Cm 870 head being replaced

[Peashooter67]

(04-02-2020 )Craag Wrote:  Thanks guys. Wow wrong parts on an inframe? That is crazy. It's sad because you see the stealershit has Cummins certified signs up and your first instinct is to trust their "expertise." I got this gut feeling of dread when they started arguing about the .014" liner protrusion. They are pretty deep into it now though....
They just called me now as i was typing this and they have the head off and the linings are all at .009 to .010" and another inframe not needed. There's a surprise that they said that.
Is there better maintenance I could be doing to help this head and motor last? I do oil changes now by engine hour at 350 to 400 as my monthly mileage is low and PTO hours high. Maybe i should go 300 hrs? What about coolant flush how often should that be done? Cleaning the egr out? I hate to be "that guy" but considering I had the inframe of $30k done such a relatively short time ago it seems financially insane to delve into it again over .0004 to .0005". This is by no means doubting that it should be done to those 0014" specs. Just seems like a redundant and huge expense if the truck is running strong and the only issue is the head.

Mr this was me 101,280 miles ago after fixing a cummins certified rebuild where they used the wrong rod and main bearings. They said my low oil pressure was normal on a cummins. At idle it had 8 psi and at 1500 rpm it had best at 22psi. It took me close to $14,000 or more mostly in labor to fix the “certified cummins” f$%k up. I should have listened more to these guys then.

At a little over 100,000 miles later the crank snapped. Pulled the head while I had the motor out and found #2#3#4#5 liners sqirmimg in the block. # 2 was the worst and head gasket was already failing and #3 wasn’t much better. #2 and 3 liner had already ruined the head.

If I was you and you already have the head off it’s ruffly $1600 plus gaskets and a tow bill to take it somewhere else , get the block cut and your liners set right.

If you don’t you will be back with the head off again soon, so yeah just leave those cylinders at 0.008-0.009.

[Unilevers]

(04-03-2020 )Craag Wrote:  

(04-02-2020 )Unilevers Wrote:  you will be in this exact same spot in under 100000 miles. remember these words.

That's pretty scary. How can they be so far off when they are supposedly quoting Cummins to me stating .09 to .010 is the high range of liner depth? Has Cummins not updated their service procedures on these engines in over 15 years? Smh it's like even the truck manufacturer is set against the owner op having success.

What is with these heads also? Another post right after mine cm 870 head out after 40k. I would assume my failure at least was part related as it was fuel in coolant. The stealership made it sound like they change these all the time too

honestly cummins builds them to fail so they can pick up the service work. thats how they are making so much money not of the sale of the engine but on the service work after. the engine in factory specs is not designed to last, and thats been proven time and time again.

Cut it to 14-15 thou, buy a reman head but ask to pick the one you want. Cummins is out of rebuild able cores so they are selling new heads for under the reman number, they are not hard to find. Have it built properly by someone who cares who takes the time to torque the head. Have it tuned/leave it stock in its lower power range. Redo the fuel pump its cheap and easy.

the dealership/cummins want s you to come back with a broken engine. They will blame anything and you will be right back here again. I get phone calls/see 10-20 of them a week EXACTLY IN YOUR SHOES. i cant even count anymore how many times ive had to tow a engine out of the dealer in pieces because they screwed someone. i have told many guys exactly what needs to be done to have them laugh and quote cummins in my face, only to have them bankrupt and selling the truck within 1 year.

its gotten so bad to the point that i warn people who come here im doing it the right way no questions asked and if they are not cool with that then dont come here. Im not in the business of building/tuning shi#t motors, because everyone blames the person who worked on it last even if they are to blind to see how they failed.

Uni

[Peashooter67]

Now I feel real good with mine being set to 0.015 with a new head.

[Craag]

(04-02-2020 )Rawze Wrote:  32,000 engine hours is more than a million miles of use.

COmplete inframe, brand new head, liners at 0.014" .. etc.etc.etc.

anyitng less is jumping over a dollar to save 10 cents and it will not last for sd$it.

What you have said so far points towards that stealers$it being the typical gaggle of clueless fuc#tards. You should run away from them as fast as you can.

here is your likely future...
http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?t...6#pid25356

Just was watching through some of the rebuild video series you did learning about the counterboring great stuff thanks for that! I get the feeling alot of that prep work you were doing on the mating surface of the block and many other precautions you were taking are skipped over by many "certified pros". Always pays to be able to do something yourself and take the extra time. Reminds me when I did my roof and a couple roofers from up the street walked by and I heard them laughing and commenting to themselves about me putting tarpaper under the shingles. I realized not necessary but I wanted to go extra for my own house. Saved over half the cost too. Very strange the mentality thay we paying top dollar and then getting corners cut.

