Wild and Free

I have my failure analysis bible laying right next to me at work and will take it home this weekend if you do get pics by then.I attended a week long Catapillar failure analysis class in january and we spent most of the time learning metalurgy and how to analyze this exact type of failure.

Which one did you run, cardboardor the full front winter front like genos sells? I know the ones you snap into the front grill and bumper are worthless but i have had good luck with the card board right against the front rad/coolers with a small hole for the fan clutch and it works qite well for mine, just need to make it big enough to cover the whole rad /cooler surface.

If you can get me some very clear detailed pics of the broken gear tooth with pics of the broken casting area of both the tooth and the gear most importantly, Hopefully I can see if it was a casting defect or a break caused by some other reason.

The free ones...........a piece of cardbard directly in front of the radiator/coolers behind the grill with a 6 inch square hole cut in the fan clutch area. http://www.genosgarage.com/DODGE-RAM-WINTER-GRILL-COVER-94-02/productinfo/WINTER_FR_9402/Genos sells a really good weather fronts as well

Pretty sure it is just a dash between the two numbers in place of the word "to" 15-20 or 15 to 20.

Not everything sits outside, it is cold here that is why a lot have garages and or heated garages shops ect, this is a huge benefit, once the fuel starts circulating it warms the rest as well but leaving a building with warm fuel is already a big plus. Most will start to use a blend only when they start seeing issues from straight #2 not cutting it anymore and not a day sooner with the cost being so much higher.Mainly they let people be in control of what they put in the tanks yet versus just selling what they want you to buy.

Gear failures can be tricky for sure. My vote goes to the cam gear tooth failing, dropping and catching the idler gear just right and breaking the housing depending on how it hit it could have broke and still not showed any damage to any other teeth. The crank gear damage sounds like a "Result" of the "secondary damage" the pump hsg caused by the "root cause" the cam gear tooth.This is just my unexperienced opinion though.

I would check connections again and then pay a dealer an hour labor to have it flashed just to be sure. It will save a lot of time and headache in the troubleshooting scheme and then you can rule it out for sure.

There are a few places that sell "Winterized fuel" but most stations carry straight #2 year round, then depending on the station a 50/50 blend and then straight #1, a few actually have blender pumps which you can choose from straight #2 to straight #1 in 25% increments. Yeah I don't know what the duramax guys have for heaters but they are always the first to drop in cold weather if not running a blend. They think they are gelled but don't understand the capability or lack there of for the filter to flow a fuel that is just starting to thicken but not actually be gelled yet. Most just throw 911 and new filters at them. Had a young kid pull up to the pump opposite me at the station a couple days ago.............40*f and already looking for #1 fuel complaining how cold it is, I had to do a bit of educating at that point but I don't think he got it, looke dto be early 20's with a $70K all decked out lift kit ect ect ect powerstroke. all these young kids making good oil money right out of high school and don't know any better.:banghead: - - - Updated - - - lol...............I didn't see that but was just making a general comment anyhow.

Just passing on the info I get from the horses mouth in this case cummins, it's not my opinion. I won't get into a filter spec debate here.By looking at the housing it is a secondary failure for the housing to break clean like that, which looks to be a quick fracture from what I can see in the pics. Something mechanically had to break first. what do the teeth on the gear look like?After rereading the original post you stated a cam gear tooth was broke off, I would lean towards that being the initial failure, but not being able to inspect all the parts closely can't know for sure.

My 05 is a bit slow to warm up and the only time I have been cold in the cab is once it dips to -15 or colder it won't build enough heat even with the front blocked off totally to get much more than luke warm air from the vents. My 02 was always a quick warm up and always toasty in the cab.By the way reading your signature you need to ditch all the K&N filters ASAP.

That sucks.................too bad I can't see the carnage in person to do some failure analysis. I can say one thing from having been through several cummins technical classes over the years is that by running a smaller UM oil filter, cummins would point to that as a partial cause to the failure right off the bat. Filtering the fuel cleaner is ok but when you mess with running different full flow oil filters Cummins takes issue with that in a strong way.

