Sorry this is a very long post. I'm stumped. Any help is very very welcomed!

Truck JUST rolled over 100K miles: 93 idi crewcab 2WD not dually, w/ E4OD, previously a fleet maintained railroad truck. I use it to tow about 7K lbs in 4-14hr stretches and that's about it. I need it to work.

History: Replaced the torque converter and installed a shift kit about 2 years ago because what was likely faulty trailer wiring causing it to burn up.

Previous symptoms: Truck had developed what seemed to be a single cylinder rattle with stream of black smoke while under heavy load, uphill. This could be controlled with throttle position (don't floor it-- just throttle it to the point where rattle starts then back off til it stops). One day, about a year on, it just stopped after what I thought I heard was a dull "pop". Been told it was/is probably bad governor flex ring in IP that was causing detonation. (But smoke was coal black?). Rattle returned at some point but much less problematic.

While going uphill (over The Grapevine, for those familiar with SoCal) I've grown used to sub 30mph climbs with lots of black smoke.

While towing in cold temps very late at night uphill fully loaded (and in a screaming headwind), performance was worse than typical with rattle and smoke really bad (I could tell even at night!). I couldn't avoid that throttle position that caused the rattle and smoke. Speed was 25mph tops. It was bad. When grade lessened it didn't really help any. I kept going. Truck got slower and slower chugging/rattling along just under 20mph. Felt I had to do this to get up over the top. Never showed signs of overheating. Outside temps were below 40.

EVENTUALLY got down the other side and along the flats the speeds were 50, then 40, then 30, then 25. Got off highway at first opportunity to unhook trailer. Truck would barely pull away from stop, black smoke everywhere. Got trailer unhooked and tried to drive truck with about 1K lbs in bed and again, no power wouldn't move. 20-25mph on shoulder. Eventually called and had a tow (it was now morning).

Fast Forward: I buy replacement injector pump and 8 new injectors from O'Reily's (all BWD brands) and installed them plus a new fuel filter plus a return line kit and put an inline electric generic diesel lift pump in tandem with the mechanical pump (to help with bleeding and perhaps the mechanical pump was a problem??). Still rattled like holy hell. I rotate the injector pump towards driver side and I manage to get it to quiet down some, and the smoking to stop some. When I went to try and move it, it won't even move it's own weight. Got pointed uphill ever so slightly and it just crawled to a complete stop all the while jetting black smoke.

NOW:
I finally got a compression tester and had time to do the test. Engine was warmed up a bit and the first thing I did was crack the fitting at each injector while it was running to identify any "dead" cylinders. What I found was that all of the injectors on the right side (Driver side) caused an immediate change in engine sound when I cracked each open. On the left (passenger) side, the change was not very noticeable at all with #7 and #1 and pretty slight with #3 and #5.

My procedure for doing the compression test was to remove 1 glow plug at a time and test that cylinder and reinstall that glow plug before moving on to the next clyinder. (on gas engines I typically leave the spark plugs out for easier cranking as I test each cylinder, but for some reason with this diesel I felt it important to seal up the other holes so I didn't risk getting debris in an open glowplug hole during crankover). As a result, the weak batteries got weaker as I went on. I did swap one out part way through.

In short: All of the cylinders were at about 400lbs and got there in about 3 pumps. I didn't crank and crank until they peaked out because of the aforementioned battery weakening.

First I tested #2 and it was a smidge over 400lbs. Then I tested #7 fully expecting it to be "Dead" or very low since cracking that injector caused no real change in engine idle. But it pumped up to just over 400 maybe 425 in about 5 cranks. I moved to #5 and it too was about 400 but in 3 cranks. So I went back to #7 to test a theory and see if it took 5 or so cranks again to get up to pressure, but it got up to 400 in just 3 cranks. So much for my theory that the cylinder took more cranks to make the same pressure. It didn't.

I checked them all, and each cylinder had it's biggest jump to pressure on it's second crank and the third crank brought it up to about 400 and when I (or rather my helper) saw 400ish with and it was just a small leap to get there I stopped cranking. A couple were just below 400 and a few were just above 400.

