Heater grid bolt failure

[p-Bar]

I had glow plugs in my 85 Ford diesel. Worst thing ever. Tore up the batteries , I know the grid heater does too. If they stay on too long they bend and you can't get them out. Got to the point I would just plug it in on a timer to turn on at 4 in the morning and it would fire right up.

 

[robert31]

I ended up taking the banks kit, the bulletproof Diesel egr cooler and their steel waterline connector that replaces the stock plastic part as well as a new ccv filter to a diesel shop a few miles away for installation.

I didn’t want to mess with the fuel system.

got it back Tuesday, and it looks great.

anyone thinking that you will get higher performance, you’re going to be disappointed.

no noticeable change.

but the peace of mind over the heater grid failing is worth the price of admission!

L

I am thinking of having the same stuff done to my 2024, in addition to the Banks boost tubes. How much did that run you in labor, if you don't mind me asking.

 

[sag2]

EGR cooler failures have been few and far between. I would not spend the money to replace the cooler, and especially the boost tubes. That is another item that rarely fails, and any alleged performance gains would probably not be noticed.

 

[BigPapa]

does anyone personally know ( I don't mean read about it on the internet ) a Ram Cummins owner who had a grid heater bolt failure?

I asked the same question in this thread and never got a good answer….

https://www.turbodieselregister.com/threads/the-infamous-grid-heater-nut.272944/

 

[Grumpy8811]

I asked the same question in this thread and never got a good answer….

https://www.turbodieselregister.com/threads/the-infamous-grid-heater-nut.272944/

at this point I think grid heater bolt failure is more of a phobia than a reality.

 

[BigPapa]

Well, just this morning we discovered a bus with the bolt broken off and down in the head. Got it out before it fell in. Also found another one loose. That will be four loose and one broken in the past twelve months out of 600 buses.

 

[Learjet]

Well, just this morning we discovered a bus with the bolt broken off and down in the head. Got it out before it fell in. Also found another one loose. That will be four loose and one broken in the past twelve months out of 600 buses.

Your comment doesn't sound like a phobia to me.

 

[Grumpy8811]

Well, just this morning we discovered a bus with the bolt broken off and down in the head. Got it out before it fell in. Also found another one loose. That will be four loose and one broken in the past twelve months out of 600 buses.

how many piston or cylinder head damage or failures directly attributable to a grid heater bolt so far?

 

[BigPapa]

I’m not sure that we’ve had any actual damage or failures directly related to it, YET. We do have two buses at the dealer waiting for estimates for replacing the engine. I don’t know what the failure was on them.

Like I said, they did find the bolt in the head today. The tech said it was “way in the back, about to fall into the engine.” He got it out with a spring magnet rod after removing the intake cover. They inspected several other buses today and found two more with loose bolts. They’ve requested I stock four Intake Covers.

So far, all they’ve found are 2014 buses all made within weeks of each other. They talked to our Cummins rep and he said they won’t do anything about it and there isn’t a campaign on it so far. He referenced the issue on the Rams and that it was determined to be hanging relays causing it. He said he recommends we also replace the relays even though the buses use a totally different relay than the Rams.

We’ll see how it shakes out.

 

[BigPapa]

I found out this morning that we have one bus that the bolt did go through one engine. They think it is repairable. The other engine failures were not related. One had the HP Pump come loose and trashed the gear train. The other dropped a valve.

 

[Grumpy8811]

I found out this morning that we have one bus that the bolt did go through one engine. They think it is repairable. The other engine failures were not related. One had the HP Pump come loose and trashed the gear train. The other dropped a valve.

having worked on these... my guess would be worst case scenario for that small of an object( grid heater bolt) making its way into the combustion chamber
would be the piston may need to be replaced and the head repaired/replaced and the damage would be confined to one specific cylinder.
its also possible that grid heater bolt just gets forged into the top of the piston and no one is ever the wiser.

I have seen engines were a small bolt made its way into a cylinder and had been there for a long time, just hammered down into the piston crown... no cracks or anything else in the piston
just a deformed bolt in the piston crown and a few small nicks in the head..

one of the more unusual things I saw over the years was on a Cummins L10 which has Siamesed intake ports, cylinder #4 having very low compressions and a misfire , after removing the cyl head find all the damage was to cylinder #3 because part of a valve head on #4 broke off and apparently made its way into #3 thru the shared intake port and the piece of #4 valve beat the snot out of cylinder #3.. but #3 was not misfiring.

neat what some of these engines can survive without any one knowing.
They are not delicate little flowers.

 

[Ozymandias]

I once dropped a spring washer into the intake of a beater car, wasn't worth to disassemble it for. So I started ist up, it hammered for some time but quiet out after some time and run for 3 more years without any problem from this.

 

[petersonj]

In the late Seventies I owned a mobile auto repair business. A customer called and said that he was rebuilding a carburetor in place on his engine (a V-8). He said he dropped a steel check ball into the intake and he could hear the ball rattling when he started the engine. He said that he had run the engine briefly a few times. I went to his location and told him I would need to run the engine briefly again to hear which bank of cylinders the ball was in. This would help determine which head to remove.

