So, I'm working on a customer's truck today. Truck has been sitting for four months. He had injector cups done along with 3 injectors replaced about a month before it went down. A mobile diesel mechanic (and I use the phrase reluctantly at this point) did the work for him in Austin, TX. He contacted me and advised he had blown head gaskets and wanted me to do the work to replace them.
Symptoms:
- after 15 seconds of running, the hoses blow off the degas bottle with great force.

This is a new one on me. I had my doubts, but it sure did blow the hoses off after 15 seconds. I then refilled the system with water, put a pressure gauge on the coolant system, and started it up again. I watched the pressure gauge climb to 25 psi within 15 seconds and off blew the hoses and out came all the water. Well, shucks...

I climbed up on the engine and started looking around. I find RTV smeared all over the UVCH gaskets. Hmmm....that ain't normal. I find missing and loose bolts on both valve covers. I have hell getting the RTV'd valve covers off. There is grey RTV all over the rockers and injector solenoids. Several of the oil spouts are hanging loose on the injectors...one of the bolts is barely threaded into the hold down bracket. ALL the upper bolts on all 8 injectors are loose...some are 4-5 turns from being threaded all the way in. None of the lower bolts are torqued properly. I start pulling injectors to check integrity of the cups...



Three looked like this.

Two looked like this.

Every bore had this soup in it...mixture of white, black and brown goop.

I am at a loss for how ALL 8 cups could fail after being worked on by an alleged "ASE certified mechanic".

I told the customer I felt 99% sure his head gaskets were fine, and he needed to have the cups re-done.

I wanted to get some feedback on this situation before the parts arrive from RiffRaff, and I really hope I can get the old cups out. No telling what he used to seal them in there. Every one of them is leaking badly. I plan to take compression numbers once the new cups are in to be completely sure one of the head gaskets weren't compromised when it got hot after blowing the hoses off the degas bottle the first time.

Now I know what symptom to watch out for when none of the cups are sealing...so that is a plus.

 

Looks like you are all over it. Would not be surprised to see some copper seals under those cups. Seriously bad mechanic. I assume those were new injector o rings... check out the wear!

 

Ummmmm, I have many many words to say, but I will refrain. Is that gray RTV on the injector tip???? Good God man, where do these people come from?

 

I'm willing to go as far as to say that those would be the original inj cups. If the work above was that shotty, and it looks like it was done in a hurry, why would he take the time to replace the cups (being the most difficult part of the procedure).

What a mess. Good luck!

Denny

 

omg glad i didn't find anything like that when i had my injectors out!

 

I feel better about my capabilities after seeing that.

 

In my humble opinion, these engines and systems are very forgiving for people like most of us here on the FTE. We do NOT need to be engineers or certified technicians to work on them, figure them out or resolve most of the issues. Although, there is a layer of common sense that MUST be there and apparently the "mobile diesel mechanic" did not have that layer. Either that or he had a few drinks before arriving on site...

Keep us posted Nicmike as we are all amazed at the carelessness that the "mechanic" had in his work.

 

The truck cranked without a skip, so I'm thinking head gaskets are fine. That said, exhaust gases were leaking into the coolant on all 8 through the cups, so that may be why there is no skip...

Forgot to mention the clamp on the turbo intake was hanging loose as well. Turbo wheel looks ok, but very lightly dusted on the leading edges of the blades. Yes the o-rings are ruined with less than a thousand miles on them. It probably looked like a game of whack-a-mole under the valve covers with the engine running.

I'm going to have to use my old Rosewood injector tools since I can't get the newest design tools from RiffRaff right now. Should be interesting getting the cups out and seeing what's under them. Not looking forward to cleaning that mess out of the bores.

 

Is RiffRaff out of stock? I have a rented kit that I just finished using to install my cups. I wonder if they would direct me to send it to you and then you could send it back?

 

It shows they are out of stock. I doubt they would let you send it on to a third party, but we can ask. It ain't the end of the world using the old Rosewood tools...but would be nice to use the newest invention out there.

 

This stuff right there is the reason I went to wrenching on my own truck 8+ years ago.. I had 2 mechanics, one would lie and replace things it didnt need and I caught the second one replacing parts and damaging other things so he could charge for more hours..

Excellent work, I see you're gonna have a happy customer. 7.3 guys like you are getting hard to find

 

Oh my god, WTF!!! That ain't no "mechanic" work at all, not even a novice back tree mechaninlc would do stuff like that.

IMO say clean out the bores first pressurize the cooling system and see how much coolant is getting past the injector cups. I bet you anything the dude didn't even put sealant on the cups.

 

All the cups are bubbling from the bottom of the cups when I pressurize the coolant system. Not one is sealed properly. The job is on hold until I get the stainless steel cups in from Riffaff on Friday. I will update the saga here this weekend with some more pics and info. Thanks for the feedback, guys. I don't know it all, but I do have some common sense to lean on.

 

You are correct -- they will not.

 

I got Clay on the phone. I have a set on the way. Three cheers for RiffRaff.