% of 6.2/6.5 cracked blocks?????

[Rob4]

I have seen many comments in the forum about cracks in the 6.5 blocks that basically convert the block into a very heavy door stop. I have also seen some folks saying the same thing with regard to cracks in the 6.2 block. My 6.2 runs great at this time. My 6.5 also ran great until it developed a cracked piston that led to the discovery of a cracked block. Realizing that the discusions in TDP center around problems associated with the diesels and not many (if any) people contact TDP to say how great their truck is running, my question is this. Does anybody have any statistics (or gut feelings) as to what percentage of the 6.2 or 6.5 blocks actually experience a block failure due to poor block design? I am looking for a replacemnt 6.5 engine and am wondering what the odds are of buying trouble with a used engine or even a reman. down the line. Any thoughts? I hope this thread doesn't sound too dumb

[JohnC]

I think it would be hard to get any accurate numbers, but, (these may not be too accuate, either, but the trend is valid) there are several thousand members of these forums and several more thousand members of theDieselPage.com. Out of all these folks we seem to have at most a couple dozen catastrophic failures, some of which have been engines running on the ragged edge.

No, not dumb!

[Cowracer]

I would bet under 1% total, counting all trucks, HMMWVs, Hummers, Motorhomes, Boats, and Dobbertin Surface Orbiters that are out there.

Tim

[EWC]

I don't know about failure , but I went through about 10 blocks , running and not , before I got ahold of a good 6.2 block to rebuild .

[Robyn]

The numbers that see a catastrophic failure are small.

Many will run well over 200K and then when someone decides to do an overhaul they discover the small cracks in the main webs.

I have seen these cracks in the 6.2 as well as the 6.5's. I have seen whole main webs broken out clean into the cam bearing bores so when the crank was pulled the web literally fell out.

One comes to mind as I was involved the the project. The owner started to complain about low oil pressure. :eek:

The main web was broken clear in two and the oil was leaking at the breaks.

Rig still ran fine and that was really scary.

The bulk of that engines guts were stuffed into another used block and to my knowledge the 95 Burb is still doing fine. They did not even work the heads over, just cleaned them up and installed them back on the replacement block.

We only hear of the failures. Most folks never go to a chat room/forum to howl about how great their rig is. Life is too consuming for people to worry about how great something is. Just let it fail though and then its a different story. :eek: We hear all about it then

I would say that the nasty failures are realitively small in overall numbers.

The biggest gremlin with these engines has been the electronic injection setup and the PMD.

I have a friend who has a 95 2500 4x4 with a 6.5 that he bought new and it tows a big 5er in the summer. Truck has been used hard and has 350+K on the clock I know of. How can you complain ??:D
Even if it blows up tomorrow he has gotten far more than his $$$ worth from that little creature.

He lets the coolant temp run clean to the hot zone and does not sweat it.
Just runs the wheels off the thing. Definately one of the good ones.

later

Robyn