AlpineRAM

Last night while driving home I got flashes from the folks I passed. I was wondering... looking in the mirror I saw rainbow colours from the lights flashed at me.. While decelerating on the offramp the idiot light (check gauges) came on and the oil pressure needle was completely to the left. Oil pressure recovered while rolling straight so I limped home the 1/2 mile to the house. Truck is an oily mess right now, oil had blown out of the engine vent tube like mad. The radiator is filled with a whitish gooey mass.
So this looks like a headgasket to me.
(let's hope it ain't more)
When I pull the head and have to machine it to be flat again I think I'd like to go for o-rings. But not the conventional o-rings but by "simply" machining the head and leave the protrusion that an o-ring forms sticking out. Now what I'd need to know is: A: how much should an o-ring protrude from the head, what's the diameter of the o-ring and did I get this right or is there much more to o-rings than I think.
B: roughness of the head surface- how flat or smooth should it be? Shall I go for a mirror finish (Machine shop I am going to use is working on an average precision of 0.0001181" (3 micron) for quick machining and they said I can get any kind of surface roughness or surface pattern like concentric rings with 1 micron grooves etc if I want. (costs would go up naturally)
I do not want to pull the block at this time (And I'm quite shure I would not want to do it in the future) so what would you think about prepping the head and what gasket to use etc. I'm thinking of head studs and hope they can be shipped quick enough. (But I'm on a very tight budget too, the machine shop will not charge me an arma and a leg for doing it, they are customers of mine and I can work their work off)

Any help is greatly appreciated!

AlpineRAM

MnTom

Geez Marcus, that don't sound good. I don't have any experience with your questions, but have you tried communicating with Don M. or Piers? I would think that would have a large amount of info that would be very beneficial to you and your situation. I am curious as to why just running down the road you lost the head gasket.
Tom

sherod

Good luck Marcus! Never had to do a diesel as of yet, but several blown gaskets in gas tractors.

Concur about checking with Piers or Don M. Hope you can get it back together soon.

One thing I would suggest is to real quick right now today get the crud out of the radiator and give it a good flush. That gunk really seems to stick if you wait to long IMO.

Ed

AlpineRAM

Well now I've filled up oil again and restarted it. Got a bad metallic noise out of it, can hear it from underneath the truck.
The head gasket was a little weak before, I thought I had that covered by retightening the bolts. (all were a good tad loose, not stretched as per service manual) and when I drove hoome in a hurry to get back (tired after another one of those pesky 7 am to 11pm shifts that usually are a little too short to get everything done) I did pour on some coal. I was running at about 3k rpm with 30-35psi boost in OD lockup.
I hope I'll be able to get it to the shop without further damage and will start a teardown session this evening.
Let's see what has happened, I'll try to take some pics.

AlpineRAM

wannadiesel

Sorry to hear about this, Markus. Let me know if I can do anything.

IA_James

I guess you were pourin the coal to it. What does that translate to in kmph?

Lary Ellis (Top)

Ouch Markus This hasn't been your year buddy

Best of luck putting her back together

AlpineRAM

Thanks for the suggestions and good wishes- and for the offers for help. As soon as I've got it apart I'll know what I need to repair it.
IA_James: 3000rpm OD lockup and 255/85R16 give you approx. 120- 125 mph. I wasn't up to full boost and had accelerated to that speed moderately. Really pouring the coals to it would have been much faster and much more boost.
Lary- You're right , I already had better years. But I'll do what I can to get back to where I was or even better.

Markus

AlpineRAM

Update!

After a lot of PMs with Don and some e-mails with Piers, both are to be recommended, the decision as to how to machine the head was found.
Now it's almost 3 am and thanks to the nice folks at KFG, an Austrian precision machining company the head is flat. I'd take a bet that it's flatter than it ever was.
KFG is a company designing and machining the tools for the automated machining of vehicle parts in the high precision sector, and they build some prototype parts for some European car manufacturers. Definitely a company to be considered for everybody who needs special stuff and has drawings of the thing he'd like to have (Even though they are no site sponsors I feel it's appropriate to report my experience with them.)
The schedule so far: Friday night around midnight the gasket blew- St. and Sunday removal of hte head, some other work. Monday- getting a loaner and other stuff- Tuesday ordering stuff from Don M and getting the head machined-
Now it's up to UPS to get hte parts here quickly so I can install them

AlpineRAM

Haulin_in_Dixie

Markus, what was the metallic rap, that does not sound like a head gasket does it?

pmtg

can someone please enlighten me...

i understand the head should be very smooth. but what good is it if the other side of the gasket (engine block) is not the same smoothness?

Pat

dodgezilla04

the block is less prone to warping for several reasons

#1 MASS much more material and better supported than the head
#2 The block stays a more consistant temperature, the head is subjected to the main heat of combustion

Usually you just check the block surface with a long accurate straight edge and some feeler gauges, the cummins shop manual tells specifically how.

AlpineRAM

Hauling: I did not yet tear into it from below- but I had some kind of "metallic" rap from some diesels when they blew the HG and combustion got into the coolant.
The head should be very staight, not really smooth. It needs (for a lack of better explanation) teeth to bite the gasket, but those teeth should not have gaps that will let combustion gasses through.
My head now has a flatness of less than 1/100 mm in any direction.

AlpineRAM

AlpineRAM

Well, now I've got studs, a new headgasket and still a lot of blowby and the metallic rap got louder. It's amazing that the cylinders didn't look bad. There's no water in the oil.
Right now it looks like a complete teardown and see what has happened.
But the downside to this is that I haven't got the money to do it. With a blown engine the truck won't sell for what I owe and now that's gonna take some more money that I don't have. I'm really depressed now.
Does anybody have an idea as to how much a good block with crank, cam etc (complete up to the headgasket) and a headgasket would cost me? How much would this weigh?
(Since I've got a 53 block I'd think it would be neat to know that the block is new)

Not my year as Lary said. (Some of my customers won't pay either, so this doesn't help too. The charity I worked for got under scrutiny, so it looks like I have done a lot of charity-hours to no avail for the intended handicapped people. Postal service seems to have lost my injectors.)

Do you know whether you can pull the pistons from below with the engine in the frame? Pull the crank and swap the bearings?

I apologise for the rant...

AlpineRAM

Flatty

I don't know if this helps you, but you may want to check this out. He has been selling it for a while.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=347627

Dima