My friend asked me to start a thread on here to see if he can get somewhere to start. He has an 04 Dodge 3500 4x4 with a Cummins and an Automatic trans. He said his engine light came on and going up a hill it sounded like it was clattering, then quiet then clatter off and on. He got home and checked his oil to find it was overfull and had a somewhat fuel smell to it. He has no codes yet because he doesn't have a scanner. He was hopping he could get a starting point to look at. What are the known point of failures for such a problem. Any ideas guys??

 

i dont know much about the commonrail pumps but i do know some of the cummins had problems with a gasket in the IP going bad and draining fuel in through the timing cover. dont know if that applies to the CR motors or not but its a start

 

arent the injectors under the valve covers on the cr trucks

it could be a loose line or cracked injector body if its leaking under the valve covers

 

right on, I'll let him know. More post would help, does the gasket on the IP apply here too, does anyone know?

 

injector sticking open, cracked injector body, and CP3 seal are all possible culprits.
Does it start fine? when it is clattering is it smoking. is there any white smoke?

 

Commonrail injectors 99% of the time when this happens.

 

Normally 1 or more injectors leaking. Haven't seen too many CP3 Pump seals fail, but is possible. White smoke or long cranks will tend to lean to injectors.

 

He said he's not noticed any smoke at all, only when he's rollin coal but He also said it starts right up like normal. No problems cranking. He dropped it off at a shop to hjave it look at, I'm sure he'll be shocked at how much cash he's going to have to drop to fix just about anything. I was hoping I could get him somewhat of a diagnosis before the shop returns theirs and show him how awesome this site and all you guys are.

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When you say it's 99% of the time the problem do mean the Common rail injectors themselves??

 

Yep. Mostly due to inadeqaute fuel filtration + HPCR pressures = accelerated injector wear.

Then you have the ones that get an MP8 stacked with some tune and too much timing on them, maybe add excessive W/M or nitrous into the mix and sometimes things get really ugly, cracked bodies, etc.

At the end of the day, it's amazing to me how robust this engine really is after what it survives most of the time.

 

id put money on a cracked/leaking injector. iirc 03-04 had the most problems with them messing up, but are proe to in all cr motors