Overhaul..question

you'll get used to it I hardly ever use my cruise control anymore. You get better fuel mileage driving easy on the foot

 

My foot don't like the pedal either.

As for breaking in. Not many people worry about it. Semi's, cars, motorcycles. They buy them brand new. And drive them. Engines don't seem to be blowing up.

Seems like the boss said 5k also when I got one of his new rigs.

 

Break it in exactly like your gonna drive it every day. No need to give special treatment.

 

Wait!!! You drove by foot for eight hours and have determined. You couldn't drive 5000 miles with put using cruise? What did you do back in the days before cruise? Were you one of the pull out the throttle guys?

 

A Sawed off broom handle from shippers dock with a string glued to end and tied off to dash so driver does not take eyes off road when turning cuz/control back on?

 

I found out what that brick in the cab was for,,

 

Rings require cylinder pressure to push them out against the cylinder wall, they do not have enough static tension to seat themselves. A hard breakin will shove them out against the cylinder wall for the hone peaks to wear the ring high spots down. This sharp hone pattern breaks off too .. Like a new file wearing out. When the hone is smooth you cant machine the rings any further so if they arent seated fully by then, too bad so sad. Low compression, high blowby and contaminated oil result.

Race engines are broken in at the burnout box and all the tests you can do will confirm this is effective. I dont recommend it that hard on non race applications but the point is anyone throwing out silly mileage numbers is full of crap. The compression and leakdown numbers immediately jump up after the first hard load. If you never load hard theyll never come up.

Run it pretty hard through the full rpm range and dont let it sit at any one rpm. Keep it varied. Youre crosshatch will be wearing down steadily.. The first hour is critical. Then change oil pretty soon, maybe 2000 miles. Itll be full of cast iron and chrome. On a gasser street car you lift off over and over to engine brake against the throttle. Vacuum will collapse the rings away from the wall and back onto the piston during the suction stroke, which spares some crosshatch for the power stroke when load is applied and useful honing can occur.

 

So how does that work with genset diesels? You can load them up to 100% with a load bank but they will only ever run 1800 RPM because that's the speed you need to generate a 60 Hz wave. They all seem to run just fine only ever being governed at 1800.

Not trying to stir up anything, just my personal observation.

 

I don't know which is what or why, but I had a 95 f 350 that I bought new. I probably had 30k or so on it when we moved my in-laws from California to Idaho. Prior to that trip it always used a bit of oil. I was pulling an enclosed trailer loaded with their stuff, and after that 17 mile pull from Baker CA toward Vegas the oil consumption ended. That pickup had 305000 miles on it when I sold it, and other than glow plugs, a turbo pedestal, and the valve cover gaskets with the wiring running through them, the engine was trouble free.

Based on my experience if you drive just the way you're going to drive they will break in over time. I have never owned a new big truck, but friends that had them back in the mechanical days always said that it took 20k miles or more before they started pulling good. I assume it took that long for the rings to finish seating, but maybe it was just as much everything else loosening up a bit.