X15 possibly dropped liner? input please

[Val]

Hi fellow members as the title states i have a x15 cm2350 500hp an am in need of some input i noticed i was loosing excessive coolant on my way home from a trip out west and it was not leaking external, to put into perspective from MT to MN i used a total of 4 gallons to keep the level above min in the coolant reservoir during this whole time coolant temp levels where normal and no overheating issues. What i observed was while the truck was running no visible white smoke but when i shut her down for ten min and restarted a big white cloud would immerse out the pipe than clear away in about a min. When i made it home i figured i would rule out the egr cooler so i pulled the egr cooler rear tube off placed a small dish and pressured the coolant system to 20psi overnight next morning no signs of any coolant so at this point things are looking bad:s. Further inspecting i did not see any coolant in the oil while pulling a sample (sending oil analysis tomorrow) i did however while the truck was in the shop and dry notice dried coolant under the oil pan and undercarriage of the tractor while i followed it back it appears it was coming from the overflow tube off the coolant reservoir as well i must of not caught this at first while i was driving from MT because most the roads where wet so i start up the truck and looked closely at the coolant reservoir and could see it bubbling inside i shut the truck off and removed the cap and notice higher than usual pressure as well. Ran a Combustion gas detector test and it read positive for combustion gasses. So here i am now :too_sad: with my x15 at 540K miles and obviously out of warranty thinking could i have dropped a liner? i hear of isx engines dropping liners but closer to a million miles. is it more common with the x15s? i take good care of my machine and equipment with scheduled routine maintenance and top of the line fluids but most of all not a lead footer, maybe i am the few unlucky ones. I Would really appreciate some input or advise here on what else i can check before i really have to pull the head off and to confirm whether its a liner or something else like cracked head or bad head gasket all i know at this point is i am getting only getting combustion gas in my cooling system and its not coming from my egr cooler. Thanks in advance.

[hhow55]

Likely blown head gasket
Drop the oil pan
Pressure up coolant system to 20 lbs and see if coolant runs down the inside of liners

[Lonestar10]

if no coolant in oil than like HHow said head gasket. the new X15 runs stupid with compression ratio and probably goin to see alot of this bascialy being caused by the head lifting under the pressure.

[amermextrucker]

Best of luck to you trucker. These type of stories are scary.

[Magard]

Sounds like head gasket or cracked head. Be ready for a inframe. New head. Set liners at .014. Just curious what rear end ratio do you have. What rpm do you run at and how far down do you let it lug. Also are you still running emissions. Did you do a demandate after warranty was up?

[Rawze]

The appropriate next step is to drop the oil pan and pressurize coolant system to 20psi, let is sit over night if necessary. - Check to see where the coolant is coming from / going to. Verify what the problem is correctly BEFORE you pull the head or other expensive components off it. Otherwise, you may never know what the issue is and could be wasting your time and money.

* Could be the egr cooler, but sounds like you ruled that one out.

* Could also be the Doser injector behind the turbo, the turbo itself, air compressor, or some other circuit too.

* Have you also pulled the valve cover and checked for moisture buildup on the underside of it, or looked in the crank case filter element?. Sometimes an oil analysis will not reveal clearly that you have coolant in the oil. They are not always reliable for this.


-- More info about the truck and its history would be helpful too. Like others have asked ....

* Is the engine de-mandated? -- and if so, By who was it done?

* What is the rear ratio of the truck?

* Does it get driven regularly more than 1/2-way down on the accelerator (or harder) much below 1500 rpm's when climbing mountains, etc.?


-- These are all things that will contribute to a shortened engine life, and especially a dropped liner/blown head gasket.


NOTE: It has also been a prediction on here that the 500+hp X15 series engines are generally not going to last as long as the CM2350's. No one wants to see this, but it is a predicion based on past experiences with the ISX as a whole on here. , seeing engine after engine (CM2350 X101's) fail at 600-700k miles due to their 18:9 compression ratio, and the X15 has an even higher compression ratio (19:1/19:3), dictating that they would not make it much past 500k miles if they are set much above 1750 torque in the bottom end of the working range (below 1500 rpm). - (speculation) That red engine company seems hell bent on abusing these newer engines in these last few years by putting a lot of heavy torque in the bottom of the working range + tall gears in the truck (truck makers are guilty too), severely shortening the engine life to please the mega-fleets needs at the expense of the engine's million mile longevity.
Here is one of those previous discussions on a search: http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?t...2#pid37802

