5.0 Mustang Man

I have a 01 2500 4x4 with a 5 speed. The vp44 has been acting up on the truck for a little bit but it only has problems until the truck warms up. This truck has a edge juice w/ attitude and a Fass system and 4" exhaust. Thats it as far as perf. mods. The other day I was towing my 28 foot enclosed trailer with race car in it(probably about 6-7000 lb total weight) and was getting on it pretty hard trying to pass a car. All of a sudden we heard a loud pop and the truck went down on power. I pushed clutch in and the truck died. Pulled over and it wouldnt start and sounded like crap cranking. Open hood and pulled air box off and turbo is destroyed. The wheel practically fell out the front of it. We got the truck towed home and pulled turbo completely off. The exhaust side of the wheel looks fine and doesnt look like anything came through it from the manifold. The stud that holds the front and back impeller together is broke in half and the front of the impeller came right out when I pulled the turbo apart. I pulled the valve cover and nothing looks out of place and all rockers seem to be moving fine. Pulled injectors to see if pistons were all moving and they all are coming up and down except for number 5. It is just hanging at the top of the cylinder. So, somehow it must of broke the number 5 rod or the piston pin or something. How does this happen? I thought these bottom ends were supposed to be bullet proof? This truck has 110,000 miles on it. Has never had big sticks in it and only the edge Juice for power. Im pretty upset about this and havent pulled the motor put or know if I need to completely. What would you all reccomend I do next? Now that it has to be fixed, I am going to ad a twin setup and huge injectors and new vp44. Let me know if I need to pull the whole motor or what, Im kinda new to diesles but I have a vast experience with gas motors. Thanks.
Brandon

camododge

I would definitely say you have an isolated experience. The bottom ends on these trucks are standing up to 600+hp and laughing at it the whole time. Sorry to hear about your bad luck.

bent valves

Sorry to hear about your problem. I would try to bar the engine over and feel for a change in resistance. If there is any metallic noise or a marked change in the force needed to turn the engine the rod could be it. If you do not have a barring tool use the alternator nut to turn the engine backwards. Good luck.

5.0 Mustang Man

Yeah I really havent heard of people breaking rods with these. It really EDIT me off. Do they even make better rods for these or would I just replace it with another factory one? Im really hoping it didnt hurt the block or head but Im sure it did. I have seen broken rods in gas motors and it is not pretty. Usually in a gas motor it will send the rod through the block or pan. I know that is not the case here. I guess I really need to pull the pan off. How hard is it to get a motor out of one of these trucks?

dozer12216

Perhaps the top of piston separated from body of same. May not be as bad a envisioned. But then it will be your worst nightmanre for periond of time. Money and patience are both fixes.

1-5-3-6-2-4

bar it over a bunch of times by hand and pull the pan first and look for sure, before you go pulling the head or engine out. Can't say about your #5 but the loud pop is consistent with destroying a turbo. diagnose, confirm, repair....... aside from the #5 problem, you will want to pull the whole intake system and clean it, pull all the boots off and clean that seam. including intercooler. replace airfilter. often a turbo grenading backfeeds aluminum all the way to the air filter and imbeds in the filter. you miss one speck and your new turbo can be a gonner.

Interested to see what you've got though, hope its not toooo bad.


this is one I repaired last week...........the whole center section is gone. Ipulled those chunks out of the bottom of the pan and turbine wheel from 5' down the pipe past the muffler.

Diesel Doc

check you piston cooling nozzles also If you plugged up #5 you could have seized #5 and actually pulled the piston or rod apart.

j-fox

Do you use the famous Fram filters?

Mcmopar

Sorry to hear about this one man!!

PaulDaisy

I would expect that if it was the rod that broke, it would stick through the block. If the engine turns and there is not loud clanking noise, it is the piston that tore apart. My first action would be to pull the pan and look in there to assess the damage.

Diesel Doc

Not always but most of the time. We had a C-12 Cat that ate a rod but it pulled apart about an inch from the journal. I have to say I think that is the first time I have seen one not make an inspection port in the block though.

5.0 Mustang Man

OK, so tonight I tore into it(my first time ever really doing anything on a diesel). First I got the oil pan off which was kinda tricky. Didnt realize you had to lift the motor up to get it out. It was pretty tricky getting to the motor mount bolts mainly because my truck has had a bad power steering leak and the whole underside is nasty. So, I figured the whole motor was coming out anyways so I started pulling everything off. Finally got it to the point I could lift it and get the pan off. Everything looked fine and no broke rod or metal in pan or oil and the pistons looked good. At that point I was very stumped because it still felt like the #5 piston was not moving when I put a rod into the #5 injector hole. I thought it was a long shot but maybe the piston somehow broke in half and the top of it was just hanging up top of the bore so we decided to take the head off. How the hell are you supposed to get the back 4 push rods out with motor in truck? We were stumped and couldnt get the head off with them in there so I cut them in half and head came out. There were lots of little pieces of metal that were from the turbo coming apart on top of the pistons(also the same pieces were found in the intercooler). No real damage to pistons, cylinders look great with tons of cross hatching left and no damage(only 110,000 on truck). Turned it over and everything spins nice and tight like it should be and shortblock seems great. Flipped head over and it had several of those same pieces of turbo on it but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Valves looked ok but I dont have them out of head so not positive if they are not bent. Im stumped. What the hell could be wrong with it? Why when I tried to start the motor it sounded like it had no compression? What should I do now?

Diesel Doc

Check every valve seat very carefully!! that crud from the turbo could have been hanging a valve open or damaged a seat. Wash your intercooler out opposite the direction of flow to get the crud out of it. I'm glad it wasn't a rod.

JD730

You probably have valves hanging open just a hair. Check pistons for marks of vavle contact, if you see marks, check push rods for bent ones and think about new valves.
Next step would be to get that head redone. Mine had worn the guides and many of the valve stems out by 90,000 miles. Plus I had many small cracks in the exhaust seats, pressure checked ok. So I could have had seats put in it, but I wound up buying another head already to go.

And the push rods, there are plastic plugs in the cab right above those. Pull the plugs out and they will go up into there then you can move the bottom of the push rod over and down to get them out of there.

Before you take any valves out of the head, try to pressurize the intake and spray a soapy water on the valves and check for leaks, do the same thing with the exhaust.

5.0 Mustang Man

Motor is out! The rods and everything in the bottom look great. Cylinder walls look great. Only issue I am seeing is that on top of pretty much all pistons there are small indentations which I assume are from the small fragments of turbo wheel getting smashed between pistons and head surface. These are not like huge gouges, just very small flat looking craters. I think it is fine to run but has anyone ever seen anything like that before? There was no piston to valve contact that i see but I will get new push rods anyays. I have run gasoline engines that had piston to valve contact and the pistons looked way worse with no issues. Do you all think I am ok to run these pistons? And the head is getting completely re worked and o ringed while off. Thanks.