I'm wondering if anyone else out there has bent or broken a pushrod in the 3rd gen 5.9?
I was pullin my stock trailer with one horse on the other day (gvw of 13000 Lbs, so pretty light compared to what they can do) and about 4 hours into the trip it starts shakin violently at an idle all the way up to 2200 RPM, I call the local dealer who says its most likely a gelled fuel filter and I should just drive it to see if it will fix itself. this sounded weird cuz I know that gelled fuel dont fix itself very often at -35c.
to make a long story short it doesnt fix itself, changin the fuel filter dont fix it, I take it to the dealer in Saskatoon who kinda fit it in around other appointment and doest really diagnose it fully before Christmas but does look into it far enuf to tell me that one of the rocker arms isnt moving and i shouldnt drive it with engine damage
This is my Third Cummins since '97 and the only one thats had any cam or valvetrain issues so im just wondering if anyone knows more than I do about this

Thanks

 

The offending push rod should take less than 15 minutes to remove. Then, just roll it on a table or flat surface to check if it's bent...

--Eric

 

The big pain is that im back home in central Alberta and my truck is still in Saskatoon, i've got no idea what theyre gonna do to fix it and whata actually wrong with it, but you can bet that when i go to get it i wanna see the parts that came out of it

 

It turns out the Intake pushrod on # 1 snapped in half. they cant give me an exact cause so that kinda sucks, but warranty fully covered it so i guess i cant complain too bad

 

More details , fill in you signature , all details of truck/mods , each generation is a lot of different trucks ?

 

RPM, defective part

 

im hopin your defective part theory is right, if it keeps droppin valve train components im sellin it

 

Defective seems like the only logical answer, as many are running 3x your horsepower with no pushrod failures...

--Eric

 

Are you running synthetic oil?
I bet a box of Timmy's donuts that says you have dino oil in the crankcase. The Cummins never really gets up to temperature idling, and the oil will hold the pushrod up and the intake valve open, then the piston smacks the open valve and the weak link is the pushrod. When i worked at the local Dudge dealership we would replace 25-30 a week once the temperature dropped below -20C.
The only fix we ever found was to run full synthetic oil and use the high idle feature.

 

I have been reading this forum for a few years and can not remember a single thread that talked about breaking push rods. With the member base we have here you would expect to hear about it several times a week in the winter as I am sure there are more owners here then what you could possibly have seen at your dealership. I don't doubt that you replace some but I have to call BS on the 25 to 30 a week due to cold oil issues or from piston contact to the valves. Sorry.

 

I found it hard to believe as well, but when you have to replace 2-3 per truck, and seeing 40-50 trucks a week it dosen't take long. The dealer i worked at sold 10 diesel trucks to every car, plus the dealer an hour away was the same.
I live on the great Alaska Highway, and we are the last major center for any sort of dealer until you get to Whitehorse, which is 1500 km's away.

 

Unfortunatly i cant tell you what was in the poor ole girl for oil, i bought the truck 3 weeks ago and havnt changed it yet, you can bet that its gunna be synthetic 5 W 40 that goes in it tomorow for the rest of the winter. As soon as i can get it into the dealership im gunna have them activate the high idle adjustment with the cruise feature in it too, why it wasnt already done i dont know, the original owner worked in Ft Mcmurray so you woulda thought it woulda been good better than the 1000 RPM after 2 minutes high idle its runnin now