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That 6 month old head gasket failure on a 2018 Cummins that I botched the diagnosis on
Last March I had a 2018 Ram 3500 come into the shop in Boise with a coolant loss problem. I spent three days chasing a leaky water pump and even replaced the radiator hoses. The customer kept coming back every two weeks saying it was still losing coolant. Finally my foreman looked at it and pointed out a tiny bubble trail near the back of the head on cylinder 6. That head gasket had been failing the whole time and I missed it because I was so focused on the front end. Anyone else ever completely miss a head gasket sign because you got tunnel vision on something else?
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phoenix_adams6015d ago
That tiny bubble trail near the back of the head" comment hit home. I once spent a whole damn month chasing a phantom misfire on an old 5.9, replaced the injectors twice and swapped two ECMs before a buddy noticed the crank sensor wire was chafed against the bellhousing. Sometimes you get so locked in on one area you miss the obvious staring right at you from the corner of your eye.
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anthonyhunt14d ago
Man that 5.9 story hurts just reading it... I did something similar on a Ford 300 inline six back in 2010. Swapped the distributor three times, replaced the entire ignition module and the coil, even pulled the head thinking I had a valve issue. Turned out the ground strap from the engine block to the frame was loose and corroded, causing intermittent spark issues that only showed up when the engine got hot and the metal expanded. My neighbor walked over, saw me cussing at it, wiggled the strap and said "try it now" and it fired right up like nothing was wrong. I still can't look at that truck without feeling a little embarrassed.
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