For the first time in 2 years I took the bus for a short 10 miles trek around the neighborhood. When I got back home you could see the trail of oil from the road and into the driveway. So next up is tackling that oil leak. I’m almost positive that 90% of the leak is the tappet cover. There is a ton of stuff that needs to be removed or moved to get to that guy.
The plus side of the drive is that it drove fairly well! There are a few concerns to address yet though. The Oil leak, the turbo to manifold gasket, and the shocks.
It was a beautiful weekend here in WI, So I started to tear down the engine to get to the tappet cover.
Pulled the belts, pulleys, the AC idler and the front breather cover and tube.
The Tappet cover is in there somewhere.
I had to get creative with the Secondary AC compressor, I put a 2×4 across the engine hatch and used a ratchet strap to pull it up out of the way. Then I removed the AC Compressor mounting bracket.
After removing the air horn, Fuel Pump, Fuel Filter assembly and some fuel lines I could almost see the tappet cover. Yep, it’s leaking.
After running to the Parts store to pickup some Crows foot wrenches I was finally able to tackle removing the Injector pump. But for some reason it wasn’t moving. I found these two guys hidden WAY in the back under the pump. The previous owner even torqued them to oblivion. I had to get the impact on them to break them free.
Removed the ECU and moved the wiring out of the way. I can now see nearly the entire cover! Just one more bracket in the lower right.
Success!! Cleaned up the gasket surface on the block with brillo pad, wire brush and sand paper. Then used acetone to clean the surface. Then I cleaned up the cover. A couple things with the cover. The whole thing was twisted a bit, some of the holes where indented and there was one spot with rust pitting. I tweaked the cover back, hammered the screw holes flat again and sanded smooth the rust. The new Fel-Pro gasket is on and ready to re-assemble. The interesting thing is that the previous person to replace this cover used didn’t use gaskets on the bolts, so not only was this thing leaking heavy from the gasket but also from the bolt holes. Now I have to wait on some parts. I needed some of these fancy washers for the fuel lines. They are a metal washer with a rubber insert, most of them looked terrible. I also picked up some rubber gaskets for the rear fuel return line T at the local Cummins dealer. I’ve heard those leak and since I was in there.
Pile O parts waiting for cleaning and reassembly. I ended up replacing the fuel filter(again) cause why not. I cleaned up everything using an oil catch pan filed with diesel fuel and a scrub brush and brillo pad. I cleaned up the ends of the fuel lines with the brillo and 2000 grit sandpaper since they had a small amount of corrosion and rust on them.
So much room for activities, like putting on the tappet cover. I put it on dry, several forums suggested this is the correct way as permatex can actually cause the gasket to squish out when torqued down.
There she be. Minus a couple bolts. I forgot to mention that some of the bolts in the cover were the wrong size, too short. So I ordered a bag of 15 from Amazon. If I remember right they were M8-1.25x16mm and I ordered some 25mm long ones. They ended up working perfectly.
I picture of the ECU, cause why not. The previous owner said it was bad and had a spare in the bus. Turns out it wasn’t bad. Well now I wait for my Amazon delivery. Probably going to tackle more next weekend.