Cummins questions

[Tom]

After reading about the dodge Cummins problems, I'm getting concerned about mine.
I bought a 95 dodge last year with 192,000 miles on it. It had a recent trans rebuild with some kind of heavy duty parts put in it. (Automatic).
The maintenance records are pretty detailed and oil changes every 3,000 or so.
It has the 7100? pump and stock injectors. I have no plans on juicing it up and put maybe 2000 miles a year on it.
Does the mechanical engine have any problems that I need to look out for?

 

[Ian]

What you have there is one of the more trouble-free Diesels a person could own. If it has the P7100 pump (in-line pump) there isn't much to go wrong. To ensure longevity, there are four things you need to do:

#1 is run a fuel conditioner in every single tank of fuel. The modern ultra-low sulfur fuel will not adequately lubricate the pump or injectors of an engine designed to run on high-sulfur fuel. Stanadyne Lubricity formula, Power Service, or Racor are my recommendations. Don't get the cheap crap like CRC or gimmicky additives. Power Service is probably the most widely available of the three.

#2 install a fuel pressure gauge and replace the fuel supply system. The transfer pumps on these trucks are garbage and when they lay down, the pump will still function for a while and you may not even notice a difference in how the truck runs unless you work it hard, but the lack of positive supply pressure will cavitate the fuel in the pump and tear it up. The best fix I know of is to install an Air Dog fuel preparator system which does three things the OEM fuel supply system will not: Reliably deliver pressurized fuel to the pump, remove all air from the fuel, and effectively trap water.

#3 maintain the air filter with a PAPER element, check it frequently and don't buy cheap "house brand" ones. A turbodiesel lives on huge volumes of very clean, finely-filtered air and you would not believe how many CFM the engine consumes. Ignore the "restriction indicator", by the time the plunger moves off the stop the turbo has already sucked holes in or around the filter and is pulling in dirt. Whatever you do DO NOT put a "washable" air filter system on there, they do not trap the small particles and will kill your turbo and upper cylinders. Don't believe the hype, I could go on for days ranting about the aftermarket garbage "intake systems" people put on their trucks and how much that costs them in the long run.

#4 keep the oil changed and fuel filters maintained. Any name-brand CK-4 oil is good. You don't have your location in your profile but 15W-40 conventional oil is good for all but the coldest weather. DO NOT use cheap oil filters on a Cummins. Fram, for example, will shed fibers into the oil and those fibers plug up piston cooling nozzles. The only filters I recommend are Wix, Mopar, or Fleetguard (Cummins brand). Don't chinch on the quality of any of your filters, it really matters that you use the best.

 

[Ian]

Also, don't try to clean a paper filter with compressed air. You can't get the dirt out of the corners of the pleats and even a mild blast of air will separate the fibers on a microscopic level and ruin the filter's trapping efficiency. Good paper air filters are inexpensive. Make sure they filter housing is making a good seal with the filter and check it often. Whack the filter on your leg and if you see dust come out, replace the filter.

 

[creosote]

+1 on washable filters.
I live on a dirt road.
They don't get dirty!!??
Even paper cabin filters get so dirty you can't see light through them. Washable.......nope. Not at all. Maybe a bee or dragonfly.

 

[Pistolero]

But think of the time and money save with those washable filters.....right up until the engine grinds itself
to pieces.

Bill

 

[Tom]

I used to use a foam filter on my freightliner but I rubbed klotz into it. No good?
As far as time saving, I found cleaning, drying, and re oiling the foam filter to be a slow process. I'd rather buy a new paper filter.

 

[Tom]

Now I've got a friend asking what you think of his dodge. It is a 2003 common rail. Things to look out for?

 

[Ian]

Same problems, except change the injectors and connector tubes every 150K miles if he doesn't want to buy an engine. If it EVER chuffs the slightest bit of white smoke at idle (or any time, really), it's time for immediate grounding and an injector return flow test (expensive and laborious but will pinpoint injector leakage).

 

[Bret4207]

Agree on the K+N type filters. We had 2 vehicles with them and outside of blocking the entrance to the intake from squirrels and cats, they didn't do much. Sure look cool in the catalogs though!

 

[Ian]

The other fun thing that oiled "reusable" filters do is coat MAF sensor hot-wires with oil which cooks to a varnish and insulates the wire so it doesn't read air volume correctly. Lots of "check money" lights and stalling complaints caused by that, and lots of them fixed here. Customers just LOVE to buy a new OEM intake system to replace the one they threw away when they drank the "20% more horsepower" kool-aide.

 

[smokeywolf]

With the exception of the fuel pressure gauge and FASS lift pump and filter system I put in, my 2nd gen Dodge-Cummins is bone stock. Injectors were replaced with Bosch OEM injectors along with VP44 at about 200,000 miles when FASS pump/filters were put in.
Considered an Air Dog unit, but at the time the company was having some internal struggles and their future seemed in question.

 

[Ian]

We sold FASS briefly, IIRC son of one of the air dog people broke off and did his own thing but we had a lot of trouble with them and more trouble with the upstart company.

 

[fiver]

my money is on most of those customers needing glasses.
good ones so they can read the directions on how to use the filters and the spray stuff.
I would bet most of them wash the filter every now and then with the garden hose and then spray down the filter while it is still damp and go for a ride to 'check things out'.
that will cause you no end of grief.

if you follow the directions and use the spray properly you'd be surprised at how much dust and gunk they will pick up in a very short time, far more than an average paper filter.
they also probably think their K&N's are really 'lifetime' filters and never bother to replace them.

 

[Ian]

Well.....not really. It isn't about how much it picks up, it's about how much it lets through. You should have been with me at the Chrysler training center getting Cummins certified in 1999. The Southern Plains people brought in a filter flow machine and showed us all kinds of cool stuff, including dusted engine blocks, valve, and turbos along with a very, very firm statement that they weren't warrantying that chit, period, so don't even ask. K&N air or Fram oil means the customer owns it. One of the guys thought the oiled filter they brought was rigged so he went out to the parking lot and pulled his own reuseable filter and brought it in. The stuff that went through it like water through a sieve was like a handfull of Gulf beach silt. I don't remember if it was K&N or Airaid but someone gave him a ride to the closest parts house after class to get an OEM filter.

 

[fiver]

they are definitely more open, and there is no way I'd run one anywhere near dirt.
that is part of the reading thing I mentioned, you have to know going in they are not going to trap allergens or super fine dust particles.

 

[freebullet]

In filtration it is indeed particle size that differentiate good from garbage. Flow doesn't matter if needed particle size protection isn't offered.

 

[Ian]

Exactly. The only way to get more flow with the "same" filtration efficiency is to add surface area to the filter. A typical Dodge Diesel K&N filter has about three square feet of surface area. The OEM filter has about 12. So......how's it the oiled one flows more? Yup, bigger holes. MUCH bigger holes.

 

[Pistolero]

Just curious, and a bit off topic. A friend is looking at a Passat TDI , turbodiesel, 2015. Any comments
on that one? Certainly WAY different class than the truck motors, but should have a good bit, at least
conceptually in common.

Bill

 

[358156 hp]

A Passat diesel that didn't get bought back during Dieselgate?

 

[Pistolero]

2015. Actually, I would pay EXTRA for one of the "bad engines" which had been programmed to run well,
get best gas mileage and good driveability IN SPITE OF the EPA regs. I never understood why anyone would
ever turn in one of those GOOD cars to get one that drives the way EPA (curse them) wants it to.

Bill