So I bought a pete (1992) with a motor knock in it. 3406 b, air to air, spacer plate motor, no jakes, supposed to be 425 but no tag on engine. Dropped pan and one piston has been replaced, and sleeve. The other pistons are looose in the sleeves. Practically fall. I think the knock was actually a piston rocking in a sleeve after it warmed up. We pulled intake piping, and its full of fine dust/rust/ maybe feed mill dust or clay from a end dump trailer. I'm thinking they ruined a air filter and kept driving it in dirty conditions. If you wipe your hand around in it, it comes off all brown and gritty. So I'm figuring the head is probably toast, in addition to it taking out the rings. I'm looking at a couple used engines. This is a couple times a month truck. Question: How is the best way to clean out the intake piping and air to air? I'm thinking carwash and some old sheets and a stick to clean the piping, but I'm wondering about the air to air. I was thinking of filling it with diesel and putting a little air agitation to it, but maybe I should just swap it too. I certainly don't want that stuff in the different engine.
OMG that's been well dusted...!! Loads of hot soapy water and patience. That should work on the aftercooler as well.
My side line business is reading palms, your in luck you just won five toasters! You might want to air test that air charge cooler for leaks first, before getting a bunch of time in cleaning it. I think your going to find a piston with a scuffed skirt. IMO Truck Shop
Some of the parts might be able to fit in a dishwasher. Especially if you take the upper rack out. Arrange it so the jets spray into all the dirty crevices. You decide which dishwasher you might want to use. Don't use dishwasher soap on aluminum parts unless you like the look of barnacles. Jet cleaner soap from a machine shop might be the right thing.
A non-foaming laundry detergent like Cascade maybe..?
I've used a stiff solution of "Oil Eater" and HOT water and let them soak to clean out oil from turbo failures, then use the pressure washer on super with the nozzle removed to circulate from the outlet side to the inlet side, with the inlet side up. Have to build your own adapters. a couple flushes each will get it clean.
Thanks guys, looks like no quick and easy solutions. Probably be car wash for the hot washing, I don't have enough hot water at the shop to do it there. I don't think the wife is going to allow the dishwasher thing, in fact, I never even asked, I try to choose my battles wisely. I'll be sure to pressure check the air to air too. I'll pop a couple tire tubes on there with a valve stem on one and see what I get. Just so I'm thinking about this the right way. You guys that do engine work all the time are more familiar with the costs involved in this than I am. To fix the engine I have, I'm thinking a reman head- mine probably has so much wear from what they ran through it that I doubt it will be rebuildable, but a reman head should be in the range of 1,600-1,800? A inframe kit with pistons, liners, bearings, is also around 2k? Crank would probably be ok, but no guarantee if it wore the rings that bad. The pan was free of any debris, and the engine was running. I'm thinking I could have injector tip damage, and also possible/probable turbo damage. That grit couldn't have been good for the turbo clearances. Lifters? I guess the dirty intake air probably didn't do the air compressor any good either, but it was still building air. Need new head bolts and gasket set. Anything I'm forgetting? Anyways, I think I'm staring at 5-6,000 in parts, best case. I still want to add jakes also. And I'll be real honest, I don't have time to rebuild it myself. And my own shop mechanic isn't really a diesel engine guy. I looked at a used engine for 4,500 the other day in a running truck, I've got another one found for 1,000 less, that has the jakes on it that I need, and I can hear it run before buying. Another guy has a takeout (that I wouldn't get to hear run) under 3,000. I have a standing core offer of $1,200 for my engine. The swapping engines, I personally feel more comfortable doing, much more so than rebuilding the engine. I just don't do it everyday. I'd like to stay under $4,000 in getting the truck back running, and I just don't see that happening with rebuilding the engine I have. I could easily double that number if I end up needing a crank and a few other things (turbo, air compressor, injectors, crank etc.) and paying some labor. Of course then I would know exactly what I would have, but I'm not running everyday. $3,500 used engine $1,200 core value mine $2,300, for running used engine with jakes, plus our install labor. vs. $1,800 reman head $2,000 inframe kit $700 air compressor (maybe) $500 turbo (probably) $400 regrind crank (maybe) $600 injectors (maybe) Plus labor to rebuild, and I'm kind of guessing on the parts costs, I could be way off. I think I'll be knocking on 6-8 grand. Looks like used engine to me, but I'm willing to entertain other ideas.
I went though an N 14 Cummins about a year back that was severely dusted, the fine grit had circulated in the oil and had taken out the cam, cam bearings, and followers too, basically any thing that rotated in oil. Total out of frame overhaul, hit around 20K with some work on the truck too.
