Broken down, toasted engine??

[Geom]

Hello all,

Some of you may remember some of the issues we've been having with our bus (heat issues, low compression when cold, etc). Anyway, we've spent about 3 months here in CO and things had actually been going pretty well. I installed 2 additional 10" fans on the radiator to control the heat. I cleaned the radiator really well to knock off any crud that may be accumulated there. Got the mister system functional again. And I've been taking it slowly up steep grades.
All of that seemed to be doing really well to keep the temps well within tolerable limits (sub 195).

Well all of that went to pot today.
We were climbing a rather steep hill. She'd been running just fine (~20mph) and the temps and pressure were all good (~190).
Half way up the next steep hill we noticed a small trail of white smoke :O
Immediately looking for a spot to pull over, I kept going forward (we're on a narrow mountain pass, so options were very limited).
Well the small trail grew larger and larger by the second; till it was a full plume of thick white smoke.
At that point I lost power and she wasn't moving another inch!

After messing with our electric compressor to get the air back up, we managed to wiggle her off of the road (thank God for that thing!!!), and at least we're not in the middle of the highway any more.
When I went back there to check what was going on, there was a good amount of oil coming from one exhaust manifold, a good amount of oil dripping on the ground, and there was what appeared to be coolant (and oil) coming out of the blow-by tank reservoir thing. And there was that distinctive smell of toasted motor oil!!
Attempting to restart it (just once) it kinda sorta starts, but runs really really rough, so I quickly killed it.

So that's where we're at. There's no doubt that something quite catastrophic has happened to the engine...
So HELP!!! Please...

At this point I'm looking at having it towed somewhere to have a look. I don't really know what my options are at this point, but I'm likely looking at an engine replacement, rebuild, reman? Any advice you can provide here would greatly appreciated.
Any idea where I'd get an engine?
Should I try to salvage this one? (Although, it probably highly depends on what happened)
Is there a better option?

I am also now looking for a shop that can work on this bus.

I feel my options will be quite limited here but any info is greatly appreciated.

We are currently in CO. We are on highway 550 just north of Silverton (so called "Million Dollar Highway").
We are on the southbound lane side.


Thanks all, in advance.

[Melbo]

It seems to me I remember a conversation I had with someone that there is a company in Durango that does bus repowers.  I don't have a name so no help there from me but maybe someone on the board can help with a name.

They would be kind of in your neighborhood.

HTH

Melbo

[Tom Y]

Sorry to hear of your trouble. I pray you are not on the cliff side. That is some road. I wish you well .Tom

[eagle19952]

I think Farmington NM is going to be your best bet... Stewart and Stevenson.

[Dave5Cs]

George I agree with Eagle if you have towing services especially Coach net they will put it on a landall and take it there. I do believe there is or was a place in Durango when we lived in Colorado but that was years ago and can't say if they are still there. Many truck places in Colorado though because everything goes through there one way or the other to get to all destinations. Pretty road where you are at but only Durago and silverton semi close to you and Ouray but there will be nothing there to fix you up.
Dave

Bobs Truck & Bus Repair
Be the first to review!

20909 Highway 160,

Durango, CO 81301

(970) 247-4456

[luvrbus]

Vandergrift did have a shop in that area,it and Bobs were the only 2 I know of ,I did not care for Bobs he charged me 800 bucks for a 100 buck pickup fuel pump on the Trek

[Dave5Cs]

George any updates?...
Dave

[Scott & Heather]

Bummer. Sounds like it was toast before and just now actually failed you. Let us know what plans you are formulating.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[chessie4905]

Many times a major overheat episode on a DD two cycle doesn't show the damage till a couple of thousand miles later, other than some lesser symptoms, like increased smoke when cold, or increased oil leakage. Especially to the inexperienced.

[Geom]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the well wishes and good info.
Here's the latest,

I just never got a good feeling for the shops around the immediate area. Bob's was the only one to even mention working on heavy diesels, and Google showed the shop as "permanently closed", yet someone (a phone service) still answers their number.
Eventually got to talking to Dow at S & S in NM. Got a good feeling that he actually knew what he was talking about and that he had mechanics on staff that could work on a DD 2 stroke.
So we got a tow to the shop in Farmington.

Had a good conversation with them this morning and gave them a rundown on what happened. His DD guy came out to take a look.
Checked the oil and coolant and then we tried to start it.
It was a bit rough (not really worse than usual), but it did start and ran.
It was running, mostly fine, with no smoke or rough idling.
Then after a minute or so, we started to see oil driping out of the exhaust pipe.
So we immediately killed it when we saw that.
There was also a weird... faint metallic (clanking? ringing? rapping?) sound that we could hear from the exhaust pipe while running.

