Ewwwwww!

Powdered Piston...Just add water.

 

shovelhead I think you mean BBQ piston... (I like to have my piston BLUE please! )

It could be worse it could be piston stew like Ferd... Dropping chunks in the pan...

Sorry to hear about you misfortune on #6 piston... Time to BOMB it!

 

Well, now I'm looking for a new engine. They pulled the bad piston and discovered a bad main bearing... checked another bearing and it's bad too... further investigation revealed metal flakes (lots of 'em) in the crankcase. So, at this point it looks like the cheaper option will be buying a complete engine (assuming I can find a decent one) as opposed to a complete teardown and thorough cleaning of every nook and cranny in my current engine.

I also have a lead on a longblock which will need to be built, but that may be the cheapest route.

It just keeps getting better...

 

I just found this thread and I am in it! Well, kinda sorta anyway.

I have to clear this pop pressure mess up. The tech at Cummins was reading his pop test equipment incorrectly. I never set pop pressure at 400 BAR. The truck would not even start at 400 BAR. There are not even pressure adjusting shims thick enough to do something like that After trying to explain to the tech at Cummins through Rip that his tester was either not calibrated or he was reading it wrong I gave up and Rip mailed the guy a whole new set of injectors Red Label

The following day, the tech finds these to all be incorrectly set as well. Of course he calls Rip and says the injectors are wrong and Rip then calls me. He tells Rip he is not going to install these in the truck with the pop pressure so high. I am over here with my hands tied and trying to explain to Rip the guy did not know how to use a pop tester to save his life and that there was no way I could even shim one to 400 BAR. I told Rip I was certain they were not 400 BAR. Rip said he had the stock cores that were mailed back and he would then overnight them down to Cummins for a thrid try. That same afternoon Bob Wagner called and said the guys at Cummins wanted to know why the heck I set the pop pressure at 400 BAR. So I spent some more time explaining to Bob the guy that was testing the injectors was obviously on vacation when Cummins explained pop testing.

By the time I get the tele number to Cummins I guess they figured out they were reading their gage wrong. I called and spoke to a different tech and he said the other guy was not checking them correctly. So after hours on the phone with Rip, Bob and the Cummins guys and overnight twice they agree the pop pressure was not 400 BAR. Goodnight!

It gets worse before it gets better! One of the injectors was sticking at the Cummins shop, but I was leary about their testing methods by this time and wanted to see the injectors myself and asked the owner to mail them all here. When they arrived I grabbed them and began testing them. None were 400 BAR. LOL. More like 285-295. Right were I set them at.

I found the bad one alright. It chattered twice and then stuck wide open, dumping fuel like crazy. I cranked the tester up to see if it would flush out the yukkie and start chattering again, but no luck. I decided to take it apart slowly on a clean paper towel and see if I could tell what was going on. I removed the nozzle and pulled the needle out carefully to check for anything that might be inside the nozzle. Nothing came out. Hmm, I took the needle and put it under a steroscope to look closer and saw nothing, but did notice hardly any wear at all. It looked brand spanking new. At this time I did not know how old the injectors were but was assuming if one was sticking that they must have some serious miles or time on them.
I found nothing on the needle to give me any clues as to what might be going on so I grabbed the nozzle and flushed it out on another paper towel with WD40 and the red straw to look for anything. Thats when a small sliver of metal appeared after the bubbles disapated from the WD. I was not certain it was metal so I used a magnet and it jumped right up to the magnet. Guess it was metal.

Under the microscope it was semi circle shaped and very small. Maybe 1/16th inch.

I fired the ultrasonic cleaners up and dropped the nozzle and needle into one and the rest of the injector parts into the other, let them cook a few minutes to remove the carbon and yukkies and reassembled. Back to the pop tester and it worked perfectly Funny how that happens Dern pesky metal chucks. Now where the heck did it come from???

After looking more I found a pretty good nick in the injector body and the famous drag mark I see when the connector tubes are not pulled far enough out before the injector is pulled up from it seat. It was gouged pretty good. I thought the sliver could have come from this area or perhaps the end of the connector tube. The small semi circle seemed to be a clue as to where it came from. The tube or injector body area where they fit together. I wish I could say for certain but it was just too hard to nail it down without doubt. I though maybe the injection line where it fit to the other end of the connector tube could have flaked a small piece of metal off or even the pump itself could have had a burr or something inside of it???

I figured I would send these inejctors back to the owner and reported what I found to him a few days back, but last night I though I better take all the injectors apart and check them very close for anything. I thought the pump may have began spitting chunks and wanted to be certain. Back to the paper towels, WD, and steroscope. I did not find anything. I then decided to ultrasonic clean the whole shooting match, reassemble, install new washers and ship them back. As I was removing them from the ultrasonic I found all the nozzle tip blue and not just a little. Very blue. This is a sign of very high heat/EGT. I normally see this with the drag COMP boxes and drag racing guys, but never a 1.6 size injector.

This whole mess leads me to believe the pyro was not registering correctly and the combination of towing up the hill and the cruddy airflow to number 6 killed this engine.

About 15 months ago I myself had a pyro that read 500 cruise EGT and never over 1300 at WOT. After talking to buddies they were all amazed at the low EGT. It got my to thinking and I changed the pyro probe. Ooops! Now my 500 was 950 and the 1300 was off the gage in seconds.

Number 6 is so often the one that goes I am never surprised to hear it is 6 anymore.

BTW, the facotry pop pressure is 305 BAR for stock nozzles. After a ton of testing with them I agree with 305. Even a honed stock nozzle is best at 305. With our nozzles we use 280-295 BAR. It works the best for the design employed. Nozzles rarely hold this pop pressure very long. I get slightly used inejctors for cores all the time that pop in the 260 range. As the needle wears and things loosen up, the friction that once made it harder for the nozzle to open is now lower and the result is a lower opening pressure. I have not found a used inejctor that held 305 BAR for very long from Bosch. The effects of a lower pressure are basically nill anyway. Too high of a setting is the other way. Pumps with wear internally can loose some of the idle pressure they had when new and they have a tough time opening injectors at low engine speeds. You get stalling and tight converters only make it worse by bringing the engine speed and pump speed down even more at idle.

Don~

 

Great info Don.

 

For the record, I did split the cost of the overnight shipping with Rip...

Also, let it be known that I have no complaints about Don or his injectors and I hope that is not how my posting was interpreted. I was stuck in the middle, with Cummins giving me one story and Don & Rip on the other side giving me the opposite story... I was just trying to make sense of it all.

Both Rip and Don have been very helpful and I plan on putting the same set of injectors back in my truck...

Russ

 

CTD99,

I have zero ill feelings. I understand the whole mess and how things can get all turned upside down. You have been great about the whole thing where as I might have blown a gasket if in your shoes.


It breaks my heart you have had this trouble and I really hate when things go this way.
Also, that was super nice of you to pay toward the overnight fees

I get an uneasy feeling when any of my customers has an issue with anything. If we could turn only turn back the clock.

Don~

 

Yeah... how do you think I feel?... even worse, how do you think my wallet feels?!?

When I bought the truck, this is the absolute last thing I thought I would have to deal with.

Russ