That sounds to me like more than one cylinder misfiring. Does it improve as the engine warms up?

 

Definatly sounds like more then one. Sounds like my truck at first start up. I need to check the injectors in mine when I get some time, when cold they are not firing I don't think. As soon as they warm up it runs great.

 

It does get slightly better, however it does not go away completely. I guess there is a possibility that an injector could be 100% stopped up?

 

For lack of an electronic scan tool, it's probably time to get out a set of feeler gauges and start checking armature plate clearances.

 

Are you speaking of the armature plate on the injectors? I believe I have a buddy that is going to help my out this Thursday. He works at a diesel shop and has access to a scanner.

 

Yes. That clearance between the armature plate and poppet body is a good indicator of wear. A new injector starts out at about .004" clearance. When the clearance gets down below about .0015" or so, the injector will begin having problems firing until it starts to warm up.

 

I will have them check the tolerances if I decided to let them do the work. I was quoted $100 for each side. Is that a good deal? Or should I venture in myself to swap out some injectors? Also, what are the symptoms of a dead cylinder?

 

Rough idle.
Rough enough to shake the truck.
Bounce or buck at low rpm with torque converter locked.
High perdel readings on 1 cyl
Failing a cct.
A drastically lower temperature at one exhaust manifold mating port vs. the rest.

 

I thought I heard three valve slaps at 25 seconds.

$100 bucks per side sounds a little low... if they really measure the armature plates. They might just say bad injectors, hoping to get the business.

 

I might have misused the words "dead cylinder," what I meant to ask is what are the bad signs of a cylinder with damage that would require a remanufactured engine or rebuild. I do understand that a near completely clogged up injector could display a "dead cylinder" and just need to be replaced. I am doing my best to gather information before tomorrow and calm my mind. From what clues I have, I just have some faulty injectors. No major blow by, no white smoke from the pipe, and no oil consumption at all.

 

To everyone who took the time to reply to this forum, thank you! I finally got my truck to my buddy with the scan tool. At first it didn't look good because all of the injectors buzzed test perfect and there was no fault codes on the engine. Then, we did a running CCT and injector number 3 was not pulling its' own weight. My buddy replaced the injector for $100 bucks and it took him only about 30 mins... he was VERY fast. My truck now runs like a kitten and he even gave me a free glow plug to use when I need to replace the dead one in my truck. Case in point, if you have a problem get it to a scanner. These trucks love to talk to us

 

Glad it was just an injector.

To answer your question tho...

Blowby is a big indicator.
But really... a compression test should be performed and if possible, a snake camera should be utilized to visually inspect the cylinder wall if one tests bad. I try to rule as much out as possibe before calling "time of death".

 

I kept the old injector once he removed so that I could inspect it. The injector tip has half of the holes clogged up due to what I can conclude is from not changing the oil on the recommended time frame. I just changed the oil no more than 2,000 miles ago, the previous owner must have been slacking a bit. Time for yet another $100 oil change, I looked under the valve covers when he removed them. It was way to dark to only have 2,000 miles on it.