Everyone read this! Check your mechanics work.

[Brock]

It wasn't but a year ago I was on here talking about my monster Cat C15 rebuild, I spent a stupid amount of money and held nothing back yet somehow the head gasket blew twice this year!!!

I lost it on the mechanic when I found out he didn't cut the counter bores, I knew he didn't have the tool and was in the middle of nowhere but I told him to do it, I told him I would pay for a guy to come out and Do it. I financed this rebuild so I could do everything right and wasn't afraid to spend the money as I was sick of engine issues!

Well this time I decided I needed to do it myself and see for myself where the problem was and fix it and what I found just angers me so much!

   

The fire ring on the right side of picture... see how it appears wider/crushed, note the crack....
   
Number 4 hole in the exact spot the fire ring blew out! 10 thou!!!!! You have got to be kidding me! There is a spot on number 3 that out 5 thou as well.. way out of acceptable spec. In that same spot it grooved into my head enough that my finger nails catch it though I have yet to measure the head.... if my head needs replacing, I'm going to go postal!

I want everyone to read this and keep this in mind because it can happen to anyone. I absolutely should have gone and inspected it with my own eyes before I let him put it all together but I trusted his abilities....

This rebuild I originally did was not a "inframe" it was a full on rebuild which included front/rear structure, injectors, head, gears, all sensors and wires and fuel regulators and pumps..... just everything so you could imagine the amount of money I financed with interest.... now I am paying to tear it all down again and buy a crap load of new parts while I'm still paying for the original build!

I take solice in knowing it will be done right for once and need to thank Unilevers for helping me out with info throughout this!

[Rawze]

- How come I am not surprised at all?. -- Saddened but not surprised....

There is no profit in quality and pride any more so why should anyone but yourself care?. That is the new normal when it comes to the service/repair industry.

Get it in,. then out, and tell the customer whatever they want to hear so you get your money. Why bother to do anything more than that, there are another 500 trucks waiting in line to get into the bay.

I had a manager at one stealershit not too long ago tell me flat out that they "could take their time and fix everything wrong" with a truck and do a good job,... but that there was no profit in it. Why work on 5 trucks a day and do them right when they can half-arsse 30 trucks a day and make 600% more profit.

Any time the demand for something outweighs the availability by a factor of more than 10,000%, everyone who offers that something is just too easily tempted to take full advantage of the situation. There could be a truck repair facility at every exit ramp on every highway in the USA and it still would not be enough to keep up with the demand of trucks needing repair. You can thank individual and corporate greed, extreme capitalism, and extreme big govt., big oil regulation for all of this.

- Where does this leave the truck owner? -- doing the job of maint. and repair himself or going out of business.

[Brock]

Got I little more insight into what happened. I found the top flat seal on the liner was burnt to a crisp where that low spot was and that's where my combustion was getting into the coolant.

[Starlight]

I've seen 4 to 5 thou wear step on a cat. Wow, 10 thou, someone really flunked on that one. Happy to see your doing this yourself Brock. The experience will be priceless. I might be in GP early to mid next week and might stop in to see you.