Project Big Blue

[Thewespaul]

No smoking cannons that scream to me an obvious issue. From what I can see I think either there was an issue with the gasket at the joint which I circled on the film of the new gasket below which is where the fire ring separated on the bad gasket, or possibly the insert for the coolant passage wasn’t sitting flat and skewed the torque reading, but from how it looks I’m thinking the fire ring failed first and forced the rest of the gasket out, hard to say.

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There is a small imprint on the face of the piston from the fire ring failing, luckily I can see that it’s not affecting the bore so I think we lucked out there. Already measured the studs and they all haven’t stretched and are equal lengths. Piston protrusion is the same as my measurements from the original assembly so nothing wrong with the bottom end. Curious to hear y’all’s thoughts.

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[lsaami]

Yikes! That’s scary. Given the force on the fire ring vs the force on the coolant passage, I’d lean towards fire ring failure. Everything has a certain percentage of manufacturing defects, right?

I guess the same could be said about both...

 

[IDIBRONCO]

The only good thing about this is that it happened while the truck was still in your possession. That's why I got to drive trucks ******* test drives. Plus it was fun to drive the crap out of other people's trucks. I never abused them. I never hit the governor either (unless it was wet and slick out).

 

[Thewespaul]

Yep, much rather it happen to me. I personally hate driving other peoples stuff, especially driving in traffic worrying about other idiots on the road, but happy I found the issue before it left the following day.

 

[Thewespaul]

Yikes! That’s scary. Given the force on the fire ring vs the force on the coolant passage, I’d lean towards fire ring failure. Everything has a certain percentage of manufacturing defects, right?

I guess the same could be said about both...

I’m leaning towards the fire ring myself. I pressure tested the cooling system with 30 psi overnight and it should have shown some signs of leakage if it were the insert I would think.

 

[Cainon]

@Thewespaul do you ever make any How To videos on YouTube or something?

 

[Thewespaul]

Not really, I’ve got a few tech threads on here, Ive often thought about doing a monthly livestream on the shop Facebook page doing an all IDI Q&A while building pumps, once I have my fuel shop moved into my main shop later this month so all my work will be in house I’ll have more opportunities to do stuff like that.

 

[Garbage_Mechan]

Might consider a hydrolock. Long shot but I had a studded 6.9 blow the gasket out like that. It was due to rainwater in my case. Blew the gasket out and all the freeze plugs!

 

[Thewespaul]

That was my purpose in checking piston protrusion, with how it failed when driving it couldn’t be rainwater causing a hydraulic lock but I wanted to be sure the coolant didn’t get into the cylinder and compress. With how the gasket blew out there wasn’t any compression happening in the cylinder with the fire ring blown out the block, so no way for liquid to get trapped luckily.

 

[Garbage_Mechan]

Didn’t mean it was hydrolock from rain just that the only similar gasket failure I’ve seen on a studded engine was from hydrolock.

 

[saburai]

Not really, I’ve got a few tech threads on here, Ive often thought about doing a monthly livestream on the shop Facebook page doing an all IDI Q&A while building pumps, once I have my fuel shop moved into my main shop later this month so all my work will be in house I’ll have more opportunities to do stuff like that.

That'd be awesome

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Oh, sure guys. He doesn't have time to post much now so give him more to post.

 

[Selahdoor]

Possible the fire ring had an unseen "ding" in it right there?

Like maybe it was sitting on a hard surface and something got dropped on it. As in maybe a sharp corner of the head was inadvertently allowed to make contact while it was being installed?

Causing a ding big enough to cause this, but not big enough to be seen?

 

[frankenwrench]

Had a similar issue when I did my first idi headgasket change. Lasted a day before blowing out at the front. But I believe mine was due to the a**hole behind the counter putting them on the counter and then slamming a box with my oil and filter and water pump on top of them. I could see an impression in the plastic wrap but didn't think nothing of it wen I couldn't see anything wrong on the gasket itself. But sure enough, the next day when it blew I rummaged through the trash in the barn and grabbed the wrapper with the cardboard backing on it and the next day while re doing the headgasket again I placed the one day old failed gasket onto it's wrapper and sure enough it was broken in the same spot the impression was in the wrapper and cardboard backer with the felpro name on it. Sure enough, it was right on the fire ring. Took pics and brought it back and was exchanged free of charged cause I made a stink about him slamming my water pump on it a few days prior and pretty sure they seen that I was to raise another stink as I walked in with the gaskets already busted. Asked to see a manager about it and was immediately told that they would swap me to avoid any issues with the prior guys attitude and behavior that caused one of my new gaskets to fail.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

That must have been one of the typical people they hire these days who don't know anything more about cars/trucks than their computer will tell them.