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Meltdown and rebirth of a 6.7 Cummins

jeepin4x4james

jeepin4x4james

WAAAAA
Location
Bluffdale, UT
Looking good!
I may be following you sooner than I wanted... lost 5th & 6th completely pulling to Moab over the weekend, along with the head gasket starting to leak (coolant temp spikes, pushing coolant out the overflow)
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
anderson750 said:
We are getting close. It should be running by lunch time tomorrow. Since I need to put 500 miles on it before I tow, I think I may make a quick road trip to Grand Junction for some dinner and a trip to the Liquor Barn.
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Have you even been to Bin 707 for dinner? It's GOOD!

And the Liquor Barn.... :rofl:
 
anderson750

anderson750

I'm working on it Rose
Location
Price, Utah
jeepin4x4james said:
Looking good!
I may be following you sooner than I wanted... lost 5th & 6th completely pulling to Moab over the weekend, along with the head gasket starting to leak (coolant temp spikes, pushing coolant out the overflow)
Click to expand...

I got a quote from Randy's Transmission to do a stage 2 kit on my transmission and it was around 7K. I know I will have to do it one day, but hopefully it will not be for awhile.

ricsrx said:
do you mind telling us how much $$$ you will be into this motor
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Right now I have only paid for the parts and block machining I bought from Industrial, which I outlined above and I am into a little over 10K. Labor is a little open ended right now since we ran into a small problem. When I picked the block up I was told that all the plugs had been replaced with new plugs. However, this apparently did not include the oil galley plugs. Apparently their machine shop does not put those in when they do not put the whole rolling assembly together and the sales/tech guy I have been working with was not aware of that. Needless to say, we quickly dumped $150 worth of break in oil on the shop floor very quickly. A quick assessment showed us that there was oil coming off the back of the engine and off the left side of the block. After taking a look at the engine diagrams we saw and sourced the plugs. There are 2 on the back of the motor behind the bell housing mounting plate, one on the drivers side below the intake. Fortunately we were able to get the back plugs by pulling the transmission back and with a little bit of contortion were able to get the plug in under the intake. When we started it back up we had great oil pressure for about 30 seconds and then it would drop.......another WTF moment. After a little head scratching, we went back to the diagrams and discovered another plug that needs to be placed. However, this one is behind all the timing gears and cover. This means the whole front end of the truck and motor needs to come off so that he can get to it. Probably about 6-8 hours of work.

Its hard to blame this problem on any single person or problem and it won't do any good. We took for granted that when I was told that all plugs were replaced that it truly meant that. We also did not catch that open oil galley under the intake when doing assembly and quite frankly, the open galleys on the back of the motor looked like spots for dowel pins. Closer examination of the engine diagrams could have tipped us off, but hey, we will just chalk this up to a learning experience and get it fixed.


Greg said:
Have you even been to Bin 707 for dinner? It's GOOD!

And the Liquor Barn.... :rofl:
Click to expand...

I will have to try Bin 707. As far as the Liquor Barn, I may as well stock up my fridge with 6% PBR while I am there.
 
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UNSTUCK

UNSTUCK

But stuck more often.
I left an oil galley plug off of my first solo Deere engine rebuild. We ran it on the floor before putting it back in the loader. Ran great! Just had no oil pressure. Minor detail. We scratched our heads for a long time then one of the other guys says, "I got it!" We were able to remove a plug on the timing cover and see the threaded hole in the galley. I was just able to get a plug screwed in there without having to take the front end back off. 10 minutes later we had oil pressure. Since then, I have never built an engine that did not have oil pressure. I'm sure you'll be able to say the same.
 
anderson750

anderson750

I'm working on it Rose
Location
Price, Utah
Got lucky on the oil galley plug on the front of the motor since there was just enough space in the opening on the cam gear that the plug could be inserted without pulling the cam out. We fired the truck up at 5 pm and everything is perfect. Put about 50 miles on it this evening and everything is running smooth. We have a race in California this weekend, so I plan on driving it to get some miles on it.
 
anderson750

anderson750

I'm working on it Rose
Location
Price, Utah
First 1,000 mile impression..........the motor is running great and very smooth. Since most my miles to this point have been I-15 my speed has been between 75-85 mph. At normal cruising it is running around 8 psi of boost and EGT's of 650. Turbo lag is not noticeable at any point in the RPM Range. A couple of times for fun I have given it about 1/2 throttle at 80 mph and it flat out spools up and hits 90. A couple of on ramp rips have seen boost pressures of 40 psi and EGT's peaking at around 1050.

