Another oil pressure thread

[Chamberpains]

This guys story from his posts in this thread and his other thread http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=3731 is just chalked full of bad decisions. This is not to say that he's dumb or not smart. I'm saying just bad decisions. His story shows just how tough trucking is right now and always will be.

It started with trusting anyone to overhaul his engine and expecting it to be done 100% right. This is the saddest part for all of us. It's a very bad gamble and in the end, took this guys business to the toilet. I'm also gonna guess that the original fools also didn't back any of their half assed work and this guys got stuck with the repair bill. This is a very bad decision to go to ANY place that won't back their work 100%.

They screwed up and put the wrong rod/main bearings in because they didn't follow proper procedures and just threw in what was common instead of looking to see what came out and verifying what needed to go back in.

Then he began to hasten his bad situation by throwing very expensive parts at the truck instead of finding the actual problem 1st. He threw a head and all the jewelry attached to it at it. He spent days stabbing at possible problems. That's a lot of down time and a pile of $$ at this point.

He appears to have wanted to make sure he didn't have to deal with these problems again but made another very bad error and decided to "save" the crank and have it polished and cleaned up and thrown back in. Probably hoping to save a few thousand on a new crank. Where in reality, he should've bailed on that million mile plus crank. He already had it out of the truck. Why stick it back in? Its seen a pile of use and abuse in a million miles. Plus the down time to ship it out and wait on a shop to inspect and clean it up. That's days if not a week or more. A decision that locked him in to the ride that he's on now.

Then the nature of trucking kicked in. A good thing will NEVER last forever ESPECIALLY in trucking. So his steady income washed up. He claims he traveled 100,000 plus miles on this engine in a year and sold off his other trucks So he didn't turn low miles. There is obviously a problem with the freight hauled in those miles and the pay it produced, his decisions on what was done with that money or possibly both that didn't leave enough money to build a proper engine. Either way, its poor decisions in running of a business that lands a person here.

Now out of frustration, he's making yet another critical error with buying a VERY big unknown and putting a CLAIMED low mileage USED engine in his truck. This has very little chance of being a long term good decision. Let's just suppose he's not being lied to about the engines life and it's a true 14+ year old 400k cm870 salvage engine. If true its either an abused local truck or 1 that has been sitting in a salvage yard for a looong time. Lot rot will be a problem and will need to be addressed at whatever cost. This could be a full inframe from rot alone.... he won't know until he tears into it or sticks it in the truck and runs it. Then its problems will be exposed and be very costly and probably crippling to every goal he has in his current life. He's hoping blindly that this engine is gonna carry him through these hard times. This is no way to run a trucking company.

Then finally one more tid bit he threw in was that he may have a questionable ECM program (possible bad delete) that could have started all the problems to begin with. Instead of eating his pride and sticking it out and ensuring a better future by insisting he has someone trusted look at it, he's sayin F'it and is just gonna run his questionable used engine with what could be a destructive ECM program....

He says he's been in and around the business for 30 years. So his problems don't come from a lack of experience and knowledge. He seems very bright in a lot of areas. Instead his problems seem to be coming from what Rawze calls "jumping over a dollar to save a dime " and blindly throwing very expensive unknowns into his business and having to, at a very high cost, redo these decisions. From the overhaul, then the head and crank to now this used engine and unknown ECM programming.

Rawze already stated how this guy can greatly increase his chances of long term survival in trucking and take himself off this train wreck he's been on. That would be build an engine that you can rest your life on with programming you can always trust and don't look back. If it takes begging or borrowing to get it done then do it. If it takes going back to company driving to save money, do it. If it takes eating a bit of shi#t to get out of a bad spot. Swallow your pride. Humble yourself, take your lumps and make the right choices. There is a much longer, more predictable profitable future in the business of trucking by choosing this route.

At some point all that experience puts blinders on people and they can't clearly see what the long term future is gonna look like. I wrote this, not to bash on this guy, but to simplify for people reading that you need to always make the BEST decisions. Not the cheaper or easier ones. Take the hit to your pride and do what's best long term for your business.

Water and electricity ALWAYS take the path of least resistance and in turn gets used and abused by anyone and everyone. Human beings that want to survive should not follow that example.

[Waterloo]

Well stated CP, been there and done that... This is not your grandfathers trucking industry.

[Signature620]

Sure, the man has made some poor decisions, but berating him and making assumptions about the root cause of the crank failure was absolutely unnecessary.