They won't be able to get to us for several days but he had some thoughts on what it could be.
1) possibly the blower on the turbo is somehow getting wet and pushing oil
2) a cracked crown on a head (not sure what that is)
3) a cracked cylinder liner
4) cracked head
5) bad injector (possible cause for the excess white smoke). Although after the start attempt, he started to suspect the white smoke was coolant not unspent fuel.
6) A bad intecooler (not sure what/where that is either), under the engine

But he's got several other projects he has to knock out first before he gets to us.
His plan is to start with the turbo and work down to the cylinders to diagnose the issues.

I'll update you guys as we get more info and to get feedback; as I'm sure I'm going to have some serious decisions to make here in the coming week or two.

Thanks again all,
George

[luvrbus]

George, get everything in writing S&S is not the same Co it was years back.I sent a bus nut there a couple years ago and they told him $16,000( 6v71) for a out of frame when he went to pick it up they wanted $35,000 but agreed on $25,000 so watch them,and they do have good 2 stroke guys for all the oil field engines in that area

good luck 

[Geom]

Ok, here's is the latest.

Did some really preliminary diags into the situation. These were things the shop figured I could do on my own, before they'd have to roll us into a bay.

1) took the air intake off of the turbo. The mechanic was able to look at the turbo and he no longer thinks there's a turbo problem. He thought it felt good, rotated freely, wasn't wet, and appeared in good condition.

2) took the valve cover off of the lower bank. He suspected that if there was coolant or frothy oil in there, that'd give us a hint. It was completely clean and just had typical trace amounts of clean oil on the parts.

3) pulled a sample of oil out of the oil pan into a styrofoam coffee cup. Coolant did come out. I'd say about 1-2 oz of greenish slop came out before just regular oil came out.

4) an interesting thing worth noting was before we attempted to do a restart yesterday, I checked the oil level. At that time it was slightly above the L mark. After the restart attempt, and subsequent oil leaking from the exchaust, the oil now barely registers on the stick at all.
I figure there's about 1 gallon from F to L mark, and perhaps another 1/2 gallon from L to the bottom of the stick. It didn't look like we spewed 1/2 a gallon of oil out the tail pipe, so I'm not sure where that oil went???

5) The coolant surge tank is completely empty. So I'm not sure how much coolant is actually still in the engine at this point. (I'd mentioned thinking that I checked both oil and coolant yesterday before starting, but I had actually only checked the oil and just thought about checking the coolant).

Anyway, that's all he feels comfortable having me do, outside of a bay.
The next thing he wants to check is the blower assembly. Taking that off will be a PITA and he didn't want to do that outside where blowing dust could easily get in.
He suspects an intercooler (if installed) in the blower assembly as a possible culprit for the oil and coolant mixing. He wasn't certain though if that engine actually has an intercooler and needs to take the blower apart to look.
Any advice or help there would be appreciated. Would this engine necessarily have an intercooler in the blower??

So that's all we've got so far. He's till busy working his other projects, and occasionally squeezing some of this in between. 

If there's anything additional you all can think of that I can poke at my self (with relatively simple tools), I can go back out there and do some more checking.

Thanks again,
George

[luvrbus]

George, you can tell if your engine is aftercooled by just looking,if you see a 1-1/4 pipe coming from under the blower (governor) from the block going to the T stat housing it will have a after cooler he should know that,if you only have the one crossover pipe tying the 2 heads together then there is no after cooler    

[chessie4905]

Here's some pictures to check out

https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+8v-71+with+aftercooler+installed&client=tablet-android-verizon&prmd=sivn&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&fir=mjA5tRm-w454tM%253A%252CWmh6p19VPTRDrM%252C_%253B6veJB2eMDGEJHM%253A%252CJaGm7MQLyZ-P2M%252C_%253B3i7sJUuCGWFh6M%253A%252C8_fjYmVhfPoIDM%252C_%253BagjqFy_XTxPh2M%253A%252CWmh6p19VPTRDrM%252C_%253BoW6vaS1e76bN_M%253A%252CWmh6p19VPTRDrM%252C_%253B5zm4mkCgivWU9M%253A%252C-BpZjhLCen7IKM%252C_%253BTCR20LbZFCOZDM%253A%252CWmh6p19VPTRDrM%252C_&usg=__6okSWNSRE8ac8z5j2hurM9H3AeU%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjS8qyXn-_OAhXI6x4KHaYoAzEQ7AkILQ&biw=962&bih=601

[Geoff]

That engine is toast.  You are going to pay them only to find the heads are cracked, and when they drop the oil pan the crank will be scored.  Save time (and money) and have them (or you) check the crank first.

--Geoff