Excessively underpowered 1HZ + poor fuel economy (1 Viewer)

[Leitrum3]

I hope you weren't taking it too easy on the thing. You want to get that thing loaded up for the break in and drive it with a bit of umph.
As for the sound I don't know:S Curious to see what others say though.

Didn't take it too easy, hit what hills we have around here and loaded it up to full boost and around 1000F in the beginning. Like I said, I can't verify all the cylinders at this point, but at least the first two are probably at their max compression. I'll try to get a new tool this week.

you should have NO debris in the oil other than break in lube.
you plasti gauged the crank during reassembly?
i will listen again in the morning ...
for all the time it will take, drain the oil into a clean bucket.
drop the pan and inspect each of the BEB for any scratches or delaminations

I had always read there would be something at least in the first change, but maybe that's more like a slight shimmer of dust, and not what I got. I'll drain the oil to check for more tonight and post up what if anything additional is there. Not sure I can drop the pan tonight though, weather is nasty again and I'm basically working in the street now.

As for plastigauging, the machine shop set all of the crankshaft bearings when they were measuring and setting the piston protrusion so they said I would just be duplicating their work. They're a really good shop and definitely honest about stuff. In retrospect, it would've been good for some peace of mind.

As you say, the easiest way to get some idea on the injectors, is to crack the lines at injector when it is idling..... sounds to me you have an out of adjustment rocker arm, also a fairly easy thing to check... that's where I'd start... the easier stuff....

As crushers says... I don't like the idea of debris in the oil either....

I'll go ahead and check the injectors before I do anything else since this is such an easy one. Thanks for verifying my recollection on the method. No rocker arms in my 1HZ though.

 

[Leitrum3]

Last night I checked injectors with the rudimentary method of cracking open the lines individually, but it was entirely inconclusive. They all made the engine idle equally poorly.

So, next is to check the rod bearings and oil pan. I drained the oil to start with and prepped to drop the pan, which it turns out is a little bit of a PITA in situ. Anyway, I cleaned the bucket really well this time just to be sure I was getting an accurate picture and the oil was good and clean with no visible metal this time.

Thinking about what I might find when I drop the pan, is the below a pretty accurate statement?

• Bad main bearing sounds. If you hear knocking sounds when you start your car that continue while the engine is running, and the sound is coupled with low oil pressure warnings, this is a good indicator that your engine has bad main bearings
• Faulty rod bearing sounds. If the knocking noise sounds more akin to striking a piece of tin or aluminum and increases in intensity as you accelerate, the most likely culprit is a faulty rod bearing

 

[Jan-78FJ40]

From that video and sound I am far from convinced that anything is wrong.
It is definitely not a rod bearing. We've ran an engine with a faulty rod bearing, and it sound like someone is hammering on a tin pot next to your ear. If you have that, you will not question whether something is wrong.
I don't know about the main bearing, but again, if you cannot even hear it from the top, I doubt anything is wrong. How is your oil pressure?
Are you confident about your valve adjustment?
cheers,
Jan

 

[roscoFJ73]

Got oil pressure?

 

[Leitrum3]

From that video and sound I am far from convinced that anything is wrong.
It is definitely not a rod bearing. We've ran an engine with a faulty rod bearing, and it sound like someone is hammering on a tin pot next to your ear. If you have that, you will not question whether something is wrong.
I don't know about the main bearing, but again, if you cannot even hear it from the top, I doubt anything is wrong. How is your oil pressure?
Are you confident about your valve adjustment?
cheers,
Jan

Been traveling the last couple days and not able to do anything, but have all of saturday to try to get to the bottom of this. I listened to the videos again and if you use headphones, you can definitely hear that something sounds "out of balance" and not just from the bottom end. Everything is on the table in my mind, so I'll double check the valves because I have no good reason not to. I'm still suspicious of the injectors though, from listening to videos of other diesels with injector problems on youtube, it could sound similar.

Got oil pressure?

Oil pressure is unknown since I only have the stock gauge. I have an aftermarket Isspro on order now since I'd like to have it longterm anyway. I'll know more soon.


Now, here's the part that I didn't mention yet, much to my embarrassment. About 60 miles into break in, I had something happen while driving that could play into all of this. While driving down the road, I heard a "ping" (which turned out to be a bolt dropping) and then the truck started shaking violently. I dropped it into neutral and pulled off the side of the road thinking it was either something catastrophic or I had just blown a tire. I killed it once I was stopped, though the hammering didn't stop, so it was definitely engine related. What I found, hanging by a single bolt was the front half of the crankshaft pulley. WTF. No doubt user error, but this could have been SO much worse if it had come free! The hammering was actually the front half of the pulley hitting the vacuum pump, which might have been fortunate to one degree since that kept the rotating mass more or less centered. There wasn't any visible damage other than a little scuffing where the two had kissed. I pulled off the pulley, started it back up and all seemed fine, as smooth as ever. The question I have from this was whether the impact of the pulley on the vacuum pump would be enough of a lateral force to somehow mess up the main bearings.

