Anyone in the Indiana area ?

[Coltonreece]

Just looking to rack someone’s brain about any IDI community’s, meet up’s, good places for parts , good shops relevant to the IDI specifically ( such as tuning and timing) in or around southern Indiana !

 

[IDIBRONCO]

I believe that Snicklas is in Indiana. He's an admin on the forum.

 

[Rocknit4x4]

I’m up in NWI but have found - including the dealerships - that most don’t have anyone familiar with these engines any more. I was lucky to find one shop where they are willing to help me with the stuff I don’t have time to tackle myself, but generally it’s gone much better when I come armed with idi specific knowledge. They are good guys but were real honest with me when I first started working with them when they told me they have done much work on IDIs in 10-15 years.

My overall experience is that I needed to learn about the truck enough here to be able to understand how it currently works, how it should work, what the most likely culprits are and what to do about it. After doing all the research on any particular issue, it’s usually not that much more work to test /fix it yourself.

I brought the truck to 3 different shops around here trying to figure out a glow plug issue - after 3 shops telling me that either they were working fine or they fixed them (and yet couldn’t start below 40* without being plugged in) I found this site and started searching and reading. Ended up ordering a new harness, new beru plugs, new controller - still didn’t fix it. Finally found out that the truck has “fuseable links” - hate those things - and they partially failed - still showed voltage but wouldn’t allow enough current to work correctly. Replaced with a circuit breaker and it fires like a champ now.

My point is - I wish you the best of luck, but if you can’t find anyone to do it all for you, this site has a ton of knowledge and knowledgeable people on it that can prob steer you close for just about any issue - at least close enough that you can bring the truck to any decent mechanic with a short list of things to check for your particular issue.

Also there’s a registry for shops people have had good experiences with on here.

 

[IDIBOBS]

I’m up in NWI but have found - including the dealerships - that most don’t have anyone familiar with these engines any more. I was lucky to find one shop where they are willing to help me with the stuff I don’t have time to tackle myself, but generally it’s gone much better when I come armed with idi specific knowledge. They are good guys but were real honest with me when I first started working with them when they told me they have done much work on IDIs in 10-15 years.

My overall experience is that I needed to learn about the truck enough here to be able to understand how it currently works, how it should work, what the most likely culprits are and what to do about it. After doing all the research on any particular issue, it’s usually not that much more work to test /fix it yourself.

I brought the truck to 3 different shops around here trying to figure out a glow plug issue - after 3 shops telling me that either they were working fine or they fixed them (and yet couldn’t start below 40* without being plugged in) I found this site and started searching and reading. Ended up ordering a new harness, new beru plugs, new controller - still didn’t fix it. Finally found out that the truck has “fuseable links” - hate those things - and they partially failed - still showed voltage but wouldn’t allow enough current to work correctly. Replaced with a circuit breaker and it fires like a champ now.

My point is - I wish you the best of luck, but if you can’t find anyone to do it all for you, this site has a ton of knowledge and knowledgeable people on it that can prob steer you close for just about any issue - at least close enough that you can bring the truck to any decent mechanic with a short list of things to check for your particular issue.

Also there’s a registry for shops people have had good experiences with on here.

It amazes me that modern shops won’t work on these. I’ve been building cars for 35 years. It’s the same as another other motor. It’s actually 100xs easier than a modern truck. I’m glad you are figuring things out your self. It’s really the best thing. No shaddy mechanic steeling your money. Pro tip you can dump the fusible links and just run a breaker

 

[snicklas]

I believe that Snicklas is in Indiana. He's an admin on the forum.

I am, but I’m in central Indiana…

But like mentioned, most shops won’t touch them.. We have a really good diesel shop in town and they will not touch them. We have to do all our own work…

 

[IDIBRONCO]

It amazes me that modern shops won’t work on these. I’ve been building cars for 35 years. It’s the same as another other motor. It’s actually 100xs easier than a modern truck.

I agree. The biggest problem whit them working on our trucks is that there's no place to plug anything in. They'd actually have to troubleshoot in order to find out what's wrong.

 

[Old Goat]

We have a shop down here in Gardnerville, "Standard Diesel".
Has the usual line up of all the latest high powered, electric controlled Diesel trucks, Dodge, GM, Ford etc... Parking lot is filled with them.

I come in with my 86 a few years back with the Oil Cooler puking oil into the Cooling system.
"OH< we don`t work on stuff that old". Now I refere to them as "Stranded Diesel".
Heck you have Power Strokes in your yard, have the same (almost) Oil Cooler.
So I read up on how to do it, and did it my self.
Except for the Injection Pump, everything on these engines is
simple basic stuff.

No shops have the timing devices for these engines.
None of the mechanics (for the most part) were not around when these engines were built. Plus they are too simple for them to understand.

Stick around, every thing that was ever asked or problem
someone had, have been asked or addressed here on the forum. Every one here had to learn about these engines or Diesel`s for the most part. These IDI Engines are simple, once you under the simplistics (is that a word?) of them.


Goat