This 14L DDEC IV 550 Hp had a price tag of $16,000 when I finished and that is a company in house. One thing with buying aftermarket, the pistons, rings and rods won't be loaded in the liner-only genuine Cat does that. Because that engine was dusted you will need the rods rebuilt with new wrist pin bushings. And you will need to check the deck surface where each liner sets-if it's pitted or there is erosion the block will need to be cut for liner shims. It may already have been cut for shims but it can still erode below the shims. And like RZ said the camshaft bushings probably need replaced and one other area is the bushings for the bull gear and gear train behind the front structure. Plus the intermediate plate between cylinder head and block could be eroded. Many things to think about, your a good guy on here and I don't want to see you have problems. If I was closer I would do it for you in a heart beat. Truck Shop
The running used engine would be hard to beat you will be well into the teens to build it probably close to 20
Thanks for the info guys, and appreciate the offer of the help truck shop, that would be above and beyond, thank you. I was pretty sure the used motor was the way to go, and this all confirms this. If I was on the road all day every day, cross country, a $16,000 rebuild might make sense, but not for the miles that I'm likely to do with it. Sounds like I'd probably be in for even more damage in the dusted motor, than I was planning on. This truck is going to replace my newer international, that only has a M11 in it. The international is fine on my rollback trailer up to 80,000. But its just not enough truck if I need to put it under my detach lowboy. If I'm going to have 2 trucks anyways, they should be able to pull either trailer. I'd actually prefer to just swap motors, it probably suits my attention span, (and attention to detail span), much better than engine rebuilding. When guys start talking thousandths, my eyes get a little blurry. Thanks again everyone.
Crane Op... one thing you really need to do if that engine does not have a tag, is get the VIN of the donor truck and ask the nearest dealer to get you a serial number and arrangement number for that engine and save that info if you ever need parts. Telling the Cat house it's a "yellow engine" wont get you far on most parts. I once ordered a turbo from Peterbilt by VIN of the truck I was working on in a hurry, Got a Cat turbo for a C-15... Somebody had installed a Series 60 Detroit in the truck to replace the C-15. Go figure. At least the Detroit had tags on it. We need a Carfax for heavy trucks I guess. The owner knew it was repowered and didn't tell me.
Thanks Rzucker. I've been down that road with Cat. I used to have 3208's in two of my cranes and neither had tags for the engines. Neither had " original" engines, one had been upgraded to a turbo version. I don't think there is a original 3208 in anything, I never had much luck getting any life out of them. (granted, the factory was asking a lot out of it to drag around a 50,000lb crane). First go around with Cat was a learning experience about the tag. One engine had a Cat reman tag on it, serial # and everything, no good for getting parts. Pull the injector pump and intake, they said, and the casting number is right under there. I went online and came up with a "imaginary" serial number to get the part I needed. I think it was a gasket set for the oil cooler, either that or a rear main seal, both of which on the 3208's I think are the same part no matter what serial # they have. But the cat parts man wasn't doing any digging around and searching until I came up with a serial #. Which isn't easy on really old stuff. So I did a little creativity with a imaginary serial #. And while we're talking about 3208's, if anyone ever needs a rear main seal installer, I have one sitting on my shelf. The old service manager at cat let me use theirs the first time I needed it. The second time they had a new manager who said "bring the crane up here and we will do it". The transmission is laying on the floor of my shop with the bell housing off the engine, and I'm going to drive it a hour away. "oh, well the mobile guy can do it next tuesday". No- I need the crane tomorrow. "Well- we can order you a seal install tool, it can be in next tuesday, its $1,500." I ordered one online for like $600 (probably from the same company that makes it for cat), I should have just beat the seal in with a piece of pipe. But anyways if anyone ever needs one let me know.
Back in my Heyday we had a rebuild shop with a engine dyno to proof test what we built. Customer wanted the low down on how much dirt a engine can handle as they were scrimping a bit on service work expenses and questioned continuing to run trucks that tipped over that were not badly damaged and tipped back up. Took a borderline inbound for OH NTC400 BCII, in a engine cradle set it up on the dyno. Was pulling a decent 385hp and at max torque where the foreman took a kitchen table spoon to a pile of floor sweeping, sprinkled them in the intake til gone. Engine HP dropped to 300, torque cut by over half, engine sounded like crap all in less than 3 minutes, turned cradle on side to starve oil pump at power, 37 seconds that engine was locked tighter than Dick's Hatband.
Chop the tanks off the charge air cooler, clean & tig it back together.