75k miles engine toast?

[Mhannink]

tell me what you guys think. i got a call from my buddy this past weekend when he went to reno about his 04. 5 dodge pucking oil out of the breather tube. talked to him a while and he had been pulling highway 80 at a pretty good clip and stopped at the top of donner for a bathroom break comes out and there is a puddle of oil under his truck. like i said it is coming from the breather tube for the whole trip about 4 or 500 miles round trip the truck lost a gallon of oil. while he was up there he started the truck one morning and it was missing and had white smoke till it warmed up. well when he got back and i looked at it we saw a constant heavy stream of white smoke out of the breather tube. there is no oil in the water or water in the oil. just the heavy white smoke at idle out of the breather tube. now my guess judging by the miss when cold and the white smoke both when running cold and regardless of temp out of the breather tube is bad rings. does this sound accurate? like the title of the post says its only got 75,000 miles on it and is completly bone stock. only mod is exhaust no engine modifications. truck is an 04. 5 6spd 4dr long box 4x4. what do ya'll think

 

[wcjp]

injectors, How's the fuel mileage?

 

[AllianceDiesel]

yep sounds like he has cracked injectors

 

[Johnstra]

Bad turbo shaft seal can cause those symptoms. It'll pressurize the crankcase and oil loss can be prolific.

-john

 

[AllianceDiesel]

or it could be injectors sticking open

 

[JCasper]

another vote for Injectors

 

[Cattletrkr]

it is coming from the breather tube for the whole trip about 4 or 500 miles round trip the truck lost a gallon of oil.

"Lost a gallon" on the dipstick or that's about how much was on the ground?

 

[TCluff]

another vote for Injectors

i would bet he lost an injector and burned a hole through a piston..... , been there done that:-laf

 

[JCasper]

i would bet he lost an injector and burned a hole through a piston..... , been there done that:-laf

You guys are all scarin me. Maybe I should go buy a new mega 6. 7 so I have a warranty again.



I have 76K on mine and plan some long trips this summer

 

[Mhannink]

well it went to dodge today so they will look at it and see if i told my buddy that if its a washed cylinder it could be from a bad injector

 

[CumminSense]

what are the symptoms to watch out for when an injector is going bad? Hopefully it's something more that just "running a bit rough". And if it happens, what to do? Is it a "pull off to the side of the road and shut down immediately", as you would do for no oil pressure? Or "limp a few miles into the next town, gentle on the throttle"?

 

[CPavlic]

As a diesel tech at a dealership, I have actually put an engine in an 07 with 38000 miles. Granted, this ol boy worked his truck pretty hard and had the turbo seals go and a bad injector melted a piston. One easy way to check compression is disconnect the injector harness and spin the engine over. If you hear one cylinder spin faster than the other its pretty much a guarantee that you have loss of compression in one cylinder. If not, I would say its an injector but seeing how its loosing oil, thats never good. CumminSense, when an injector goes bad its best to get it looked at as soon as possible but theres not too much of need to pull over and shut down as long as your in somewhat reasonable distance to a repair shop. Seeing as how the injector actually helps keep the piston cooler by injecting fuel, when it goes out, the piston starts heating up and then @#$!. You need a new shortblock. Normly they wont just completely stop working so usually you have a little while to get it repaired.

 

[TCluff]

from experience mine barely ran rough and before i got it pulled over she was done, egts were never hot, had a slight miss while cruising 75mph, no notice in power loss...







View attachment 68593

 

[JCasper]

That's ugly

 

[AllianceDiesel]

Here are a couple of pics from one of about 4 trucks that washed a cylinder down, mainly from high idle times

 

[JCasper]

How much idle time does it take to do that?

 

[AllianceDiesel]

this guy had about 35-40% idle time which means that the truck was idled 35-40% of the life of the truck, anything over 20% is high

 

[JCasper]

Yeah, that's a lot of idle time.



Why wouldn't he ever shut it off?



Is idling at 1,100 OK?

 

[Mhannink]

well dodge says all is normal. humph yeah right ok. they say they cant compression test the engine. so i need you help. whats the procedure for compression testing. i want to throw this back in there face and get them to do it.



also how do you go about testing injectors? obviously a cutout test wont show it.



anyways this doesnt suprise me from dodge but what else do you expect. all please stay tuned for help as i need it along the way.

 

[rbattelle]

When I read the first post my thought was a "dusted" engine rather than a blown injector.

What kind of air filters does he run? How often is it changed? Does he drive in very dusty conditions?

Just another thing to think about besides injectors.

Ryan