More Power
07-31-2023, 06:41
Got a phone call a few days ago from a southern talking gentleman from North Carolina I'd guess to be about 50 who began with "my 6.5 won't start." His name won't be mentioned...
After my asking for the year of the truck (he said 1996) I always begin with the basics when helping someone solve this sort of problem - a bullet point list of possibilities starting with the most likely and ending with the possible. After about a half dozen suggestions for basic things to check and him stating that he's already done all that (fuel related to PMD), he slips a bit and tells me a tiny bit more of the story - not my first rodeo so I then realize that I have to drag it out of him... And I do mean drag... He won't volunteer a bit of it. My daughter says this is a man thing...
The real story... He'd just bought the truck, and it was still on his goose-neck trailer. He couldn't start it to move it off the trailer on its own power.
After more dragging I learn that it hadn't run for 6-7 years. It was owned by a young mechanic who had tried everything - or so he said. Everything... newly rebuilt fuel injection pump, lift pump, fuel filter, PMD/harness and more...
More dragging... He said that it once smoked a bit when it had been cranked by the young mechanic, but then nothing. I mentioned using a couple of tablespoons of clean diesel to prime into the intake manifold (I told him how to do this). I said that the engine wouldn't run on the prime, but it'll smoke, rattle, shake and spin faster than it would on the starter alone - allowing any air in the fuel system to be expelled faster, and that this would verify whether the engine was mechanically able to run. He then told me he'd already tried the priming thing.
By now, I know the game. Since it is summer in North Carolina, glow plugs should not be necessary, but he verified that the glow plugs do in fact work. So I said that unless the engine is broken, diesel priming "must" cause the engine to smoke, rattle and shake when cranked... He said it doesn't.
Then he slips and tells me that he had pulled the oil drain plug and saw only raw diesel fuel come out. Then, he said that with the glow plugs removed, the engine makes clanking noises while being cranked. I wondered whether this might be damage due to hydro-lock? We talked about there being a difference between clanking and puffing noises.
He had me define what I meant by "broken". I said that, for example, changing the fuel injection pump and bumping the starter (to get to all three of the bolts on the driven gear on the fuel injection pump) could cause the gear to bind against the side of the timing cover, which could result in shearing the cam key. It was then that he told me that the young mechanic had already replaced the cam key and timing set. What??? Wouldn't that be an important point to mention?
We're 15 minutes into this circular story at this point. He wants a miracle from me, but I told him that his engine is broken, and that if he (or the young mechanic) had just called me before "working" on it, I could have saved them from this debacle. But now, it's far too late... But he persists in his questioning... So... I said again "I'll say this one last time. If the engine won't smoke, rattle and shake...." He hangs up on me... The end of the phone call...
If he'd just told me the full story right at the start, I could have told him how to verify whether the engine was broken in the easiest possible way. But, I wasn't given that chance.
I get calls like this about once a year. I hate them. :mad:
After my asking for the year of the truck (he said 1996) I always begin with the basics when helping someone solve this sort of problem - a bullet point list of possibilities starting with the most likely and ending with the possible. After about a half dozen suggestions for basic things to check and him stating that he's already done all that (fuel related to PMD), he slips a bit and tells me a tiny bit more of the story - not my first rodeo so I then realize that I have to drag it out of him... And I do mean drag... He won't volunteer a bit of it. My daughter says this is a man thing...
The real story... He'd just bought the truck, and it was still on his goose-neck trailer. He couldn't start it to move it off the trailer on its own power.
After more dragging I learn that it hadn't run for 6-7 years. It was owned by a young mechanic who had tried everything - or so he said. Everything... newly rebuilt fuel injection pump, lift pump, fuel filter, PMD/harness and more...
More dragging... He said that it once smoked a bit when it had been cranked by the young mechanic, but then nothing. I mentioned using a couple of tablespoons of clean diesel to prime into the intake manifold (I told him how to do this). I said that the engine wouldn't run on the prime, but it'll smoke, rattle, shake and spin faster than it would on the starter alone - allowing any air in the fuel system to be expelled faster, and that this would verify whether the engine was mechanically able to run. He then told me he'd already tried the priming thing.
By now, I know the game. Since it is summer in North Carolina, glow plugs should not be necessary, but he verified that the glow plugs do in fact work. So I said that unless the engine is broken, diesel priming "must" cause the engine to smoke, rattle and shake when cranked... He said it doesn't.
Then he slips and tells me that he had pulled the oil drain plug and saw only raw diesel fuel come out. Then, he said that with the glow plugs removed, the engine makes clanking noises while being cranked. I wondered whether this might be damage due to hydro-lock? We talked about there being a difference between clanking and puffing noises.
He had me define what I meant by "broken". I said that, for example, changing the fuel injection pump and bumping the starter (to get to all three of the bolts on the driven gear on the fuel injection pump) could cause the gear to bind against the side of the timing cover, which could result in shearing the cam key. It was then that he told me that the young mechanic had already replaced the cam key and timing set. What??? Wouldn't that be an important point to mention?
We're 15 minutes into this circular story at this point. He wants a miracle from me, but I told him that his engine is broken, and that if he (or the young mechanic) had just called me before "working" on it, I could have saved them from this debacle. But now, it's far too late... But he persists in his questioning... So... I said again "I'll say this one last time. If the engine won't smoke, rattle and shake...." He hangs up on me... The end of the phone call...
If he'd just told me the full story right at the start, I could have told him how to verify whether the engine was broken in the easiest possible way. But, I wasn't given that chance.
I get calls like this about once a year. I hate them. :mad: