Melted piston

Cord · Oct 7, 2016

That or get a Pyro gauge and back off the tune when towing. Frankly, I'd replace the pistons. You probably don't need to get into a full rebuild.

buickanddeere · Oct 7, 2016

CJONE said:
They are aluminum. Most Diesels have steel reinforcement where needed in the pistons ,ring lands ect. Don't know much about the smaller cummins like the 5.9 but some are "throw away blocks" with no sleeve. You can bore and press a new sleeve in to fix a badly damaged cylinder. Most of your larger engines have either wet liners that seal with O-rings to the water jackets and head gaskets [Cat] or dry sleeve, no O-rings and a sleeve is pushed in to a dry bore and it has a fire ring and head gasket to seal head/combustion chamber [Mack]. In frame it now and fix the problem like the others are saying. The piston is the result of the problem and the new one will look the that in a short amount of time if the problem is not fixed. Diesels aint cheap!!! CJ

What? There is still a long line of people who purchase a light diesel highway vehicle or consumer level off road machine with the diesel option to "save" money.

QRTRHRS · Oct 8, 2016

buickanddeere said:
What? There is still a long line of people who purchase a light diesel highway vehicle or consumer level off road machine with the diesel option to "save" money.

More likely to "make smoke", etc., etc. LOL!

Anyway, it would be nice to know some history on this particular 5.9? There are plenty of stories about 5.9's going 900k or so miles without a teardown or a replacement. My own only had 250k and as long as I kept the oil 1/2 qt low, would use minimal oil. Fill it to the line and it would blow it out, something I have seen on N14's etc. Excessive exhaust temp is a sure killer from what I know. A little tweaking and that post pyro guage will rise faster than a tach.

As far as throw away's, the 3126, C7 CATS or the DT466's come to mind. Along with the 5.9's, excess idleing will also kill these so called medium duty engines as is shutting down with a hot turbo to soon.

Jnasystems · Oct 10, 2016

Thanks for the suggestions. To give a little back story, I tried to run veg oil in it and within 7k miles the injectors were having troubles. I took them out to be cleaned, but they never were quite right after that. There are performance mods on the engine and the airflow was sub par, but that will be rectified with a new turbo that was installed just before the failure. I have now also replaced all the injectors with remanufactured injectors from scheid diesel. Hopefully those two fixes will solve the problem. An egt gage will also be installed to ensure no further problems.

CJONE · Oct 10, 2016

buickanddeere said:
What? There is still a long line of people who purchase a light diesel highway vehicle or consumer level off road machine with the diesel option to "save" money.

Yep, never understood that. Running a 3/4 ton truck with a turbo engine to get groceries, then complain about their VVT coking up?? Buy fuel at the cheapest mom and pop gas station and ruin the fuel system with algae or at least have to drain and refill and change a bunch of fuel filters?? CJ