Last week I took my truck to Cummins west in Fresno,Ca. to get the valves adjusted. Thursday we headed to Oregon to visit the kids. Got just south of Redding,Ca.on the interstate going 70 mph and heard a very loud rattle-hammering and saw smoke at the rear of truck.I pulled over right away and shut it off.Checked the oil and there was none. Got a ride to the next town for oil.Fired it up and the oil pressure came up but the hammering stayed.Limped it into redding to the cummins dealer.Mechanic said the valve cover gasket must have rolled when the guy in Fresno put it back on which let the oil run out.I'm thinkin well there goes several grand.But when he told me about the gasket I said well then this is a cummins issue, right?He showed it to his boss and all the wheels from his shop and the Fresno shop said they would cover the repair.They cut the oil filter in two and said it has metal in it.As of now they are having to pull the engine to get the pan off to see how much damage was done.Do you think I'm looking at a short block or just fixing this one?I won't know anything now till monday.I had to rent a uhaul pickup as we were going up here to buy a boat.They won't pay for it. Cost me 300.00 dollars for a week and will probably need it for 2.

 

Yeah...oh, crap!

Sorry to hear of your loss.

Personally, I always look over the engine, whenever I get back from the dealer or, in this case, Cummins.

At least, the way I read your post, it sounds like they are going to cover it for you.

If the oil filter has visible metal, I would say the rings and bearings are at least toast, if not the cylinder walls, too!

Keep us posted.

Tony

 

Seriously,
I would press for a whole new engine reason being. Dont for get about your vavles and valve guides in the head, the short block was not the only thing runnning with out oil. Yes the cam is inside the short block but not your heads. At least I would have then redo your heads also. Cause there is damage there also. May not be as bad as the bottom end but it WILL NOT last as long as it would have had they not screwed up.

 

This is unbelievable. If you lost that much oil,, you surely would have smelled this??? edit poor mechanic did this job, I hope they square you away...

 

I would think long block. But you don't know until opened up. There is a very good chance that all they'd have to do is clean up journals and replace bearings. And then again, piston scoring will tell you about the cyls. No biggie to pull valves and inspect too.

There is a lot to speculate about-- just wait for the verdict. They may even just put a reman'd engine in to save time and $.

 

Dont forget about the turbo, or anything lubed by oil for that matter. I`ve seen this on older Mitsu gas engines, the obvious damage is to the lower end of the engine but I have seen more than one turbo wiped out in the ordeal.

 

Id push for a long block or a complete new engine thier is a lot of stuff you cant tell if its damaged untill its disassembled and checked

 

Well i took it to cummins because these guys are supposed to know their s--t.So why would one second guess something as simple as a valve adjustment?Maybe I should have.A question I have is this..Does the oil get to the turbo and valves and rockers after the oil filter? If so would all that be protected by the filter?I didn't smell the oil as it leaked because it took 300 miles to leak out.I agree I would like to see them just put in a complete reman...turbo,head,block...everything.I just don't know how much I can demand.I guess what I could ask is what kind of a guarantee will you give me on all the stuff you don't replace.My engine was fine when I took it in and now it's crap.I just don't want them cobbling it up to get me out of their hair and have it crap the bed in a few months.I asked this question to the district rep that happened to be in Redding at cummins and he said "we don't do that,,it will be treated just like warranty work".I guess time will tell.By the way thanks for the response guys..I just don't want to get screwed because I don't know.

 

I called Friday and the said to pull the pan they have to pull the engine,And will do that on Monday and will let me know what they find.

 

Update. They are going to sleeve#6 cylinder and replace the piston and connecting rod.Other than that replace all rings and bearings.I asked to have the head checked at the machine shop doing the sleeve. The service manager called and told me that it was going to cost 1400.00 to "recondition "the head.I asked what was wrong with it and he said they wanted to replace all valves, springs..everything.I said all I wanted them to do was a leak test and give it a once over.If i had valves that needed ground, I would have all valves ground.Isaid so you're telling me that all my valves are shot and everything in the head?He said that's what they said.I said this thing ran like a sewing machine before this..I just can't believe it.I am having the napa machine shop come and get it and give me a 2nd opinion.I'm starting not to trust these people.....

 

Time to talk to a Lawyer, if you ran it out of oil because of their mistake then all MOVING parts including the valves are shot because of lack of lubrication and EXCESSIVE HEAT. Remember that the oil not only lubricates, it also cools the engine.

This motor will NEVER be right and I would fight them in court.

 

definitely, do NOT back down and offer to pay for NOTHING!. Demand a Cummins Recon engine. Get pictures of anything and everything you can.
You've definitely got a case in court, its just going to be a long fight.
If possible, get rod/main bearings, oil sample, and recent service records from the engine just in case you need an independent failure analysis done. It will help ensure a slam dunk in court.

 

They did show me the engine.# 6 cylinder was scored and that piston was also badly scored.All the rest were fine and all connecting rod bearings were ok.Nothing had spun.They had a cummins engineer stop by to look at it and he said that looking at the top of the bad piston it appears that the injector was putting out too much fuel and the piston got too hot and also said looking at the bottom of piston that the oil ports that oil the cylinders had gotten so hot that it scorched the oil as it came out. The service manager said that cummins is still going to cover the engine. So they are going to charge me for a new injector for # 6.They claim that this engine will be as good as any reman and will have a 1 year 12,000 mile warranty. They already have the block at the machine shop getting fixed.I guess what gets me is they find a bad injector and blame it on what happened and all the time everyone forgets THIS **** THING RAN OUT OF OIL!!! In your opinion is that what happened to # 6? I still don't trust these people....

 

I forgot to mention they want 450.00 for the injector to fix the # 6 problem.

 

First of all, I don't work for Cummins or have any interest in covering their ***** so keep that in mind when I tell you that a cyclinder failure can cause a run away condition in a diesel where it consumes the crankcase oil to run, then upon casual examination after the fact you might assume that the failure was caused by lack of lubricating oil when infact the absence of lube oil is a symptom of the failure. This is a similar scenario to what you are describing.

Crankcase oil doesn't burn as readily as diesel but it does burn under compression with heat, oxygen, and especially diesel fuel added. Some of the Detroits that I've worked with had a manual lever to isolate combustion air under these circumstances and many diesels I've operated over the years were shutdown by choking the combustion air off just because of this.

If your block is out getting machined I assume that they are also putting new bearings in? You could have everything magnafluxed for peace of mind but any failure from inadequate lube will be evident well before the 12k mile warranty is up. I don't know what sort of lifter/cam arrangement these engines run but it would seem prudent to throw a new cam in, the part cost is relatively low compared to labor cost of changing one in the truck should it become apparent down the road that your's got fried. Cam failures from lack of lube usually happen pretty quickly.

I was also just thinking that if you are far short of 100,000 miles on your truck that they should atleast warranty you to that mileage, it's not your fault that a component of their engine failed, thus your factory warranty shouldn't be reduced.