What a terribly unfortunate error, right? I have one word for myself from this: Loctite.

 

[Jan-78FJ40]

I'd be surprised if that caused you problems. Everything is so massive in there. And your timing would not be affected, even if that pulley ripped off.
I am surprised it happened though, I don't think the manual calls for thread locker in there.
cheers,
J

 

[Leitrum3]

Not going to be driving for a long while. Not sure what is salvageable. About ready to throw in the towel on this.


This one knocks.

So does this one.

So, all the way apart again given all the metal. new bearings, new crank? new con rods? Yeah...

 

[Wheelingnoob]

Ouch....

Any idea what happened yet? Are the wiped out rod bearings together 1-2 or a like? Looks like those rod ends/crank got really hot. How are the crank journals?

I can not imagine how this must feel, good thing you got it now before a rod went flying.


...via IH8MUD app

 

[wrongway around]

s***ty.

 

[Leitrum3]

Ouch....

Any idea what happened yet? Are the wiped out rod bearings together 1-2 or a like? Looks like those rod ends/crank got really hot. How are the crank journals?

I can not imagine how this must feel, good thing you got it now before a rod went flying.


...via IH8MUD app

No idea what happened yet, except that the #6 rod bearing definitely wasn't getting oil, or didn't long enough to do some major damage. Horrific photos below:

I was hoping maybe it was just limited to the bearing which would be easy to swap out, but it's not the case unfortunately. Scoring on the crankshaft journal as you can see in the 2nd photo below. And not only did the bearing get burned up, but the conrod was rubbing against the crankshaft so they were wearing away at each other so it has play front to back. What are the chances that this had an effect to the block as well?

Can you see the groove? Probably hard not to.

Open to ideas and suggestions about how to proceed from here, I'm at a total loss for what to do and why this even happened.

 

[roscoFJ73]

New bearings ,new crank(if needed) and check oil pressure as soon as it starts. Cant see how the block would be affected.
Ive never used Loctite on the crank pulleys Ive done(maybe 4-5 that I remember). They are not under a big load and they have 6 bolts.

 

[Wheelingnoob]

Interesting, those bearings tell a story. Looks like low oil pressure but there is a huge difference in bearing condition from 5 to 6 suggesting possibly a plugged oil galley as well.

On all my engine rebuilds I have used a simple mechanical oil pressure gauge to monitor it at first start.


...via IH8MUD app

 

[Jan-78FJ40]

So sorry to see this, after all the work. No idea what happened. Maybe an oil galley is blocked, as stated.
J

 

[crushers]

you used rebuild grease as you reassembled, correct? (lithium)
when you put the crank in and tighted down the connecting rod, did you rotate the crank by hand to make sure there was no drag?
when the block was tank dipped, did you air blow out the oil journals?
did you plastigage the bearings as you reassembled? i understand you trusted the machine shop but ALWAYS plastigage each and every bearing to confirm the quality of the machine work and to make sure of the clearences. machine shops are manned by humans (yah, i know how stupid that sounds) and humans make mistakes. fight with the wife, kids acting up at home, too much to drink the night before, boss is a prick, what ever the reason, mistakes happen.
ALWAYS double check.
take the engine out
drop the crank
get it turned if possible
new bearings (confirm size availability BEFORE getting crank turned)
double check oil passage to #6 before reassembly
plastigage the bearings before final installation.
reinstall and enjoy.

damn, that sucks.

 

[CycloSteve]

I would also check the #6 rod to be sure that it is 100% in spec. Could be that it was just a wee bit off as the wear to the bearing was not uniform.

 

[IanB]

Breaks my heart to read this, I'm so sorry things went south on your build.

 

[Granite Grinder]

Like others, I have been following your build, really crappy news

 

[BreckenridgeCruiser]

Boo. I have been following this for a while now. Wish I could help in some way.

 

[BCR4619]

So sorry this happened, live and learn is all you can do! *sigh*


...via IH8MUD app

 

[Pacer]

Keep your chin up! You have learned a ton, and have done beautiful work.
Yes its gonna be a time suck, but you are already accustom to life without the cruiser running. Get back on this horse and see it through. Maybe the machine shop will step up and work with you through it. They don't want a public build to be part of their reputation. They want a high profile customer like you to be singing their praises (one hopes).