[Lonestar10]

Go-to truck paper search for trucks 2011-2017 with Cummins these will all be cm2250 and 2350s almost 30-40% of them will say they have had a bottom end rebuild by 400k miles for oil consumption or sunk liners. Or the truck has a reman engine. So the big C is not building them to last. I blame the stock market as the requirement to constantly increase profits now promotes poor quality.

[Signature620]

(04-04-2020 )Lonestar10 Wrote:  So the big C is not building them to last. I blame the stock market as the requirement to constantly increase profits now promotes poor quality.

There is certainly evidence that they budget on getting engine repairs once the warranty is expired. I think the main issue with ISXs being unreliable now is that they rush the development, focussing mostly on emission numbers to keep their grip on the market just in time for each new wave of emission law.

The ISX is the most researched and developed engine in the Cummins family, and probably the most produced - Yet they are horribly unreliable without extensive maintenance or programming.

If you ever get a chance to see one of the monthly Cummins engineering PowerPoint presentations, it's usually 1/3 ISX bandaid fixes or alerts without a solution, 1/3 Chinese ISF design blunders and the final third dedicated to the rest of their engine range lol.

[JimT]

(04-04-2020 )Signature620 Wrote:  Yet they are horribly unreliable without extensive maintenance or programming.

I would disagree with this statement. Look at owners like Rawze and others who have owned and properly maintained their equipment from day one and they are still going strong.

I think the problem has less to do with Cummins shipping an inferior product as it does with the industry pushing, for lack of a better term, lazy. Extended service intervals, less experienced drivers causing more abuse, promoting bad driving habits with speed limiters, bad gear ratios, low pay, and such. The industry, at least the large companies who primarily buy new trucks, look at these trucks as disposable 3-5 year assets. They only plan on getting 350,000-500,000 miles out of them before they sell them off. They budget all maintenance and repairs based on this time frame and do as little as possible. They pressure oil companies to come up with high mileage oils and the manufacturers to endorse longer service intervals. Then when the 2nd owner gets a truck thats beat to hell and gasping for life they blame the manufacturer instead of the abusive first owner. Yes, the emissions systems are bad and take a toll on the engine life (especially EGR), but with good maintenance even that can be largely mitigated. I'm not saying Cummins is absolutely awesome and makes perfect products or sources the absolute best components. I'm just saying that most of the problems people complain about with regards to these engines can probably be traced back to some combination of abuse or neglect.

The other side to this is the reality we see on this forum fairly often. Which is that there aren't many good mechanics out there that either take the time to properly diagnose a problem or have half a clue about what they are even doing. I've experienced this first hand and it's what ultimately led me here.

--------

The first company I worked for was a local LTL with about 100 daycabs, owned by the 2nd and 3rd generation of family that started the company. One of the owners said to me once that they used to pull a truck in on friday, strip it down and rebuild the engine over the weekend and have it back in service come monday. But not anymore. I speculated that it was due to the new electronics or complexity and he said no, they just can't find anyone who knows how to do that kind of work anymore. (they do all their repairs, including body work, in house)

[Signature620]

You say that you disagree but then go on to make almost the exact same point in a lot more words. If you re-read the section your quoted me on, I imply that good maintenance and demandates make ISXs much more reliable.

There's no doubt Rawze and his wife have excellent driving habits but that engine would still give a lot of trouble if left in factory form.

[Rawze]

With regularly scheduled tune-up work on the egr system, a bypass oil filter to keep the soot at bay, they tend to run well. I know of lots of people who make it a million miles with the entire system operational when cared for properly.

Trouble is that these engine are not maintenance free like most would expect. A person cannot just drive one and wait for a check engine light to tell them something is wrong. By the time they start to show up, it is already far beyond any sort of easily maintainable state. - It takes a lot of up-front preventative maint. work along the way at regular intervals before the CEL lights set in to keep them healthy.

It can be done + kept healthy,.. but all the preventative measures and practices have to be done early in the trucks life,... not after it has close to half a million on it already and has been severely neglected.

The red engine is no better whatsoever than any other brand / make of other engine in its same year and emissions class. -- They just happened to be the easiest to work on yourself, and this is its only advantage vs. something else.