I bought this older truck , for the farm and just local stuff. Price was in my range for something that may sit a lot. It has a few issues first off the engine is a cat 3208 and smoke heavy when starting ,after warm clears up to very slight amount, second is king pins are worn and third is box has lots of play, Not to worried about other stuff just the heavy smoke , runs rough like a miss when idling cold and will stall, looking for some help any maybe a cheap fix??? https://youtu.be/X2s_AN2mflk
If I didn't know better I would think that was a video of the plow truck we had where I worked, that was a GMC with a 3208! We were more or less given the thing as the town that had it gave up on it when the rear axle actually fell out due to rust. We had it for a couple years before before I retired and I was never given the chance to even try to diagnose the problem. One of those things where they don't want to work on it in the winter as they may need to plow snow in the morning and during the other 9 months out of the year it's not snowing so truck is parked and other things are more important. Hope someone with experience on 3208's can chime in with ideas. Our's always seemed to start pretty good, it had a remote block heater we plugged in if parked outside when real cold but even without that in the 40 to 50 degree temps it would start with out any aid, so I was thinking it had pretty good compression. Best guess was one or more bad injectors, or maybe timing was a bit off.
It's a direct injection engine, so assuming the valves are OK then it pretty much has to be injectors. The way I am told they were designed to be cheap, but turned out expensive, so it is the worst of both worlds, cheap design with expensive price. If I understand you right, it cleans up when warm, and if that is the case, lots of diesels of that era were like that, they built them to run when warm and starting and cold running was up to you to figure out. Although 3208s that I have worked with were all very easy starting engines.
The 3208 is gonna smoke. When it's cold you don't want to start it inside anything. I doubt there's anything actually wrong with it. I was told the piston are slightly egg shaped until they get hot. Supposedly to lower compression when cold. I don't know if that is true but I know that if they turn over they will start. They may smoke out an entire parking lot but it'll be the one engine on the coldest day of the year that you can bet it'll start.
My wrecker's got a 3208 in it. It always starts right up, but it smokes like a used freight train for the first mile or two.
Thank you so much for the input everyone!!!So the smoke may be normal, but during Starting It won't hold and idle unless you hold pedal down, you can feel the engine miss , question is does the 3208 cat start up cold and have a smooth idle? Or rough? How long is crank time on a these cold? Not to familiar with the bigger trucks, biggest I am on is 450 or 550 superduty at my dealer with glow plugs! Lol
All I can say is the one we had where I retired from would make you physically sick from the smell of the raw fuel and don't think it ever really cleaned up even when warm. You would actually loose sight of the truck until it got warmed up some but even then the smell was a killer. And I spent lots of time around old naturally aspirated Macks with END707-711 engines so I know a stinky truck when cold! Despite the smoke and bad smell ours would run smooth and idle as soon as it fired up. With the small tank type block heater on ours it would probably start with 5 to 10 seconds crank time with outside air temps in the 20's. In the fall after it had set since spring time if the batteries were charged up in would also fire up just as good and smoke just as bad on a 50º day. If it was my truck I'd be tempted to pull injectors and have them tested and do a valve adjustment just for fun. If you need valve setting or other spec's let me know by Private Message, also know as PM on the forum.
They will run clean if the injectors are new and the engine is tight, but most are seldom in that condition. The last one I overhauled, puffed white for a few seconds then cleared right up. I put all 8 injectors in new at 50$ apiece IIRC but that's been 6 years ago. If you are getting a little air in the fuel, it will cause white smoke because the air compresses and retards the injection timing. Just a thought.
I've never tried to start mine below about 25f, but down to that it doesn't turn more than 2 or 3 seconds before it runs, and it idles smooth immediately. If you let it idle a while even when warm, then suddenly rev it up, like to wind the cable in or something, it'll blow a cloud of smoke that'll make your eyes water for a few seconds.
I am excite to smoke out the road!. Rolf . I was going to put fresh fuel and change fuel and air filter, In mean time i will see if i can get a video of cold start rough idle.
