Pretty sure my KDP is already in the oil pan, so will be pulling the cover, inserting new pin, and loctiteing/torquing all the case bolts. I did buy the Cummins cover gasket - should I use a smear of the grey RTV that came in the TSI kit on this or ...?

 

I just put mine on dry. The gasket shouldn't need any further sealing than that.

 

i never bothered with a gasket, jus used a lil permatex grey and have had no problems

 

Same here, gaskets are old school.
Cummins quit using gaskets in 1999 too.

 

X2 however..... sometimes when I'm replacing a gasket that's a lot of work or a PITB to get to, I'll smear a little High Flex on both sides of the gasket just to be sure it doesn't leak.

 

How did the KDP fix go?

 

Got into it yesterday to see what was actually going on and was pleased to see there was very minimal damage to the housing itself. No damage to gears or anything else as far as I could tell. I borrowed an orthoscopic type inspection instrument that would fit between/behind gears etc, and could see no case damage beyond what I already knew.

The KDP was already out of course and swimming around in the oil pan I expect. I can't imagine how this happened with so little damage. Initially it appeared there was just a single thin crack in the case but when I got in there I pulled on it and a small round chunk came out. The previous owner had just put a thin layer of industrial silicone over it and it had held with absolutely no leak for many thousand miles. I went ahead and took the piece out, used some seriously strong solvents to get the silicone off . The small piece was ideal for a repair job. I have done marine diesel repairs with an industrial/military epoxy-steel compound (much stronger than JB weld).

It was a precision fit and I held the piece under pressure with a wood-clamp until the compound cured. It's hard to tell where the repair was. Will it hold? If there had been no silicone involved I would be 90% sure it would. I was able to clean the joints and then use a moto-tool with stainless brushes at high speed to take off a micro-layer of aluminum on all joining surfaces - if I got all the silicone off it will hold. It was in the best possible place and a no stress area - it involved only a rounded chip from the the lip of the housing only - so no cracking in the back wall of the case.

The case bolt by the KDP hole was little more than finger tight but the other bolts were tight and locked. I put in a new dowel pin and tabbed it. It slipped right in with just a tap from a plastic hammer. Cleaned the other bolts applied loctite and torqued them down.

Ordinarily, I would have replaced this case but it was such an ideal candidate for a type repair I have done offshore before that I just had to try it.

Cummins tech told me to just put the gasket on dry (as lil Dog mentioned) and that is what I did. The factory gasket was on this way and it went 288K with no leaks. Tomorrow I will install the fan/shroud, water pump (I wanted plenty of room). I'll crank it up and we will see what we see. If it leaks - I'll start over. It's a much better repair that the previous one - and that one didn't leak

 

Got it all back together today and took it out for a one hour - 75 mph freeway spin. Dry as a bone everywhere so far - I know it will take a few thousand miles to really test it but I'm happy to see it thus so far.

I believe it may work! ....and if it doesn't, I'll bite the bullet and throw a new housing in it.

 

Only problem you might encounter is 99% of the time if the case is cracked there is also a hairline crack on the back of the case where it faces the block that's hard to see without removing the case.
These cracks tend to open up later and leak especially when more hp is added or the engine is put under heavy load.
Extra torque of the extra power asked of the injection pump spreads the crack open more.

 

Man Saileron, I sure hope that doesn't happen to you after all that work. I really appreciated the fact that you actually attempted to repair the damage rather than just scream "new parts".

 

and I know it can happen ...but the nature of this little chunk that came out of the lip is pretty unusual - our local dodge guru has a pile of these cases about waist high behind his shop that we were looking at, and he said he has never seen one like this. He mentioned that if it should fail it would probably be a gradual thing, with a leak developing to give warning. When the weather warms up I will probably think about replacing the housing. It's a stock truck and I drive it like a grandpaw (which I am) so we'll see how it goes.