It looked like a 2wd pickup so a park brake would have been worthless. I have had this happen to me but I got things stopped before any damage happened. I had it happen while loading a skidsteer loader on a trailer on a slight downhill slope, the Park brake was set "which did me no good either" as the ramps folded under and the back of the trailer tipped down and picked the rear axle of the pickup about 2 feet off the ground and away we went, I slammed the skidsteer into high gear to jump it on the trailer as it rolled to get the weight on the trailer to drop the pickup back on the ground........................needless to say things were puckered for a little while and the heart rate was a bit higher than normal too. I now lock my pickups into 4wd with the PB set to avoid this, another reason I had for switching everything over to gooseneck trailers.

One thing to remember too is when running fine micron filters 5um and smaller you will need to blend the fuel down sooner in the cold weather, I run straight #2 fuel with the fleetguard 7 mic down to 0*to10*f if it gets colder than 0*f sustained I will start putting 75% #2 and 25% #1 blended fuel and never anymore than that. Everyone with a Duramax that runs 5-2 micron filters will be stalled along the road with #2 at the same temps as the fuel is not gelled but is thickened to the point it can't flow through the filter fast enough to keep it running much past idle.I see them along the roads all the time around here.The HPFP 150 FASS I had on my 02 wasn't a fan of temps below zero either, always had issues with it wanting to pump my thick fuel when initially started when it sat outside in sub zero temps, usually let it idle for about 10 minutes an then shut it down and refired it and then it would build pressure. Sometimes it wouldn't even prime up during initial key on sometimes it would prime but extremely slowly.

That is weird, but is the ECM actually from the exact same model year and specs?

I wasn't considering Grand Forks an "Armpit" in a bad of way like you are pointing out the worst of the worst in an economic and social way, just the weather they have in the winter always stinks a bit worse is all. We just have to pick on them for this purpose only. The bad about the eastern edge of ND is that is where we hide 90% of our Liberal bottom feeders, we need to move the border about 50 miles west and let Minnesota have them back!

Wife has an 03 TDI Jetta 5spd, we bought it with 30K now has 250K miles on it now, 03 was the last of the old body style and Pre PD fuel system, the most sought after units. Only minor and general maintenance to date. Ours does better mpg at 80mph 49-50ish mpg than it does at 65-75 where is does 45 solidly. I want to trade it off but she will not let it go, I told her another year max and she is getting a newer one, but if it still runs she wants to keep the old one. One of the best sites on the web hands down for any technical write ups for TDI's is http://forums.tdiclub.com/

Having worked on things my whole career and having worked at a drivetrain specialty shop and from personal and a professional stand point when it comes to drivetrain components, I don't care what it says about where it was made but anything this guy buys for myself and what I highly recommend for others, if it doesn't say Spicer/Dana on the box then don't waste your money unless you want to get good at changing the same part over and over again.

That explains a lot, unless the ECM came off the same year and same option pickup, it will cause the gauges to go funky, it is a good tell tale you didn't have the ECM flashed to your rigs specs. Many folks have ran into this exact problem with ECM swaps.

I am thinking loose connection or ground as well.

I would pull the intake pipe off and look in the intake itself before getting too carried away with pulling injectors ect. If the intake is full of oil it could still be causing the issue. After all this is what would have been filled with oil as it leaked past the piston rings and through whatever intake valve was open depending on how long it was upside down.

You need to let me know when you come out this way so we could meet up some time, I have a good friend in Jamestown and it would give me a reason to head east of Bismarck. I treated CSM to supper a few weeks ago as he passed through my area. I Will possibly be meeting up with JohnFak when we head to Fl. in a couple months, we have been in contact about it already, wife and I are trying to put a game plan together for the trip yet..

We in the rest of the state have fun with them by considering GF to be the "armpit of ND" seems it is always colder and snowier up there than anywhere else in the state. Have fun this winter lol......

And about 4-5 hours North East of me.Over on Midwestdieselconnection.com there are a few folks around the Gf / Fargo area and a few in the Minot area who are originally from Minn / WI and pass through there often going back and forth to home /work.Mike Adams who owns Mikescustomtrucks.com is only about 40 miles SW of you in Northwood and is a good resource.

If it's that worn your starter drive is on borrowed time too. Sounds like a maintenance issue to me.................