Using coolant

[Ryans]

I have a 2004 lb7 that I just did all 8 injectors and the water pump on. This is a high mileage truck. 400,000. It runs nice but I am using coolant. No puddles under the truck. My oil is spotless. No oil in coolant and I have not one time noticed pressure in my rad hose. When we removed the injectors the cups was rather dirty. We cleaned and reassembled with new injectors but we did not replace any injector cups. I am not a expert on Diesel engines at all. I am just your average handy guy. So after reading a bit it seams the cups can some how affect coolant usage though I am unsure exactly how. When we tore this down our injectors was filthy and one was stuck open and the oil was full of fuel. I have noticed steam or smoke on the right side a few times after shutting down, the same side as the stuck injector. And ideas would be awesome, I would rather not pull heads untill next winter. Thanks.

 

[darkness]

Did you at least pull the cups and put new orings and reseal them?

 

[Ryans]

Did you at least pull the cups and put new orings and reseal them?

I did not. I would have had I known it was an option. But I absolutely will replace them if thats where my water is likely going. Does the steam or smoke drifting up from the right side indicate a bad cup?

 

[jlawles2]

You may have a leaking head gasket. If the leak is in the right place, the coolant leaks down and gets evaporated off before it reaches the ground. Also check the valley for coolant. There are several things that can leak and the resulting puddle ends up in the valley where it works its way out and down the side of the block.

I recall someone having a similar issue not long ago and it was a coolant leak in the rear cover. Passenger side above the up pipes.

 

[TheBac]

Chances are you broke the loctite seal on one or more cups when you initially pulled the old injectors out. Cups are stainless steel and rarely need to be replaced, but orings and resealing the cups is pretty standard when doing lb7 injectors.

 

[Ryans]

Did you at least pull the cups and put new orings and reseal them?

I did not. I would have had I known it was an option. But I absolutely will replace them if thats where my water is likely going. Does the steam or smoke drifting up from the right side indicate a bad cup

Chances are you broke the loctite seal on one or more cups when you initially pulled the old injectors out. Cups are stainless steel and rarely need to be replaced, but orings and resealing the cups is pretty standard when doing lb7 injectors.

Chances are you broke the loctite seal on one or more cups when you initially pulled the old injectors out. Cups are stainless steel and rarely need to be replaced, but orings and resealing the cups is pretty standard when doing lb7 injectors.

I Believe you're correct. It used water before i replaced the injectors because the water pump leaked enough to puddle on the ground. Now it uses just as much or more water and no visual leaks. So I guess this next weekend I will reseal cups and hope that fixes the old !!

 

[Ryans]

I got the right side tore down and injectors out. Is this how new injectors should look at maybe 200 miles? I am ordering 8 new cups and 8 new high pressure lines in the morning. Im sure these are the original high pressure lines and they are hard to seal and have pits and ridges in the seats. Two of them was seaping diesel causing my fuel smell. I should figure out how to check compression while its apart i guess that way I know whats up with the gaskets.

 

[Dirtymaxx03]

i'll bet new cups and seals will fix your issue

 

[Ryans]

i'll bet new cups and seals will fix your issue

I Hope so I seriously do not want to do head gaskets until next winter. But since its eating more coolant than before the injector change i think its the cups. Every vehicle I have seen with a bad head gasket ran hot. My truck does not run hot.
Thanks for the reply.

 

[Ryans]

Well I pulled the right side cups and found 2 cylinders with coolant in them. I am going to do the other 4 as well. At this point no reason not to tear it down and reseat the cups. Thank you everyone for the help. Oh and one of the cups almost came out by hand. I assume that might be my culprit.

 

[Ryans]

I used a 3/4 sleved concrete anchor, a couple of 1-inch copper couplings, a washer, and 2 nuts to make a puller. I think the back 2 driver side cups were original. They have black rotted O-rings and was like pulling grizzly bear teeth. When they finally came out, they were bulged from the concrete anchor bite. Most of them looked leaky.
Tomorrow morning we start reassembly. I dunno how I am going to get that rear driver side cup seated. You tube time.

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[TheBac]

Well, look at that. Someone else used Trav's puller idea! Nice!

 

[jlawles2]

Unfortunately every time you pull the injectors in an LB7 you should probably replace the sleeves.

There is a sleeve kit out there for thread in sleeves which make the process either much more bearable, or never to be done again.

 

[Ryans]

The beast I call Dirty Girty is all reassembled. I feel confident that everything is sealed as it should. I caked the Red loctite 272 on the cup end seat surface. They sure went in easier than they came out. I bought a wire wheel to clean the head cup surfaces and used the air nozzel to blow out the injector ports. I used a clean acetone soaked rag to wipe the surface before setting the cups. I shop vacuumed the residual coolant out. I did everything I could think of to get good seats. We used New Banjo seals and new cups.
We won't run the engine until tomorrow, so it can cure properly (I don't know if it matters, but it's an incredible amount of labor, so I'll wait). The bottle said a 24 hour for full cure.
Oh, I did have a bore scope and checked the cylinders and pistons. No visible catastrophic damages.
I hope this thing runs right this time. I really want to install my new cab corners and rockers. I also have steel to make some bulletproof nurf bars.

Thanks for the comments.


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[Ryans]

Well, it runs finally. Throwing a code now. She smoked a lot at start-up. It cleared up and hasn't smoked since. I assume the smoke was from the cylinders I sucked coolant out of. I am not sure if it's using coolant yet or not. I will know tomorrow.

At start up, it would run then die, low fuel pressure, I'm sure. I could hear the system draw air at the top of the ficm. We fixed that now at shut down the fuel filter housing seaps off pressure. Maybe that's my code?

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[Ryans]

Update: code p2228 cleared and after 75 miles it has not returned.
Coolant usage so far is zero. I did run a sealant through my Coolant just because it is a high mileage truck. So far no smoke after the initial resleve burn off, So far 0 injector haze, so far my oil is clean and not growing. So far so good. I think i did it all correctly!!! Bodywork time. I will post before and afters. I bought this pig for a song.... she runs like a screaming eagle

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[TheBac]

Good to hear you fixed it. Many people new to LB7 injector changes forget to reseal the cups. As for the bodywork, put that in the Appearance section.

 

[darkness]

Good job!

 

[Ryans]

I am not using water but the beast runs a bit cool and has pressure in the overflow tank. The low coolant light has been on but its not low. I fear the old pig wants headgaskets!! Anybody know a good source for long blocks? At 400 thousand miles just doing headgaskets probably is a bad idea. It will need a total overhaul if I open her up again.
It runs great and doesn't run hot but I haven't had a load hooked to it yet, my guess is it will run hot under load.

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