judge88

after blowing my head gasket sunday i pulled the head to replace it and noticed i had some scoring on my cylinder walls. not enough to feel at all but enough to take the cross hatching off. most are 1/8th inch thick but a couple are about a 1/2 inch thick. this is in every cylinder. there is no pattern to the scoring either. its in different places in different cylinders. the truck runs as good as ever, theres no blowby, good oil pressure. the truck never gave me any indication that this was goin on i just happend to see it when i took the head off. my thinking is the high egt's this truck has seen 1500-1600 even though at short bursts under 15 sec had caused the rings to expand when they got hot thus hitting the walls and scoring them. this truck has been abused in evey way possible however fuel filter changes and oil filter changes are every 1000 miles. yes every 1000. just because of the abuse. should i just put the head back on and go with it till it gives me trouble or try to get it fixed? any ideas other than egts why this happened. i have a couple pics but cant figure out how to post them if anyone would like to see it. thanks justin

nickleinonen

scoring if you can't feel it with your fingernail should be ok. the rings are always in contact with the bore.. maybe the pistons expanded enough to scuff the liner, but by the sounds of it, slap the head back on and keep running...

another trick with scoring is to use a copper penny/washer and slide it against the score. it it drags and cuts the copper, it needs to be cleaned up, but that is more for smooth journals of cranks, cams... a liner has the cross hatch so that trick doesn't work there...

judge88

yep,
i definatly cant feel the scores at all. the walls are super smooth. you can just see them.

PourinDiesel

I wouldnt worry if you cant feel them.

walexa

Someone on TDR has an older 5.9 that had some fairly good scoring going on and Don M stated that it was due solely to high egt's. Another said he has scoring when he pulled his head........he just put it all back together and thousands of miles later when the head was pulled again the scoring was pretty much gone. I would just put it back together and keep it in mind that you are most likely causing some scoring when running high egt's, especially sustained high egt's. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Waylan

judge88

should i at least try to hone them and put the cross hatching back in?

abc4yew

Judge88, Now is the time to use the best heavy synthetic diesel motor oil you can buy, Shaeffers or similar in a 15w40 just not 0w50 On your oil change interval the oil is not getting broke in enough to get warmed up. I think I would look at a bypass filter to keep that abused oil always clean. ks

judge88

ive been using the rotella 5w40 synthetic with the fleetgaurg filters or mopar. i thought about royal purple or amsoil but the way i change the oil i dont know if i coul afford it @ 7 bucks a quart.

judge88

well my father in law who is a dodge tech stopped over and looked at the scoring for me. after a real close look there are scpres however where its scored the cross hatching is still visible. so since there not deep enough to remove the cross hatching im just gonna go with it. we also discvovered alot of grit on top the pistons that i thought was carbon but it turned out to be small gritty pieces from the fuel he said. he thinks that is whats causing the scoring. makes sence to me. so whats a good fuel filter to use thats filters the best? ive been using purolator just because i can get them easily.

walexa

I don't want to start a war here, but I believe your father in law is incorrect. There is a pre-filter along with a regular fuel filter........not to mention the extremely close tolerances that grit in the fuel would have to clear just going through the injectors. If that were the case you would have stopped up injectors. Don M is more familiar with these engines than most and if he says he sees it all the time due to high egt's........and you already stated that your engine sees high egt's very regularly........I would take it to the bank that it is egt related. In the post on TDR, Don M recommended running a good synthetic as the best protection since synthetics excel over dino oils at temperature extremes. If it were me, I would go with schaeffer's 9000 oil and change it out every 5000 miles. Changing any oil at 1000 miles is wasting oil and money.......unless it is being contaminated with antifreeze. If you wanted, you could still change the regular oil filter every 2500 miles or so, but I think that is overkill as well. The only other thing I would suspect other than egt damage would be air filter related. You could always get an oil analysis and see what your silica level is and go from there, but my money is on high egt's.

Waylan

nickleinonen

put a 2micron filter inline between the stock filter and the cp3... cat's high efficency spin on filters are 2 micron.. the smallest one they have is around 3.5" x 6" with a 7/8" thread.. find a filter pad that fits and have some hoses made up to go from the oem filter to the 2µ filter and from it to the cp3...

when i get around to redoing my fuel system, i will run a strainer screen [100µ???], then a pump, then a 15µ filter, then the stock filter [& pump] then a regulator then a 2µ filter then the cp3... overkill yes... [especially if i repipe it all with 1/2" hardline]

abc4yew

The stock filter is about 10 micron...pretty small to see...still large enough to damage injectors and wreak havoc on the engine at high pressure injection. FASS systems have 3 micron filters available which I am switching to next week. You have been pumping alot of fuel at high pressure it seems so there will be significantly more wear than the reguar Joe that has very little high pressure time. Big difference between 100 hours at 20k psi and 100 hours at 10k psi when you are shooting 10 micron dirt bullets. ks

judge88

walexa,
not saying your wrong however the grit that was laying on top the pistons was also all over the injector tips as well. this grit getting between the cylinder and the walls couldnt be good for anything and could have caused scoring right? if it were the rings i would think the scoring woukld be alot deeper at least enough to take the cross hatching off right?

walexa

I just do not believe that grit large enough to see/feel could make it through the injectors without plugging them. If there is indeed "grit", which in my mind is a form of sand/silica, I believe it came through the air filter. Otherwise I believe it is just carbon. Scoring from the rings due to high egt's would all depend on how hot things got........the more heat, the more expansion the rings are going to do........and more scoring. As far as grit causing scoring.......yes, that's totally possible and I'm not arguing with that........I just don't believe it came through the fuel system. If it did, there would be more posts about grit making it through the filters and fixes for the problem. Grit will normally settle out........on older tractors and such there was just a sediment bowl to catch stuff like this...........a place for it to settle out. Carburetor bowls do the same as well.......if you ever clean a carb bowl out you will usually find grit that settled out. Our filter works as a huge sediment bowl with a filter in it as well........I just don't see it getting through. Plus, you are running a Fass, which is an improvement over the stock fuel filter. Are you running the factory air filter? If not, what brand are you running?

v8440

I had a thought about the grit: Maybe it's bits of aluminum off the piston tops. One way I catch detonation in a nitrous gas motor before it starts really tearing stuff up is to look at the porcelain of the plugs. If it's detonating, there are little teeny shiny flakes embedded in the porcelain. That's piston top, and a good sign to back off on the tune.