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Duramax Update

B

Bryce Frazier

Well-known Member
Well, we got the engine pulled out of the truck yesterday. Took about 7 hours for dad and I to completely remove it.

It never ceases to amaze me what a guy will find! Check out the pictures, someone Marine Tex'ed the entire front of the oil pan together. The engine has at some point launched a rod out the bottom and done some major damage. Their "fix" was starting to leak again, and we are VERY happy we decided to pull the engine, rather than just the head.

I do not have any broken rods, that we can see (back 4) but it is one of those that was the hole in question. That tells us there is SOMETHING in the cylinder, which is a chunk of the glow plug we think?

The injector from that cylinder is trashed, the tip of it looks like I hit it with a sledge hammer.

I am working with the injector people to get something going against the glow plug people at this point. He believes that they will at least cover the cost of parts, which I think is fair at this point!

I will do another update when we get the cylinder head off, and see what is going on in there... Thanks! Bryce
 
Pictures
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What I find is interesting. Is that you have to take the whole front apart just to pull an engine. Just like the fords are the same. Why is it that they put the engine almost in the cab of these trucks. Auto makers say because people want a shorter front end on the truck. that is why it took you so long to pull that engine.
 
We wouldn't have had to do all of that if we could have gotten the Torque Converter off of the engine. ( I don't think?)

The crappy part, is that because the engine wouldn't turn a full revolution, we couldn't get to the 6th TC bolt, and had to pull the engine WITH the TC still on there, which added about another 12 inches to the overall length.

I was shocked at how fast all the stuff in the front came out, that only took about 30 min to tear the front end completely down to where it is. Radiators and all that came out VERY easy. They planned on this happening when it was designed in my opinion.
 
A guy at the hardware store said that two guys, at a dealership, can pull the cab off a new Ford in twenty minutes. Maybe Chevy has done the same.
 
Look at the total length of the newer pickups. The wheel base for a four door truck is not much more than the old regular cab long bed pickups had. I park my 1990 Dodge regular cab long bed right beside my sons 2012 F350 four door six foot bed truck, and there is only about six inches difference in length. On the Fords you raise the entire cab to work on the motor. Been that way since the early 2000s. Go into any one working on many Fords and you will see the cabs up on the lifts all of the time.
 
Why can't they just make the front fenders tip up like a big truck, or the whole cab like a cab over? That would be too easy and make it too easy to work on things.
 
The ease of removing the front end, rad,and accessories so effortlessly is something called foresight and good engineering. You don't see that much these days and you are lucky in this case.
 
I was very disappointed the newer ones are not the same. Very hard to change even a headlight bulb.
 
I had a duramax project a few years ago. An injector had melted a piston. It had sat for a while with the head off and had some rust pitting in another hole. Ended up having 2 holes sleeved. There are a lot of parts in a dirtymax. I had parts everywhere.

Fortunately, mine was a c4500. 2 bolts and the hood came off. Pulled the radiator and intercooler and it was pretty open to work on. Also had the doghouse in cab for bell housing bolts.

I think I have some used pistons and rods if you end up needing something.
 
I would be very surprised to find that any foresight concerning maintenance entered into the design planning. Everything is about speed of assembly and designing for assembly without the need for human labor. If it can be maintained easily, that is an accident!

I guess I'm still POed at the guy that designed the heater core placement in my old Ford! 1800 bucks parts and labor for a heater core at the dealer, are you kiddin' me!!! found a good independent for %800, but that's still ridiculous.

Did my daughter's Town&Country the other day, 1 hour and a $40 part.
 
Full skid plates on the bottom, can't see hardly any of the oil pan. And it was such a dripping mess from a blown up hydro boost pump we would have never seen it anyways!
 
Sure would be money ahead if you could stick a 12 valve Cummins in there.

But I think about pulling loads and reliability, not rolling coal.
 
now you know why the last guy got rid of it. Unless you absolutely NEED a diesel , as in the main purpose of the truck is heavy hauling , you are much much better off sticking with a gasser. Once out of warranty they go through thousand dollar bills like candy. Unless you have deep pockets diesels are a big risk. The gasser may have higher fuel consumption but you will lose that savings just with the increased cost in oil changes. They are not very forgiving engines. You are starting to find that out. I wish you luck but if it was me , that thing would be gone as soon as I got it running again.I have been working in Ford and GM dealerships for 30 years and you couldn't give me a truck with a diesel , Ford , Duramax or Cummins.
 
That's true! The only reason I am pouring
money and time into this thing is so that I
can make lots of noise, blow smoke, and drop
nnalert.

Not like I am a farmer pulling tractors and
equipment on a regular basis. Or a guy that
buys fixed and sells cars!

Just a $15,000 pavement princess.
 
I'm with you on this one. I've seen glow plugs come apart before, and other than banging up the head, and ultimately embedding in the top of the piston, they usually don't do this kind of damage.

On the other head when the head comes off a valve, this is exactly what happens.
 
I would agree, the valve broke, no little craters from glow plug , just big craters from valve head . When small parts break like a glow plug they rattle around and have lots of impact marks before it stops or finally imbeds, when valves break you get a few impacts big craters and lots of damage, broken piston and trashed head. The glow plug and injector were collateral damage.
 
(quoted from post at 18:23:36 05/15/17) I would agree, the valve broke, no little craters from glow plug , just big craters from valve head . When small parts break like a glow plug they rattle around and have lots of impact marks before it stops or finally imbeds, when valves break you get a few impacts big craters and lots of damage, broken piston and trashed head. The glow plug and injector were collateral damage.
Click to expand...

Kinda hard to get the valve mfgr to pay for the damage tho....
 
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