Meltdown and rebirth of a 6.7 Cummins

[jeepin4x4james]

I have that same intercooler for sale. That why I was curious. They seem like good unjts. Especially compared to the price of other intercoolers.

PM me a price, why ya sellin?

 

[SnwMnkys]

PM me a price, why ya sellin?

Sent you a PM.

 

[anderson750]

After putting a little over 3,000 miles on this rebuild I can happily report that I am extremely happy with the reduction in EGT's that I am seeing with the compound. I can pull a load as hard as I want, pass a vehicle, and in general call upon the motor for whatever power I need and the EGT's rarely climb above 1100*. At over 120,000 miles on this auto transmission, it is not shown any signs of pending failure. I am very careful about how I let it shift but the added HP & torque of the compound turbo set up is not causing me any problems at this point.

 

[anderson750]

Roughly 13K miles on the rebuild and I could not be more happy with the performance of the compounds. The truck is about to click 132K miles and the tranny is starting to show some signs that failure is not far off. We are leaving on July 5th to take my son and daughter to a motocross school up in Washington and take a few days to travel teh Washington & Oregon coast. The last thing I need to worry about is being broke down so it is getting a Stage 3 rebuild with Suncoast parts $$$$$$$$$. I plan on keeping this truck for another 100K miles, so I may as well build it to last

 

[sawtooth4x4]

Which transmission do you have? The Aisin or 68RFE


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[anderson750]

68rfe

 

[sawtooth4x4]

68rfe

I don't tow all that often with mine (68RFE). But I sure hope it lasts a long time. That's my only fear with owning a Ram truck.

 

[anderson750]

I don't tow all that often with mine (68RFE). But I sure hope it lasts a long time. That's my only fear with owning a Ram truck.

The tranny will last if it is not abused. I am told the 68rfe does not handle extra power very well and considering the fact that mine has been deleted since 30K miles and mainly used for towing my toy hauler, it has lasted longer than most people under these conditions. The addition of the compound turbos I am sure sped up the wear and tear, but I knew that going into the rebuild. I have faithfully had the transmission power flushed every 30-35K miles and think that has helped also.

With no load or towing on flat ground I do not see any of the symptoms, but when climbing I do. Who knows, it may last another 20K miles, but am not willing to risk being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

 

[skippy]

Were there any warning signs of the melt down? my 6.7 cummins has about 150k miles on it and I am considering just replacing all the injectors to avoid any malfunctions that may cause a meltdown

 

[anderson750]

Yes and no. For the year before it happened, roughly at 100k miles, I saw a performance drop off when I was towing, plus my EGT's seemed to be running hotter. Not towing, the truck ran fine. The only reason I did not change the injectors sooner, was because I was not seeing any of those typical signs of bad injectors like white smoke when you start it or extra black smoke under load. About 80% of the use this truck gets is towing my toy hauler, so if it was not for the heavy load, I probably would not have had this result.

 

[anderson750]

The only flaw to the Industrial Injection compound turbo kit I put on this truck is the clearance between the up pipe from the stock turbo to the compound and the lower heater hose. The kit gives you a reflective heat wrap to put over the hose but after about 8 months I had a melted hose that developed a leak. This happened back in July and we just bypassed it until we could come up with a fix.

As you can see from this picture there is not much room for the hose Econ though it makes a tight 90.


The only permanent solution to this problem is to route the aluminum hard lines away from the up pipe. To do this we found a scrap heater core with some 45* bends in the pipes. I had a friend weld them together.

i hope I never have to get at this heater core again.

Core prepped and ready


Pieces to be welded on


The aluminum in these pipes is crappy and there is some contamination to deal with because of the coolant. My friend said it was harder to weld this together than 2 beer cans.


All together and back into the truck

 

[Greg]

Nice work! Looks like a lot of effort for what seems to be a minor problem.

 

[anderson750]

Nice work! Looks like a lot of effort for what seems to be a minor problem.

It is, but I do not see any other solution to keeping the rubber radiator hoses far enough away from the up pipe to keep them from melting agian. Even with the heat wrap on the up pipe and the reflective heat wrap on the hose, it will eventually break down and need to be replaced. I guess it is a choice of fixing or maintaining.

 

[Greg]

It is, but I do not see any other solution to keeping the rubber radio hoses far enough away from the up pipe to keep them from melting agian. Even with the heat wrap on the up pipe and the reflective heat wrap on the hose, it will eventually break down and need to be replaced. I guess it is a choice of fixing or maintaining.

Nothing wrong with making it a permanent fix and doing it right!

 

[Tonkaman]

Excellent idea to extend the metal pipes. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’d have the patience to rip all that out, but it’s definitely the right way to do it.

 

[anderson750]

Excellent idea to extend the metal pipes. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’d have the patience to rip all that out, but it’s definitely the right way to do it.

With everything going on to get ready for Baja, I had the shop that did the motor last year do it. I am running short on hours to get everything done with home, work and trip done before I leave next Thursday.

 

[Tonkaman]

With everything going on to get ready for Baja, I had the shop that did the motor last year do it. I am running short on hours to get everything done with home, work and trip done before I leave next Thursday.

Smart move. That is a shiz ton of effort to get out

 

[glockman]

Looks great Paul. Having the dash that far apart would not be fun.

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[anderson750]

30K miles on the rebuild and I couldn't be more happy with it..... even when i have s problem. This past weekend while towing up the big hill into Eureks on my way out to Jericho I had a failure with the 2.75 to 3 boost tube adapter on the Mishimoto intercooler.

Even with the almost complete loss of boost (5lbs) I was still able to pull my 17K pound trailer up the hill . While it was slow going it got there and was still able to pull 65 mph on the flat.
The great thing about Mishimoto is that they lifetime warranty their products.

 

[anderson750]

I have not really been happy with the custom transmission tune that was done with the new transmission and also there really is not any good support out there for custom tunes for H&S that can help me optimize the power of the compounds and make changes to the transmission tunes. With that said I am going to make the switch to EFI live next week.

If anybody has a 6.7 that is pre DEF that they want to delete this H&S will be up for sale.