Cranks do break on occasion. Locating the cause is usually based on speculation & theory (ageing vibration damper, transmission issues, etc). To blame this crank failure on a botched overhaul that was reworked over 12mnths ago is unreasonable.

Last year, I carried out an out of chassis overhaul (which included having the block cleaned, crack-tested, machined and counterbored) only to have the block crack & leaking coolant behind the air compressor a couple of weeks later. Sometimes you're just unlucky!

[Rawze]

I am here, and this forum is to help people the best ways that at are known at any given time...

I did not make this place to make friends with others, I have no desire to win any popularity contests. .. but simply to have a place to share my own thoughts, good, bad, and definitely opinionated based on past experiences.

YUP, you'de better believe I try to put a bit of hot=-sauce under everyone's arm-pits when they don't seem to be on the path that is obvious to every one else around them. IT IS to piss em off just a bit, and wake em up!, so at least it will grate on them and they will start to at least consider there is a different direction that can be taken, even if it is a difficult one.

AND WHEN someone is in financial ruin --- THAT IS WHEN I GO OUT MY WAY THE MOST TO point out the mistakes and situations that got them there , not to belittle them, but to push them to think harder... BUT MOSTLY NOT FOR THEM -- BUT FOR people in the future who finds threads like these TO LEARN FROM IT SO THEY DON'T END UP WITH THE SAME FATE! -- I HATE SEEING IT THE FIRST TIME, NONETHELESS SOMEONE ELSE COMES ALONG AND REPEATS HISTORY!!!

-- Then I will show them the way I would do things to move forward because I absolutely don't gamble or rely on unknowns to pull me out of bad situation, that is not my own business model, and for the life of me I don't know why anyone else would even consider thinking this way, but it seems to be the norm in trucking to 'go with your gut' or the words from some mechanic or salesman about 'that used truck part or engine' that is going to pull you out of your hole... sorry, but I would have told them that the goal is to eliminate any possible unseen 'uh-ooh's' you can up front, and MORE USED, OLD, UNRELIABLE PARTS ARE NOT THE ANSWER in this situation.


-- because --- ONLY THOSE THINGS THAT HAVE THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE GUARANTEE ON SUCCESS, SAFETY, AND HIGHEST STANDARDS WILL PULL A PERSON OUT OF THAT HOLE AT THAT POINT!!!. they gambled, and relied on too many 'what-if's' and 'assumption it will be ok for a while' and all sorts of other demons in their heads ... and THAT DID NOT FAIR WELL SO FAR FOR THEM.

-- SUGGESTING ANYTHING LESS THAN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL, MOST WISE DECISION THAT WILL RETURN THE HIGHEST LONG TERM, HIGHEST GUARANTEE ON THE INVESTMENT, EVEN IF IT IS A DIFFICULT ONE TO MAKE --- IS THE MOST SOLID ANSWER!.

AND IF I WERE THAT DESPERATE< YOU HAD BETTER GODDAMN BELIEVE I WOULD HAVE PARTED WAYS WITH THAT THING -- OR FIGURED IT THE H$LL OUT HOW TO FIX IT THE 110% RIGHT WAYS SO THAT MY HOLE DID NOT GET DEEPER IN MY LONG TERM FUTURE!

As my wife would put it -- 'A person has to be more stubborn than their situation, no matter how high that mountain may seem, or you will never overcome it'. (You gotta be more stubborn and grumpy than your own gut-fat to loose weight and become more healthy').. and I donl't know about anyone else...but my gut-fat seems to be pretty goddamn stubborn!.


So I would normally say .. choose your demons ... more "unknowns, and hole-digging possibilities" .. or "the harder, more expensive road with a much, much higher guarantee of success where every bit if that extra, more difficult to come up with dime spent, YOU WILL GET BACK!"

- but you moved past that spot (buying another used engine) before you even posted on here, so all I can do is wish you the best of luck, and piont out how much of a GAMBLE that it really was at this point, so that SOMEONE ELSE IN THE FUTURE does not do something so desperate.


-- poor decisions, convincing that it will be 'ok'... -- THE ONLY WAY I WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED THIS POOR DECISION IS IF THAT SAME MECHANIC WAS GOING TO BE RIGHT THERE INSTALLING AN IN-FRAME KIT AND HEAD ONTO THAT BAD DECISION TO GO WITH THAT (80% most likely) BOAT-ANCHOR OF AN ENGINE YOU JUST PURCHASED! -- BECAUSE MY GUT TELLS ME THAT I SHOULD NOT TRUST IT ONE DAMN BIT AND I DON'T PAY MY ELECTRIC BILL WITH 'ASSUMPTION'' and 'they said it was a good engine' --- IT IS PAID BY HAVING TO RELY 100% ON MY EQUIPMENT -- SO THEREFORE I MUST TAKE 0% CHANCES -- TO BE AS CLOSE TO 100% RELIABLE AS IT GETS!