Back in the early 80's I worked fo a company that had 20 little Internationals with 3208s, most were exactly the same on startups. We never really worried much about injectors or pumps unless they ran rough or knocked. I do know of a drill rig with a 3208 that only shows 16,000 miles on the carrier, I think its a '75 vintage engine. Smokes up the county when it starts but runs fine after warmup. As a sidenote... I recall one of those Internationals had so much blowby somebody had run a 1" hose from the breather tube to behind the drive axle. It was kind of funny watching people try to figure out where the "smoke" was coming from. Thing still ran good though. We kept 2 cat remans on the floor and 3 Allison transmissions as spares. I had enough practice, I could change out a trans in 80 minutes if I was left alone.
I met a local guy about 50 or so, told me he used to drive for agway in a gmc with a 3208 cat , says top speed was 55mph but it ran and started clean. Also stated it was the only truck in the fleet that started on 10 degree days! . I see the 3208 has a the love or hate em relationship. I notice there is alot in marine use! Found the engine tag on mine . Cleaned it off its read its re manufactured by cat! the engine has a high price tag for reman ,what makes them so costly to rebuild?
Check the fuel pump timing. 3208s run a lot better at startup if you advance them a little fromm the normal pin to pin timing. It may also have a timing advance in the front drive gear that has problems.
Pull the injectors, either just swap them all for new or have them checked at the local pump shop. They're probably dirty/damaged tips and/or popping at a lot lower pressure than they're supposed to putting the fuel in too soon. One bit of advice, the injectors are under the valve covers and use short jumper lines to connect to a bulkhead fitting. After any service where you disturb those jumpers, make sure they're tight, and recheck them after a short interval of days. I have seen cases where they came loose and filled the pan with diesel. No need to worry about fuel dilution, once the diesel gets high enough for the crank vent system connected to the air intake to start sucking it in, the engine will run away nicely and if the driver can't get it killed quickly with the gearbox and brakes the engine will disassemble itself loudly.
Dam that would suck! > HD5 Dozer with a 271 detriot started to run away it was interesting being it was the first time i encounter something like that!. Thanks for the heads up on the injector line, I am used to replacing the lines at ford. they say its one time use only, But one its your own bucks that hurts!
Yeah, detroits will do that if they've been setting or get bad fuel, the injector metering plunger sticks on one injector, then the whole rack is unable to cut back.
Or if some dummy is setting the rack and forgets the shut down lever is pulled out! Sure gets interesting when you crank up a 12V-71 and RPM's just keep climbing! At least the error was discovered very fast and the emergency shut-down was working good on that engine. Don't have to worry about that any more that guy retired last April!
LOL, DUH, Wonder who that was that retired. Thanks for sharing that. You make me feel better about some of my blunders. Those whom never screw up never tried anything.
There was so much fuel in engine ,After disassemble i found the injector tip missing, i thought ice was the cause , but never really knew why tip came off, I am way to familiar now with that rack set up! lol Hours and hours of trying to find why it had a hard start after repair, I eventually pulled the injectors back out and was told they were the wrong one numbers for that application, swapped another set in she start a lot better for an old dozer. The craziest thing about the 2-71 was it ran on one cylinder.
Water in fuel can cause a tip to come off. Water is thicker than fuel and those tip holes are very small. Well I bet that was a nice clean Detroit at least for a little time!
Well it's like an instructor for Detroits told us, he was often asked how one could get to be an instructor. He said once you made all the mistakes then you are qualified to be an instructor. Not sure I made all of them but sure got close!
Back to questions, I changed air filter, and fuel filter, the question is when I unscrewed fuel filter i hear a suction noise as the seal broke ,the filter was 1/2 full of fuel, Is that normal? I warmed up vehicle and drove before i changed filter,
I see more diesel filters that seem partially full when changed than ones that try to overflow so I would say that is not a problem in itself unless there is another problem to go with it.
To me that would indicate a fuel supply problem. The sucking noise seems strange.
I am not sure if there is an issue yet with fuel system other than some injectors that may be missing. I was thinking maybe be it was draining back and that's why its hard start and 1/2 empty, But on other hand i was also thinking with the noise that came out if it was under vacuum how could it bleed back , if there was a leaking hose or line it would not been under vacuum it would be more like atmospheric psi???
The sucking noise could be the fuel draining back to the tank, The only check valves are in the cheapo priming pump usually. A good check valve at the tank outlet would alleviate a lot of priming problems. In the last ten years I've actually had 6 Cat primers that were junk out of the box, I once considered making an electric on demand primer that would replace that one shot POJ pump. Seems like when you really need it on the side of the road is when it absolutely WILL NOT work. Rant over.