I guess you only need one egt gauge now how you like the dark side

 

I forgot about that hole. I had to fix that leak a few years ago. Thanks everyone for all your input. I'll post my findings.

 

It is surprisingly fun, permagrin is still there every time I touch the skinny pedal and hit a big bump, my back doesn't hurt anymore after driving a long distance, my wallet is happier when I fill up and do the math on mpg.... I do miss the stance and tough look of my SD though. It wasn't on the lot a week and sold. I haven't hooked anything heavy to it yet, EGTs are higher at crusing speed... 800* but never see more then 1200 wot.

 

What does the smoke smell like?
Raw diesel? Coolant? Oil?

I concur with this, sounds like a cracked tip.

I don't think you will have an easy time getting a bore scope to the bottom of all the cylinders through the oil drain plug. The crank and rods will likely be in the way too much.

 

Nope. However I didn't run the engine very long that way. I happened about 2 blocks from my house so I just idled back home and shut it down. It sounded like a sledgehammer was smashing around inside the engine block. I pulled all 8 injectors and sent them to Rosewood for testing. It wasn't visibly obvious to me which injector might be the culprit because it has a very fine split line in the nozzle. When the injector was pressurized, it started spraying everywhere so that was the smoking gun. I had them rebuild the injectors with 8 new nozzles and the engine has been running well ever since. That was about 100k miles ago....

 

I never check the smell of the smoke, looked like unburned fuel kind of like what you'd see on a real cold morning but just one puff not 8. I really didn't want to run it long enough for me to run back and sniff. I will try to run the borescope in through the dip stick fitting hole in the pan but I wouldn't have time to do that until this weekend.
Thanks again and I'll post my findings.

 

Well work has kept me from getting to this until now. I ran the endoscope through the dip stick hole and could only see the bottom side of four pistons. Didn't see anything that looked suspicious. I've never been into a 7.3 before and the distance between the rod and piston looked a little excessive from what I'm use to seeing but they all looked the same. I pull all of the sticks out and other than o-rings really bad and starting to leak no real " found it " moments. One injectors clamp bolt was quite loose compaired to the others and when I pulled it, it was almost spotless from the last o-ring down. I thought "a ha" at that point but on closer inspection, I could'nt see anything really wrong other than the o-ring was shot. Could that cause the sluge hammer knock? Does anyone know a ballpark cost on having the injectors tested? I'll post some pic's later but wanted to get this out before I hit the hay.

 

Low torque on an injector bolt will absolutely cause an obnoxious knock and a fog bank - that was my second video. I say pop 'em in with new rings, leave the VCs off, and fire it up. It will be a bit "bangy" until the air gets worked out of the oil - you might have to powerbrake it. You need to retorque the sticks after the engine is warm anyway, so having the VCs off for the first warm-up is a good practice.

 

I would not call it an obnoxious knock. I would call it scare your hair white, sludge hammer to the block knock.

 

Alright, I was going to post some pic's but having issues. Page seems to freeze every attempt.

 

Well, my worse fear is realized. My knock is a spun #6 rod bearing. I pulled my injectors and other than needing o-rings, looked pretty good. I used a loupe to look at the nozzles and they all looked good. I put it all back together with new o-rings and fired it up and although the smoking was a lot less it was still knocking. I pulled the left head and found #6 piston had been hitting the head. So out came the engine and pulled 6, yep spun bearing..great. So now I have the motor in pieces for a full rebuild. It baffles me why it spun. I change the oil as religiously and use Rotella 5-40. Truck only used a little oil when pulling hard and never looked very sooty when changed. I wasn't working it hard when it went, less than 2 k rpms on the hiway?? I was hoping I could get another 100k before it needed this kind of work. Oh well it's only money......

 

Can a injector malfunction to cause to much fuel to dump into a cylinder enough to put a put it into an almost hydro-lock condition which would hammer the rod bearing? Or would it just blow a gasket or bend a rod? just thinking...

 

The injector reloads to capacity before firing and that's it. It's not like fuel can "flow" from the fuel rails straight in... except in the case of a very loose injector.

 

That's what I thought but I'm not too familiar with this style of injector. I'm thinking of putting my old ones back in and try them after I get my motor back together. If they'll work ok, i'll swing for new ones after I recovery from the motor expense.

 

Man... I feel for yuh. You're getting one solid hit, I'm dying of a thousand cuts. Good luck!