When I started the engine, the rattling briefly occurred, stopped, and occurred again. I shut off the engine. I started the engine again and immediately shut it off when rattling paused. I removed the intake manifold and found the steel ball laying on top of an intake valve just inside the head. Of course, I removed it. The fellow drove the car for three more years and brought the car to me for a valve grind (typical at the mileage on the engine for those times). When I removed both heads, I found evidence in seven cylinders that the steel ball had peened the heck out the top of the pistons. I was amazed how quickly that ball could get to that many cylinders using the intake manifold as a highway.

- John

 

[Diesel85]

In the late Seventies I owned a mobile auto repair business. A customer called and said that he was rebuilding a carburetor in place on his engine (a V-8). He said he dropped a steel check ball into the intake and he could hear the ball rattling when he started the engine. He said that he had run the engine briefly a few times. I went to his location and told him I would need to run the engine briefly again to hear which bank of cylinders the ball was in. This would help determine which head to remove.

When I started the engine, the rattling briefly occurred, stopped, and occurred again. I shut off the engine. I started the engine again and immediately shut it off when rattling paused. I removed the intake manifold and found the steel ball laying on top of an intake valve just inside the head. Of course, I removed it. The fellow drove the car for three more years and brought the car to me for a valve grind (typical at the mileage on the engine for those times). When I removed both heads, I found evidence in seven cylinders that the steel ball had peened the heck out the top of the pistons. I was amazed how quickly that ball could get to that many cylinders using the intake manifold as a highway.

- John

Reminds me of some of the YouTuber channels with them using old car engines to put stuff into the intake... they used an old Durango as a vacuum cleaner. They attached a vacuum cleaner hose on with some duct tape and vacuumed up sand and dirt. Amazing how long that thing ran sucking in pure dirt!

 

[Cummins12V98]

I once dropped a spring washer into the intake of a beater car, wasn't worth to disassemble it for. So I started ist up, it hammered for some time but quiet out after some time and run for 3 more years without any problem from this.

dropped a valve in my sons 3rd gen. Bent the pushrod. Screwed up installing injectors doing the valve adjust.

Head has a few pecker marks but a little valve seat work it will be good enough.

So based on pics I think piston needs to be replaced and connecting rod to be safe. Hit the cylinder with a hone.

It’s number 5 so dropping the pan and doing the swap shouldn’t be too hard. Thoughts? Wish I knew if the piston was actually fractured or not.

View attachment 142706

 

[Grumpy8811]

dropped a valve in my sons 3rd gen. Bent the pushrod. Screwed up installing injectors doing the valve adjust.

Head has a few pecker marks but a little valve seat work it will be good enough.

So based on pics I think piston needs to be replaced and connecting rod to be safe. Hit the cylinder with a hone.

It’s number 5 so dropping the pan and doing the swap shouldn’t be too hard. Thoughts? Wish I knew if the piston was actually fractured or not.

View attachment 142704 View attachment 142705

View attachment 142706

chances are the rod is good.. probably just a piston and rings will take care of it.

 

[Cummins12V98]

chances are the rod is good.. probably just a piston and rings will take care of it.

He talked to a good machine shop SE of Dallas and they said the same thing. They also said the pecker marks on the head are only visually bad. They will test the head and do what's needed to make it good again. Nice thing is they have good used parts so it won't cost much to get it back to running condition. He learned that you need to listen to that little voice when it says "that doesn't feel right". The also said they would lend him a hone and the scuffing and scratch mark will most likely hone out. Crazy thing is it ran fine! It would smoke a bit at start. Stoped at AutoZone for something and it would not turn over. Thought the starter was bad and changed to a new one in Parking lot, still no start. I think it stopped right when piston was coming up near top of stroke and something moved and caused the piston to go no further. At 300k it looked good in the cylinder walls.

 

[Grumpy8811]

maybe the val

He talked to a good machine shop SE of Dallas and they said the same thing. They also said the pecker marks on the head are only visually bad. They will test the head and do what's needed to make it good again. Nice thing is they have good used parts so it won't cost much to get it back to running condition. He learned that you need to listen to that little voice when it says "that doesn't feel right". The also said they would lend him a hone and the scuffing and scratch mark will most likely hone out. Crazy thing is it ran fine! It would smoke a bit at start. Stoped at AutoZone for something and it would not turn over. Thought the starter was bad and changed to a new one in Parking lot, still no start. I think it stopped right when piston was coming up near top of stroke and something moved and caused the piston to go no further. At 300k it looked good in the cylinder walls.

View attachment 142723 View attachment 142724 View attachment 142725[/QUOTE

maybe the whole valve only fell on top of the piston when he shut it down, and then locked up..?

 

[Cummins12V98]

maybe the val

yea who knows! Overall I would say he got lucky it was not worse.

 

[Tuesdak]

They also said the pecker marks on the head are only visually bad.

The PO of my 2003 did the same thing to me: the head looked like this "craters on the moon" one when we pulled it looking for an engine knock. 2003 HO's were known to drop valve seats. Cummins was amazed the engine ran. Turns out after a used head it still knocked. After an engine rebuild it still knocked in part because of low oil pressure of re-using the oil pump. On final teardown the "sleeve" they used had a low spot in it that survived 0.20" oversize. The opinion was the sleeve was moving. Maybe material missing from the cylinder wall behind the sleeve?

As it's a lot of labor to "get there" I'd get a different head without that damage. For one each dent is a potential for a crack to start.