Signature 600 ISX Cummins engine brake calamity.

Boy, I sure do miss trucks with no computers, a rod that goes from the accelerator to the fuel pump, and no wires from the head.

Two weeks ago, the engine brake just up and quit cold turkey on my 2000 W900B while loaded (90K lbs., permitted in my state of course,) and running over the Vermont back mountain roads. Not healthy.

Worked on it somewhat on Friday 11-11-16, but didn't have a lot of time to dig deep into it at home. Ran a load to Spartanburg, SC the following day, saw a Cummins dealer so I got a room and made plans to get into that shop Monday morning and fix the problem. Didn't go so well.

That shop said it'd be 4 days to get in there. I looked up Cummins shops on Google, and found the next closest one in Charlotte, NC. I headed up there. They couldn't do anything Monday, but Tuesday they could get it right in. I'm in nice weather, no rush...no problem I thought to myself.

Tuesday they worked on it all day, called me and said it'll be finished for Wednesday morning. Good deal. Booked a load home and went to get the truck from Cummins shop. Paid them $840.00 for replacing the wiring harness under the valve cover that feeds the jake solenoids (even though I did that last year, hmmmm...?) hooked to the trailer...went left out of the driveway, flipped the jake switch on...NOTHING. Back to the drawing board.

Another two hours of diagnosis, dash opened up, two-three "techs" standing around looking at things...they conclude it's a bad jake solenoid. Too bad we didn't conclude this the day before while the cover was off, but nobody's perfect. Didn't have them in stock. Overnighted parts, so another night in motel and postponed the load home.

Thursday 11-17-2016; Jake solenoids and new wiring harness now installed. The service supervisor there at that facility is a super nice fella, very good at his job, apologized to me for all my inconvenience and didn't even charge me for the parts or labor for the second visit. He did indicate though that the jake still didn't work because now...they say I need a new ECM. I just put one on 2 years ago as well, along with the new harness...so I'm starting to scratch my head now. Decided to lick my wounds and leave out of there with my skin, and deal with it when I got home. That gives me plenty of alone time to "hallucinate and ponder..."

Got 200 miles up the road and discovered the "tech" screwed up the valve cover gasket and blew 5 gallons of oil all over the engine (in 200 miles,) all the way back to the trailer mud flaps. That evening, I stopped in Hagerstown, Md. at a shop I know and we put a new gasket in. What we found was a zip tie that the "tech" dropped and jammed between the head and the cover, cutting the gasket in two. Another $340.00, 4.5 more gallons of Rotella T, and an $85.00 truck wash before I was done with that episode. I did contact Cummins after all this and had to express my opinion, along with pictures and receipts. They did come through...stood behind it and said they are reimbursing me for all that trouble, so I cannot say anything negative about them over all this even to this point. I highly doubted I would even get a return call or email, let alone a check.

This past Tuesday I had a day off to study an online wiring schematic and get some education on the electrical side of this problem before I went and threw a new ECM on and another couple grand at this. Went to my local shop and we got together (3 sets of eyes,) and started checking voltage, ohms, current...and lo & behold we discovered a broken ground. We grounded the Jake switch and it came to life full tilt. I cleaned the common grounds on the cab lug but also ran an external one to be sure it always had a ground. That's all it was. 3 days in a Cummins shop (that is also a training facility,) $850.00 for unnecessary parts and labor, another $500.00 for the mess up...motel rooms, food...on and on. Once I was able to clear my mind, sit down and study this, take time to analyze the situation with a couple other good men, the problem ended up being simple as I always thought it was from the moment I lost that connection.

Moral to the story: Always listen to your gut, if it speaks. If not, listen to the mechanic I guess...but I had a strange feeling from the get go that it was either a loose connection OR a bad ground. Bad (or none at all,) grounds do very funny things.

 

He said it'd be a couple of weeks by the time I got that reimbursement check, so we'll see. I am confident they will follow through with their promise...I don't think that shop intentionally did anything awry; it's just a simple lack of age, wisdom, knowledge...hands-on experience that is completely understandable given the fact that these new electronic animals are a complicated machine.

Geez, unless they did indeed NOT send that reimbursement to me, I'd hate to go ahead and smear their reputation with the BBB there. Again, the first leg of the project they did what they thought was right, even though they should have done what I did in the first place and check the harness for voltage and resistance BEFORE they started guessing. The second leg was a freebie to me, for missing the first leg. I'm sure that zip tie wasn't anything more than a mistake, and we all make 'em, so what can you say...

If I took the screaming, yelling and anger route instead of the rational, logical and calm one, I think I'd be looking at a whole different outcome. Those old sayings such as "you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar" make perfect sense here.

 

You got that right SAR. Feels fantastic now that that mystery is solved. I ran it all day yesterday and it's stronger than ever (Jake brake) now. But that's what it boiled down to is I didn't have the extra time to follow all the way through the process of elimination the previous Friday, so I ended up kind of "giving in" and decided to slide into a shop to have it looked at.

As it was said, good techs are as hard to find as good drivers these days. But I'll give them this; sometimes these electrical gremlins just flat out require a clear mind, some serious devotion to educating yourself (or the one doing the work if not you,) and perserverence to really dig down deep into how things work. Once you eliminate all possible suspects, then you may have to make those "educated guesses" but I'd rather exhaust all options before that point if possible. Anyone can just change parts.Well, almost anyone, lol.

On a lighter note. I had the privilege of hauling an old beauty today. Had a call to move a 1946 International KB-7 ton and a 1/2 truck... ...just a short 30 mile run before dinner today. Good thing it was BEFORE dinner...cuz I'm in no shape to after the feedbag I just emptied, hahaha.

 

That makes the whole look of the truck to me.

Yeah, they look like John Denver glasses on there.