I will tow with it next weekend and report back what results I have.
 
jeepin4x4james

jeepin4x4james

WAAAAA
Location
Bluffdale, UT
Wow, those EGT's are pretty good!
Curious on the oe turbo twin setup... does it still have high drive pressure issues that is normal with the oe vgt? Or does the twin setup help alleviate that? Is it a straight up stock turbo or one with a larger compressor wheel? Is it externally waste-gated?

Sorry for so many questions... I found out my head is cracked so now it's a new head along with studs and a transmission... trying to figure out my best options to keep EGT's & drive pressure low so I don't repeat my failure.
 
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anderson750

anderson750

I'm working on it Rose
Location
Price, Utah
2000 mile update. I will tow with it for the first time tomorrow but here are some of my non-towing observations. My fuel mileage on my trip to California and back averaged around 15.5. Most of the time I was on I-15 or I-70 my speed was around 85 mph. On this trip earlier in the year my fuel mileage was around 14.5. I have a 5" exhaust with a high flow muffler and it has had a small drone at around 75-80 mph. With this additional turbo and that same 5" exhaust the drone is noticeably less. Today I made a trip to Green River and back and set the cruise control at 73 for the trip. I averaged 17.7 mpg on that trip.

**Disclaimer** MPG averages are based off of the computer read out and not hand calculated.
 
anderson750

anderson750

I'm working on it Rose
Location
Price, Utah
First tow report.

Trailer (Cyclone model 4000) is reported to be 14,500 lbs dry. I am not sure how accurate this number is but is the number we will use as a basis for perspective. This weekend we had it loaded with about 75 gallons of water (~600lbs) and 2 motorcycles (minis at ~250 total) plus all our gear, food, clothes and everything else that is in the trailer. I am just going to ball park it but am going to guess that the total with all this is around 2000 lbs. The truck according to what I can find online weighs in the 8000 lb range. Rolling weight of the truck and trailer for this trip was my guess in the 24-25,000 lb range.

Getting up to freeway speed the truck pulls effortlessly. Pulling this much weight, I always use the manual shift and don't let the tranny shift under load. I bring the RPM's up to 2500, let off the gas and step back on it once the transmission has shifted. By the seat of your pants, you can feel the 2nd turbo start to pull at around 2000 RPM........by watching the EGT's you see it climb at a consistent rate to between 1000-1100 degrees by the time it is ready to shift. Keep in mind here that all of this is happening at around half throttle. The truck will easily pull from a 20 mph roll to 65 mph in less than a half mile.

Pulling up Price Canyon on the way to our race and up the Spanish Fork side on our way home, I dropped it into 5th gear for the climb. In the past I would have to carefully watch my EGT read out because it would climb 200 degree's very fast. I was constantly feathering the pedal on a long climb. With this 2nd turbo really starting to flow at around 2000 rpm, it is the perfect place for a 5th gear climb at 60-65 mph and the EGT's easily stayed in the 1100 range without me having to feather it and was producing around 35 lbs of boost. I have found that 1900-2200 RPM is my sweet spot for power vs. EGT's when pulling up a grade. When it gets below that, the temps want to climb. Which leads to the next observation. 70 mph is a bad speed for me when towing this load on flat ground. It puts my RPMs at about 1700 in 6th gear and keeps the EGT's easily in the 1100 range.

Overall I am very happy with the results in EGT reduction and power. Now I just need to be careful not to destroy the transmission.
 
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