Jonny
Registered User
Hello, everybody --
I've been called in to help out a friend with a 1999 7.3/T444e in his medium-duty International. It's a recent addition to the fleet, with about 220k on the odo. It runs smooth, but he got it with water in the oil. In a bit of a knee-jerk move, he asked me to change out the cooler seals. I was a bit skeptical of this repair, since the oil is surely being circulated at a higher pressure than the 10-15 psi of the coolant, but changed them nevertheless - it was quick and easy with plenty of room.
We fired it up after the change, and after a few minutes, it was "steaming" pretty good out the breather - I took it up to temp for the thermostat to open, and I really thought that the amount of water vapor was excessive for what might have been in suspension in the oil. It was sufficient to condense on the dipstick while monitoring the "quality" of the oil. I shut it down and let him know that we didn't get it fixed. Oil temp was "warm" but far from hot - so I don't attribute this vapor to water that was "boiling" off....
I did a bit more research, and found some information regarding cavitation damage to the front cover behind the water pump. Another spot that came up was the injector tubes cracking. Of course, the doomsday scenario of pinholes in the cylinder walls was always possible as well....so I trekked on over to the shop again today to see if I could get a better idea as to the magnitude of the leak.
I drained the oil and saw no significant amount of water in it -- just a dark dark shade of brown with no sign of water falling out of suspension....and it had sat for a week. When I shut it down the other day, it was definitely a much lighter shade. I then pulled the filter so that we'd have a straight drainage path from the cooler, and pumped 13 psi into the coolant. I expected to see some sign of gasket seepage or pinhole leaks with a slow but steady stream of droplets.......and I got nothing. Worried that somehow a pinhole was higher up on the cylinder wall, I pulled the flywheel inspection cover and rotated the engine through a few times. Still nothing -- no hard spot to indicate water seeping into a cylinder, no water out the bottom end either.
Now, this "phantom" leak has been going on long enough to have formed a pretty good accumulation of whitish "grease" under the fill cap on the valve cover. I imagine this accumulation is all over every cool part of the crankcase, but I'm having a hard time believing that the water vapor I saw could be attributed to water being cooked out of the system.
I left it pressurized with two drip cans under the engine to see if anything shows up overnight - either a drop in pressure or some water. Have I missed something? There's no sign of oil in the water, so I don't think we're looking at a cracked cooler that introduces water after shut-down, when the engine oil pressure is nil and the water is still at 10-15 psi. I just hate to button it up and say "run it" to see if it gets better or worse, when he would have to pay for the plates on the truck.
Thanks in advance for your ideas --
Jon
I've been called in to help out a friend with a 1999 7.3/T444e in his medium-duty International. It's a recent addition to the fleet, with about 220k on the odo. It runs smooth, but he got it with water in the oil. In a bit of a knee-jerk move, he asked me to change out the cooler seals. I was a bit skeptical of this repair, since the oil is surely being circulated at a higher pressure than the 10-15 psi of the coolant, but changed them nevertheless - it was quick and easy with plenty of room.
We fired it up after the change, and after a few minutes, it was "steaming" pretty good out the breather - I took it up to temp for the thermostat to open, and I really thought that the amount of water vapor was excessive for what might have been in suspension in the oil. It was sufficient to condense on the dipstick while monitoring the "quality" of the oil. I shut it down and let him know that we didn't get it fixed. Oil temp was "warm" but far from hot - so I don't attribute this vapor to water that was "boiling" off....
I did a bit more research, and found some information regarding cavitation damage to the front cover behind the water pump. Another spot that came up was the injector tubes cracking. Of course, the doomsday scenario of pinholes in the cylinder walls was always possible as well....so I trekked on over to the shop again today to see if I could get a better idea as to the magnitude of the leak.
I drained the oil and saw no significant amount of water in it -- just a dark dark shade of brown with no sign of water falling out of suspension....and it had sat for a week. When I shut it down the other day, it was definitely a much lighter shade. I then pulled the filter so that we'd have a straight drainage path from the cooler, and pumped 13 psi into the coolant. I expected to see some sign of gasket seepage or pinhole leaks with a slow but steady stream of droplets.......and I got nothing. Worried that somehow a pinhole was higher up on the cylinder wall, I pulled the flywheel inspection cover and rotated the engine through a few times. Still nothing -- no hard spot to indicate water seeping into a cylinder, no water out the bottom end either.
Now, this "phantom" leak has been going on long enough to have formed a pretty good accumulation of whitish "grease" under the fill cap on the valve cover. I imagine this accumulation is all over every cool part of the crankcase, but I'm having a hard time believing that the water vapor I saw could be attributed to water being cooked out of the system.
I left it pressurized with two drip cans under the engine to see if anything shows up overnight - either a drop in pressure or some water. Have I missed something? There's no sign of oil in the water, so I don't think we're looking at a cracked cooler that introduces water after shut-down, when the engine oil pressure is nil and the water is still at 10-15 psi. I just hate to button it up and say "run it" to see if it gets better or worse, when he would have to pay for the plates on the truck.
Thanks in advance for your ideas --
Jon