Waterloo, and about 100 or so other forum members on here that have been around for a while ARE MIGHTY FINE EXAMPLES OF THIS! - They TURNED AROUND THE WORST SITUATIONS A PERSON COULD POSSIBLY BE IN BECAUSE THEY FINALLY STOPPED AND CHANGED THE ROAD THEY WERE ON TO A BETTER ONE!.

DOES ANYONE REALLY THINK THAT someone like Waterloo (just an example), and all the problems he has had, that he wanted to live in his truck for a couple months REBUILDING HIS ENGINE HIMSELF IN MY DRIVEWAY because he just wanted to? -- It IS BECAUSE he realized as a truck owner, after going that route of 'relying on others' that the 'rely' and 'others' part IS THAT VERY THING THAT FAILED HIM!... and that it was his engine and truck (sole source of income) that suffered repeatedly as a result.


I HATE TO SEE IT,.. It is a pattern repeated on here waay too often, and BETTER EDUCATION + NOT RELYING ON 'WHAT-IF'S' or 'CHANCES ARE ITS OK' are the primary keys to avoiding it.

-- As far as your programming goes -- PM mommaburt, Unilevers, running Rough, Mr.Hag, OR BETTER YET,.. DON'T RELY ON ANYONE ELSE ... GO GET A USED LAPTOP AND TEACH YOURSELF TO COPY THE PROGRAM OUT OF THAT ECM AND E-MAIL IT TO ME... for an inspection. - IN THE DAY OR SO IT TAKES TO LEARN HOW TO PULL THE FILE OUT OF YOUR OWN ECM YOURSELF,.. YOU WILL KNOW HOW TO PUT A BETTER ONE IN ITS PLACE -- WITHOUT RELYING ON ANYONE! -- THESE MODERN COMPUTERIZED ENGINES REQUIRE THEIR OWNERS TO HAVE THOSE KINDS OF CAPABILITIES IF THEY WANT ANY KIND OF LONG TERM OWNERSHIP SUCCESS!

[tree98]

I feel the man's frustration. But if your gonna run a Cummins engine, you have to be a member here. So I guess that's another mistake he made.

[Rawze]

(02-09-2020 )tree98 Wrote:  I feel the man's frustration. But if your gonna run a Cummins engine, you have to be a member here. So I guess that's another mistake he made.

no one has to be a member on here to own a red motor... they can just as easily start a facefook group and copy everything said from here all they like, sugar coat it everything nice and cotton candy and unicorns, mis-information about aftermarket garbage, false promises and all. (err wait .. there is already a dozen or so of them out there.. maybe should just join those instead).

[Peashooter67]

I chose to fix this motor. Most of my decisions were based on where I was at at the time the decision had to be made with a lot of ignorance about this red motor right after it was bought. Remember?,oh wait ! Now one knows from where I come from or my experience here.

Most of my career I have only had and used cat motors and my oil pressure issue was compounded by every where I turned “ oh , low oil pressure is normal” so I started at the top of this motor and worked my way down.

The world I come from you polish yor journals for new bearings and I excepted the crank back with the polish job. I didn’t ask for it , it was done automatically by the machine shop. O

When I got this cummins I had no idea what I was getting into that’s for sure.


Yes , in retrospect I should have got a new crank but there are quite a few I shoulda haves here.
I should have this or that before I started the next step and I didn’t.
I was to divided at the Time and should have been more focused on this truck.
I should have called and talked over where I was and my finding before I made any decisions.

I have been gone for a while fixing this motor or better rebuilding this motor.


I/we can speculate why my crank broke but in the end that’s all it can be is speculation.
Not one did I eve say I have a bad program in my ecm. I was just trying to make sure my program is ok since I have no ides who has been in it or what/ if anyone has messed with it because at some point the egr was messed with.

I’m almost done rebuilding this motor from the bottom up and would like for it to last since it has all new internals from the bottom up.
Yes, I did what raze said. I even cut the the deck and bores , shimmed the liners to 0.015”.

Next is to get my laptop set up.