Engine Replacement...

[Flopster843]

Alright guys here's the scoop. My truck has 92k on it right now. I took it into Ford here about 2 weeks ago to have them fix a ticking injector. During the process of all their checks, they found a reason to tear down the engine. Upon teardown the techs found scarring on the #3 and #7 cylinders. Not like scratches or anything, but a smooth dark band running down the side of the cylinder. It's about 1 1/2 inches wide on #3 and about 3/4 inch on #7. I'm getting a new shortblock under warranty out of all this so I'm not to worried.

To make a long story short, what could cause such a thing? The guy fixing my truck is clueless. There were no symptoms of a problem, it started perfect, ran perfect, didn't use any oil.

I want to know if it was my fault in some way, or just a mechanincal thing, that way I could avoid this problem in the future.

 

[WD40]

Flopster843, Welcome to SSD.com. Come on back any time. Well if it has to go bad, I am sure glad it went while you still had some warranty on it. Hope it runs good for you when you get it back.

 

[roosterdiesel]

Welcome to SDD! Glad to hear your getting fixed up.

Did he tear the bottom end apart? You'd have to look at the piston/rod assembly to find out. Especially look at the rings where the band is when it's pulled out. Does it go all the way to the top to the deck or does it stop at ring travel? If it stops lower than ringtravel it could be a wrist pin comeing loose but more info on the scarring is needed.

 

[Flopster843]

The pistons and crank were never removed. The heads were pulled and the scarring was visible so that ment a new short block, further disassembly was not required. The marks went all the way to the top of the deck and as far down as you could see with the piston still installed.

 

[powerboatr]

what was the orientation of the scarring. inboard or outboard and front or rear? of the cyl walls,

thanks

 

[roosterdiesel]

what was the orientation of the scarring. inboard or outboard and front or rear? of the cyl walls,

thanks

What he says.-popcorn

 

[Flopster843]

both cylinders were towards the rear of the block

 

[roosterdiesel]

Sounds like broken ring wear. But since you say it goes all the way up the cylinder wall to the deck surface it can't be since the rings only travel so far. Almost sounds like a bad casting or bad machine job from the factory. During a time spent as an engine machinist I never saw anything that was gouged up and down to the deck unless it was a roundy round race engine that detonated a piston.

How do the tops of the pistons look where the excessive wear is?

-popcorn

 

[Flopster843]

pistons look perfect as far as I can tell, but i'm no diesel mechanic. If possible, I'll try to get some pics of it when I get the truck if it's still sitting back there.

 

[Flopster843]

Got my truck back today. And sorry no pics, the block was gone already. I talked with the actualy guy that found the problem. He said that after the ticking injector was replaced, there was a faint ticking from down in the engine that was almost inaudible. So he ordered the teardown to determine the problem. I also asked him (the guy that found the problem, not the one that did the teardown), and he said that it was probably just a bad casting from the factory that took this long to come out. I'm just glad they found it under warranty. And by the way, the truck runs sweet. I'm not for sure if they re-flashed it or not, but if they did then I like it. Thanks for all the inputs.