I had to make a trip out of town to buy some new boots yesterday and I was noticing an oil smell coming from my truck but I was passing a paving truck and just assumed that was the cause of the smell. On my way back I was climbing a grade and started noticing my oil pressure dropping. By the time I got to the top of the hill I was stuck at a light and still had pressure but not as much as normal. When the light changed I made a left turn and my guage went to 0 and my dummy light came on... I killed the switch immediately and coasted off to the side and popped the hood to find my oil return line to my turbo hanging by a couple of threads on only one bolt. I had it towed to where we could work on it. We found a new bolt and this time used locktite on the bolts. 2 gallons of fresh oil and I was on the road again. Anyone ever hear of this happening?

 

Your screen name says it all.



Sorry I couldn't help myself.

 

hehe luckily I was paying attention so no damage occurred.

 

Wow, never heard of that! I couldn't even get the bolts on mine loose when I had the turbo off. Guess it was your lucky day

 

The Cummins will rattle just about everything loose on the whole truck and engine. If you are to own a 1st gen, you should be popping the hood everyday or at least a couple times a week, inspecting things- loose bolts, leaks etc, in addition to daily oil and coolant checks.

Once a year one should get on a creeper with a socket set and wrenches in hand and crawl under the truck and look for loose nuts and bolts.

 

LOL my neighbor Bruce ( mannwelder) calls me the luckiest unlucky guy he ever met. I always have strange things go wrong with my truck but it always ends up being something esay to fix. Last time it was the roll pin that fell out and locked my transmission in 4th.

 

Have you had the turbo off recently? The way those things are usually stuck when I go to take them off a "virgin" truck I can't imagine them shaking loose.

 

We had it off about 4 months ago when we changed the turbo housing to a 12 cm from a 18.5cm. I'm sure that we tightened it correctly. Seems odd that it would come off 4 months later. May have even been 5-6 months. I'm not sure. Heck I towed a trailer to San Francisco and have been to San Diego a couple of times since then.

 

so that's why you told me to try to get the exhaust housing off without taking the drain off.

 

I just changed my exhaust housing couple weeks back. I had a hard time loosening everything so like any other lazy mechanic I put anti-sieze on everthing................. maybe I had better revisit those fastners.