Bad Report

[scatgo]

Can someone Give me a idea wat is going wrong in my motor?
How long do you think it will last with the high metals?

 

[Steve S]

Just a wild guess, check the turbo. maybe the oil cooler? Also search the powerstroke sites.

 

[dsmith41]

Is this older Rotella? Don't look CJ-4 to me.

 

[scatgo]

I am not worryed about the coolant in the oil. I think I have that fixed. Its the lead and iron that I want to bring down. The turbo can cause this? I think I have steel grinding away somewhere and that is bring up the lead. I have found filings on the drain plug the last two times I change the oil.
I was using Rotella dino. Switched to Rotella synthetic on the last change.

 

[sdan27]

What did you fix that was the cause of your coolant contamination? Some of the high levels you saw on your latest report could have been metals that didn't get completely drained from the previous OCI. Especially with a PSD when about 3 quarts old oil are kept in the heads and high pressure reservoir. I'm guessing the high iron and lead are have something to do with the coolant contamination as they both went up at the same time. Did you change the oil at 426 miles or just take a sample? If you have your coolant leak fix, I'd do a 3000-5000 mile OCI and see what that looks like.

 

[scatgo]

I changed the oil on 11/08/09. I put about 200 miles on the new oil when I got the report back saying there was coolant in the oil. Did a repair on the oil cooler that I know had coolant leaking out of the gasket where the end cap bolts to the block. I just sent a sample in without a change after the repair so I have a base # to see if the repair worked. Ill send in another samlpe in a few hundred miles and if the coolant dont go up I know the repair did the trick. Then I will need to find out why
Lead and iron are always high.

 

[sdan27]

Rereading your previous post, I see what you said about the filings you found. I kind of doubt it's from your turbo. I had a post on here about a poor oil report on a 7.8L Ford diesel and I had high copper, lead and iron. I found the turbo to be excessively worn but I would think if that were the case with you, you'd be seeing higher levels of copper as your turbo bushings would be wearing excessively at the same time as the turbo shaft. Have you ever had to do any repairs on your front gear train? When I worked at this truck shop for time, there was one truck that always had a lot of filings when you drained the oil. This truck had a gear that had come loose and tried to push out through the front cover, thus producing excessive metal filings/wear.

 

[scatgo]

What gear could come loose?

 

[sdan27]

On the application I was referring to, it was a Cummins L10 and I think it was the cam shaft gear that came loose. I've never done it on a Powerstroke but on a few other engines I've had apart, you have to remove the cam gear from the cam shaft in order to take the inner portion of the front cover off if it needs to be resealed or replaced or whatever.

 

[sdan27]

I thought about it a little after I posted and realized, on a Powerstroke application, if your cam gear was coming off, it would more than likely wipe out your cam sensor and then the engine wouldn't run at all. I have an engine manual I'll look at over the weekend and see what else could be the culprit.

 

[scatgo]

Thanks

 

[CourierDriver]

sounds like u need to pull the pan and see whats wrong inside, like a surgeon with a wrench and a bright lite........

 

[sdan27]

The only gears in a powerstroke are the crank gear and the cam gear. really tough to say where it might be coming from. Does the engine have any other unusual noises or running issues?

 

[scatgo]

Runs good sounds good but you know how it is diesels are so loud it hard to tell if somethig is off. Maybe HPOP gear.

 

[scatgo]

Only way to get the pan off is to pull the engin. Something I really dont want to do.

 

[sdan27]

It would be pretty easy to pull the HPOP gear? Have you ever had that gear off/out before?

 

[scatgo]

No never did, Do you know if you would be able to see it if you pull the plug on top of the resivour?

 

[sdan27]

On the front side of the reservoir, there's a plate that's held on by two 10mm bolts and some rtv. If you take that plate off you can get at the bolt that holds the gear onto the pump shaft. The gear can't go anywhere but be sure not to drop the bolt as I think it would be possible for that to fall down into the front cover. Be careful when you go to put it back on and make sure that the gear goes back on straight. I've heard some people have had issues with that too. If you took the high pressure oil reservoir top cover right off, I think that would allow you to remove the gear and get a real good look at it. I think its only held on by five or six bolts. I think there's an o-ring gasket and some rtv that seals the cover that you'd probably want to replace. I have an extra of the o-ring gasket. If you like, PM me your address and I can mail it to as I'm probably never going to use it.