stopped selling them and now you have to buy and updated 05 style head. I wish that they would have recalled the heads but they didn't.
See ya,
Topper

GlennRMK

So, is there any way to know when the valve seats come loose before this happens?

So the fix is to run a newer style head?

radshooter

This is a very interesting thread. My '03 only has 36k miles on it, but I intend for it to last forever. I do run an EGT guage, and try to limit myself to 1250 as much as possible. I tow an 18,000 lb. fiver pretty regular, and am religious about driving by the EGT guage. A lot of time I tow in 5th gear, RPMs around 2600. Is this considered too high of an RPM? I am very interested in how to prevent this from happening, if it can be prevented.

Topper

Mine had a funny exhaust note, kinda like a pop with a ring sound. It's hard to describe. When I checked mine out the only thing that I could find was 1 of the exhaust valves on #6 cylinder was just a tic loose but not much. After I adjusted the valve it still had the same sound. Just for giggles I unloaded the the Smarty programmer and the sound went away. I thought that I was all set. I uploaded the Smarty on my wife's 05 and it worked great, so I reloaded it on my 03 and everything sounded great. So I thought there must be some electronic whiz bang screw up. Well one day the noise came back and within 100 miles the truck was on the rollback and very shortly after that I was going through the engine. I would say don't worry about it just run it. Now one thing I should say I only had a problem after many 1800 deg runs. I did just about everything I could to melt the motor down and I finally managed to hurt the thing. After I put the engine back together I ordered a bigger turbo and now I keep a close eye on the egts and now I let out before I hit 1800... Well most of the time anyway...
Good luck guys,
Topper

2500

yikes... was looking at an 03 last week, but decided my 97 12valve was a better truck...

supersonictoys

I dropped a valve on my 06 dually with only 18k miles while towing and running about 50mph around a twisty turny stretch of flat road. exhaust valve dropped on number 6 hole . the stem snapped off just below the keepers and the valve just slid down into the piston. the tip of the stem and keepers were still in the spring. it ruined number 6 piston and ruined the head and did score the cylinder and of course went through the turbo too. dodge replace the entire motor with a cummins reman long block and new turbo. I picked up a solid 2mpg. go figure....