What I DID notice (aircleaner removed) was that when I hit the 4th cylinder test the intake started making a distinct thunk thunk thunk can-drumming resonance at crankover. It didn't do this with the first couple of cylinder tests. Not sure what changed to cause this change in sound while cranking nor am I sure if it's of any significance, but I recorded it anyway.

I also recorded it on startup after finishing the compression tests and hooking glowplugs and IP wires back up. I never noticed before, but at shutdown there was a big cloud of vapor or smoke up out of the intake.

Can anyone give me an idea of what to check or do next? I'm stumped. As a friend who is an OBGYN would say, "It's the dreaded normal pap smear."

video link "gabunka-thunk" crankover noise

Post test startup and shutdown

 

just went out and fired up and I cracked injectors and it seems like the entire left (passenger) bank isn't doing anything.

What could cause this? Also, is there a diagram showing where each linke hooks up to where on the pump? I didn't bend any lines, but I suppose it's possible I got something crossed up.

 

smokey runnin'


Pulled the valve cover on the passenger side. Looks normal to me. Odd about the smoke through the pushrod holes since IP wires are unplugged so it wouldn't start.

 

i would check your valves closer, maybe you have a collapsed lifter or something.

since it's doing it while you have the fuel shut off and you have good compression.

other than that i guess check the exhaust and make sure a tube going to that bank didn't get bent?


why wasn't it making the thud sound while you had the valve cover off?

 

Good question. I just rechecked the compression (with that valve cover off and all glow plugs out) and all cylinders were between 425 and 450psi.

Also good point/tip about the exhaust. While there's no crushed tube under there, there ARE 2 "puri-air" catalytic converters, one on each side of the exhaust before they join together... And I once had a Toyota Corolla clog up a cat and it sorta did the same thing. Hmmmm...

-

 

turlemann14, I owe you a beer or something if we ever should meet!

I hate researching previous threads and not learning of the OP's outcome, so I'm posting this in hopes it'll help someone else.

The truck, being a former gov't railroad vehicle, was equipped with a spark arrestor at the end of the tailpipe (a couple of layers of screen) which I'd cut out about 3 months after I bought it. There were some rust flakes and debris in there, which prompted me to take note to yank out the catalytic converters ("exhaust conditioners") in the near future and also look in to replacing that exhaust. Never did this.

So here's what the "conditioners" look like when installed.


You can see the fuel dripping off of (out of!) it. There are two of these, one on each side and immediately after them they join together to form a Y for a single muffler and exiting exhaust pipe.

I undid those v band clamps and tried to drop the Can out, but it was hanging up on something on the rear portion of the exhaust. Finally wrestled it out and here's what I saw inside the can that was supposed to contain the catalytic converter honeycomb material


And I looked up into the exhaust pipe to see what it was hanging up on and... and...



And here it is when I pulled it out of the pipe:


Here is the side that was facing the engine


And here is the side that was facing away


Here is the one I removed from the other side. It seems like it started to slightly punch through, too.




I put the glowplugs back in, aircleaner on (but not the valve cover yet-- need a gasket-- and not the exhaust) and it fired up, blew out a ton of smoke for a few seconds, then idled beautifully.

Halleljuah!

 

Hopefully no long term side effects from washing the whole bank, for what sounds like quite some time. No matter what it didnt do the engine any favors. Moral of the story, emission equiptment is evil, period.

 

If there was ever a time for straight piping...

 

holy........
yeah it's really too bad you didn't cut that bs right out back when you first bought the truck.but thankfully you got it now.she'll go good now,and hopefully the egt's didn't get too crazy,but my guess is,you'd never had wanted to see what a pyro would have read that night.yikes.
least she's all tuned up right on time.so that's good.

mine just rolled over to 100k as well.like yours,there seems to always be something to do to them being so old now.but now at 100k,we probably have trucks better than we did when they had lower miles.i know mine is,and yours sure will be now too with that junk gone.

 

no problem man.

talk about a mess, looks like the new pump is putting enough fuel out to make a little smoke.

 

Is that fuel or oil that clogged up that conditioner?