[Val]

Thank you for all the feedback guys so Here is the update: this morning just as i was about to send out the oil sample i took another gander at it in the sunlight and what do you know i could see a little bit of separation i go and drain some more out of the oil pan and nothing but coolant for the fist few seconds i guess i received my oil analysis results on the spot i am pretty convinced now i have a dropped liner or cracked head. At this point in time im really considering with just finding another new or close to new x15 motor or better yet a 2016 isx15 motor just to mitigate the down time and have this one rebuilt once i can source a reputable quality builder out here in the Midwest or tackle the job myself. let me know your thoughts on which approach you would suggest.

as to answer some of the above question:
a brief history of the truck i purchased new in 2017 with my partner and have been team driving since. I mostly haul mail to and from the upper mid west and west i would say less than half of the life of this engine hauled a gross of 80k we averaged 6.5 to 6.5MPG the life of this engine. Truck has a eaton fuller 13spd with 3.42 differentials as to lugging the engine im well aware in the harms in that we did our best to never have the rpms fall below 13.5-14k when pulling up hills. Right at about the time my warranty was up and i had started to get emissions issues that left me nearly stranded out west so yes truck was de mandated by a small group with good reputation all in all i cant say what i did degraded the longevity of the engine or not but for the most part this x15 was really trouble free for the 540K miles (minus the emissions) its going to be interesting to see if more will have similar issues with this x15 down the road at least to have some known knowledge on the issues for others seeking trucks with this cummins x15 efficiency series.

[Val]

according to the TSB160119 on quickserve the Efficiency series x15 (x114B) has a comp ration of 20:1 vs 19:1 of the performance series (x116B)

[Rawze]

It sounds like you have been trying to avoid lugging it .. that is a good step, but you really need to be at 1650~ish rpm's in a hard pull, shifting between 1500-1800 ... not down in the 1300-1400 range. That low rpm and your foot most of the way to the floor is not a good combo for it long term.

That aside ...

first of all,.. your 'delete' program is the highest likely cause of the engine's premature demise. I see this stuff every single day around here. - You can choose to not agree but that is the strongest red flag you have mentioned so far b y a wide margin. I don't care how much you trusted the person going the job, or how much you think it may be running ok. - Bad delete programming absolutely causes dropped liners, cracked heads, and other engine failures, non of which can be felt by a driver until it is far too late.

Your next step is to get the calterm software and pull the program out of that ecm yourself, e-mail it to me for an inspection. - For all you know, that thing may have beaten a liner out of it because of bad injection timing tables + operating in the wrong engine mode(s), some of the most common problems seen these days by bad delete programs. That and/or it over-boosting all the time, causing it to drop a liner or crack the head.

-- I See it almost every day on here these days, and for some stupid goddamn reason, every person here of late seems to be in some sort of idiotic state of complete denial and swears their 'delete guy' did a good job. -- Don't be that next idiot!

Pull a copy of the program and send it off for an inspection. Should have done this the day you had the job done. -- top priority to find out if it was the major contributor!.

- An inframe would be cheaper than getting another engine for most people, as you are taking a gamble on the quality of that next engine, if purchased used,.. and a recently inframed engine .. I personally would not trust it to throw rocks at it. .. this is just my own opinion though, every situation is different.

There is no one out west that I would trust to touch my engine at all, so there is no one I could even remotely recommend for reman of an X15. - Mr.Hag (near Atlanta,GA) would be the only one that most people on here would say to take it to. At least he is one of the very few places that use the latest methods and recommendation that are made on this forum towards building it in the right ways (taking all the extra steps that are talked about on here) to make it stronger and more reliable.

Those are directions to go towards if you do not plan on replacing the engine completely. - In any event,.. again ... pull that program out of it asap for an inspection!.

Lastly, what did they do for the exhaust system components?--- A lot of delete shops will not hollow them out correctly, and a lot of them do not even touch the SCR canister, and that is a huge mistake that leads to a lot of problems later on with regards to failed engine components because of reflected heat, etc.

-- if you definitively do not resolve these root-causing, strong possibilities, then your are destined to repeat your issues and the downward spiral path of nothing but problems will eventually catch up with you again. - See that about every day on here too. Don't be that next viictim!. Take what I say VERY SERIOUSLY and act accordingly to prevent it.