Kevin Rutherfrauds $200000 Signature glider truck has complete engine failure!!!

I also don't buy the mismatched parts story. I've built a handful of gas engines & most were frankenbuilds of some sort. Had a 1.8L corolla block mated to a 1.6L mr2 head using Chevrolet valve springs and a Porsche timing belt breathing through a Mitsubishi turbo. No problems, but I assembled it with care and thoroughly checked the machine shop's work...

 

Who owns this truck? Is this KR's decision or the owner's? It sounds like KR is calling the shots with someone else's money. Hard to imagine someone still following his advice... is this guy just doing what he's told? I'm not an expert genius but at this point I think I would decide the stock rebuild would stay in the truck and someone else can throw their money around playing with mods and wiz-bang wonder parts. But what do I know?

 

I agree with RedForeman on factory built vs quality shop built, also on only getting your pick of 2 out of time/cost/quality.
I've built many gas engines from the bare block up, blueprinted strokers included, and only assisted in some diesel builds.

My experience and lesson in "High Profile Big Name Shops" vs (what I call) the "No Name Guy with good references".
I first had machine work done on blocks & heads by a Big Name shop.
End result:
Had 2 blocks decked (milled), and upon checking when I got them back, I confirmed the deck surfaces were from +0.005 on one end to -0.035 on the other end.
Side to side was a disaster also. Completely ruined 2 good pristine bare blocks. Yes, I made THEM eat it and replace both.
Most mechanics/assemblers wouldn't even have double-checked their work, and went on with the pistons, crank, & head installation.
I think similar 'oversights' happened at PP.

"No Name Guy" had tight circle of "word of mouth" references. Worked out of his small shop behind his house. Had a few lathes, milling machines, etc.
On "acceptable" factory tolerances of say,, +/- .002 all my machine work he did, had tolerances of +/- .0003 (super-tight tolerance,, virtually perfect).

When I hear the entire PP & KR story, this lesson is the first thing that comes to my mind. Big shops & big names don't mean diddly.

 

That's pretty much it. Until you get big enough to have a true assembly line, quality suffers with volume. The small guy lives or dies on his rep, so he makes sure it's right. The big boys have the machinery and quality control processes in place to turn out engine after engine within spec. Sure there's some variance, some are tighter than others, just like engines off the new line do, but they're all in spec. The "We think we're big boys!" shops tend to put to much time pressure on the techs, who are expected to turn out an engine in so many hours. And often there's no outside checks to verify specs as the assembly moves along, it's all dependent on the tech themselves. And now we know how that sometimes works out.

 

They're new O/O's and are buying whatever he's willing to sell. Chasing 10mpg because KR says on paper this truck will do it because he has his figures he spouts off for every little mod. I haven't seen anything that says that the purchasers didn't pay full price in exchange for letting everyone experiment so in my opinion KR is playing with someone else's money to try all of the crap he gets paid to talk about.

 

So what happens to a diesel when you over advance the fuel delivery and lug the engine up a hill and get it hot?


i am not being a smart a.z.z. Hammer just asking.


i participated in the murdering of two 6 cylinder Volvo marine Diesels that died from their own Manufactures recommendations.

Than single handedly killed a Yanmar/Toyota marine engine in a period of 12 months once again by the recommendations of the manufacture.

The manufactures recommendations had them over propped. A boat is like being in 13th from start to finish and going up one big hill ,there is no relief. If there is an error on gearing it will show it's ugly head soon.

I blew countless Turbos , burned holes thru 3800 dollar aluminum exhaust manifolds and finally just lost so much compression after a thousand hours the motors were 1/2 as powerful as new.

All from trying to get too much power out of a motor at a certain RPM that the manufacture recommended.

 

Yea, guess his BUTT HURTS

 

Cat sdp,, imo, you should have investigated that 6% a whole lot deeper, especially before it went out of warranty.
Not hard to imagine Cat techs saying "No problem here". Whether that is actually true... is a whole 'nother subject.

Here's some good info I had bookmarked a good while back.
I've copied/pasted only the fuel dilution part, but the rest of the article contains additional informative info on oil analysis.
Here's the link to the full article... Four Lethal Diesel Engine Oil Contaminants

Fuel Dilution
Frequent starts of an engine, excessive idling and cold running conditions can lead to moderate fuel dilution problems. Severe dilution (excess of two percent) is associated with leakage, fuel injector problems and impaired combustion efficiency. These are symptomatic of serious conditions that cannot be corrected by an oil change. According to one reference, 0.36 percent of total fuel consumption ends up in the crankcase. Problems associated with fuel dilution include:

• Diesel fuel dilution in cold operating conditions can cause waxing. During startup, this can result in low oil pressure and starvation conditions.
• Diesel fuel carries unsaturated aromatic molecules into the motor oil which are pro-oxidants. This can result in a premature loss of base number (loss of corrosion protection) and oxidative thickening of the motor oil, causing deposits and mild starvation.
• Fuel dilution can drop the viscosity of a motor oil from say, a 15W40 to a 5W20. This collapses critical oil film thicknesses, resulting in premature combustion zone wear (piston, rings and liner) and crankcase bearing wear.
• Fuel dilution from defective injectors commonly causes wash-down of oil on cylinder liners which accelerates ring, piston and cylinder wear. It also causes high blow-by conditions and increased oil consumption (reverse blow-by).
• Severe fuel dilution dilutes the concentration of oil additives and hence, diluting their effectiveness.
• Fuel dilution by biodiesel may result in higher than normal problems compared to diesel refined by crude stock. These problems include oxidation stability, filter plugging issues, deposit formation and volatility resulting in crankcase accumulations.

 

If the injection timing is too far advanced, the cylinder pressure spikes way too soon. Especially at low rpm, the combustion event is well under way before the piston gets close to TDC, and for a brief moment before the rod breaks over at the top of the stroke, that piston is pushing backwards on the crank with even more pressure than just the normal compression. The engine is actually fighting itself, with a portion of the fuel energy slowing crank rotation rather than accelerating it. It also means that the pressure falls off sooner, so that when the crank is halfway through the power stroke, where the rod has the most leverage, the pressure has already dropped dramatically.

At a higher rpm, the injection can happen sooner because the rod will break over before the combustion event has had time to build any pressure. Same as it is with cars and ignition timing, it can happen further before TDC as rpm increases, as it takes a certain amount of time for the fire to get going.

 

Looks to me all parties are going to get what they deserve; Trucker an education and the suppliers being exposed.