Found a cracked liner in a Detroit 60 at 2 AM last Wednesday saved me a $15k rebuild

I was finishing up a headache rack install on a 2010 Freightliner at the shop out by I-80 in Iowa. Guy said it was running hot and losing coolant slow. Pulled the valve cover and saw a tiny bubble trail on #5 cylinder at idle. Used a bore scope and sure enough hairline crack near the top. Caught it before it let go. My foreman said I got lucky but I think it was just paying attention. Anyone else see coolant loss that looked like nothing but turned into a major issue?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura_knight545d ago

Nah, you're reading way too much into a tiny bubble trail. That's normal steam from hot oil hitting a cold bore scope. You probably just wasted 2 hours chasing nothing. Detroit 60s are tough. They'll run with a cracked liner for thousands of miles if you keep the coolant topped off. Betting that crack was there from the last rebuild and just never caused real trouble. You fixed something that wasn't actually broken.

evan_harris145d ago

Funny you say that, reminds me of this guy I knew back in the day who spent a whole weekend chasing a ghost in his Cummins ISX. Had the head off, liners pulled, everything. Turned out the air compressor was just pumping a little oil into the coolant through a bad seal. He put it all back together madder than a wet hen, but the truck ran another 200k before it finally gave up. Sometimes you gotta let sleeping dogs lie, or in this case, sleeping cracks in a 60 series.