jrollf
Full Access Member
For the last 10 years or so my truck hasn't been worked too hard. Last year we bought an about 8,000 lb Travel Trailer, and the truck is once again being used as a truck.
We did a fairly long vacation trip, which accounted for about 2,500 miles of 3,100 miles on my last oil change, all pulling the Trailer. With about 1,500 miles of it out west in the Arizona, Nevada, Utah region pulling many hard grades, 3rd gear was common, with occasionally down to 2nd. The engine and truck have 226,000 miles on it.
I regularly get my oil tested at Blackstone, following trends of wear materials usually helps understanding the health of the engine. Many years ago it lead me to realize I was getting trace amounts of coolant in my oil, before you could even see it. (Oil cooler rebuild fixed that).
Flash forward to this last oil change and my latest Oil Analysis from Blackstone. It has me really worried, Iron, Chromium, and Aluminum are all WAY up, and all time high. Potentially indicating a cylinder issue. Iron over 300% increase, and my oil came back a bit high on the viscous side, possibly due to increased soot from blow by. I was expected some increase in wear metals due to the hard towing... but nothing like this.
I have for years, sworn that I could hear a slight knock in the engine bottom end, especially at idle. Diesel mechs around me always look at me funny and say it sounds fine or best sounding IDI they have heard in years. But with the drastic increase in wear metals.. now I'm really doubting the health of my engine. I've tried the "bleed one injector at a time" to see if the slight knock I think I'm hearing changes, but it doesn't seem too. The knock seems loudest if I stick my head under the driver's side of the truck around where the bell housing meets the engine, not surprisingly it's loudest when cold. Oil pressure is a healthy 40ish running hot down the highway.
I'm planning another longs vacation dragging the Travel Trailer for three weeks this November, likely to be in the 3,000 mile range again. Now I'm not too sure about the trip. I don't put a lot of miles on this truck, likely it won't be due for an oil change before my trip in November (even an early one at 2,000 miles as suggested by Blackstone), so no real chance to get more trending on it before vacation.
Thoughts... am I worrying too much? Stay home pull the engine and send it off to Wes for a rebuild @Thewespaul, maybe I need to drive over from Houston and have you take a look at it!
My first step will be a compression test... unfortunately I'm not setup to do a compression bleed down test which would tell me a lot more. I did a compression test a couple years ago and they all were within range of each other / healthy.
We did a fairly long vacation trip, which accounted for about 2,500 miles of 3,100 miles on my last oil change, all pulling the Trailer. With about 1,500 miles of it out west in the Arizona, Nevada, Utah region pulling many hard grades, 3rd gear was common, with occasionally down to 2nd. The engine and truck have 226,000 miles on it.
I regularly get my oil tested at Blackstone, following trends of wear materials usually helps understanding the health of the engine. Many years ago it lead me to realize I was getting trace amounts of coolant in my oil, before you could even see it. (Oil cooler rebuild fixed that).
Flash forward to this last oil change and my latest Oil Analysis from Blackstone. It has me really worried, Iron, Chromium, and Aluminum are all WAY up, and all time high. Potentially indicating a cylinder issue. Iron over 300% increase, and my oil came back a bit high on the viscous side, possibly due to increased soot from blow by. I was expected some increase in wear metals due to the hard towing... but nothing like this.
I have for years, sworn that I could hear a slight knock in the engine bottom end, especially at idle. Diesel mechs around me always look at me funny and say it sounds fine or best sounding IDI they have heard in years. But with the drastic increase in wear metals.. now I'm really doubting the health of my engine. I've tried the "bleed one injector at a time" to see if the slight knock I think I'm hearing changes, but it doesn't seem too. The knock seems loudest if I stick my head under the driver's side of the truck around where the bell housing meets the engine, not surprisingly it's loudest when cold. Oil pressure is a healthy 40ish running hot down the highway.
I'm planning another longs vacation dragging the Travel Trailer for three weeks this November, likely to be in the 3,000 mile range again. Now I'm not too sure about the trip. I don't put a lot of miles on this truck, likely it won't be due for an oil change before my trip in November (even an early one at 2,000 miles as suggested by Blackstone), so no real chance to get more trending on it before vacation.
Thoughts... am I worrying too much? Stay home pull the engine and send it off to Wes for a rebuild @Thewespaul, maybe I need to drive over from Houston and have you take a look at it!
My first step will be a compression test... unfortunately I'm not setup to do a compression bleed down test which would tell me a lot more. I did a compression test a couple years ago and they all were within range of each other / healthy.
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