Joseph_the_builder
New member
Hi PSA members,
First and foremost, great forum with a lot of knowledgeable members. I have been reading on here for some time and learning slowly but surely. Well here is my story of the nightmare that I am stumped on honestly at this point.
Purchased this 2009 Ford Crew Cab F-450 cab & chassis with 92k miles (was owned by a construction company that went bankrupt in Texas) at a auction in SoCal. Paperwork said that Ford had a repair shop put a new short block in it and the short block had 188 miles since the short block when it arrived at the auction judging by the paperwork of all the work done to it. Went to pick the truck up from the auction after winning the bid. Let the truck idle for 20 minutes while I chatted up the auction manager, great no issues, so far. Went to take off and the truck starts pouring white smoke out of the factory exhaust. So I tell the guy, hey, it won't pass CA smog and I don't want the truck until they fix it. One week later, truck was smogged by them and they said they fixed it. Well, after about 800 miles, the truck did the same thing again and that is when I deleted/tuned the truck thinking maybe the DPF was clogged up.
Let's go to 1k more miles(1,800 miles total)of trouble free issues. Other than a light white haze here and there. Thought it was condensation or the EGR acting up maybe. Go to pass a car with the H&S out of the box street tune and the truck starts rattling/knocking with white smoke out the tail pipe. Drive it 1/2 mile to a gas station and all is normal until you get into the skinny pedal and RPM's climb above 2k. Then the rattle/knocking starts again and white smoke out the tail pipe. Drive her home 80 miles and decide to call around shops to see who wanted to tackle the job. Truck went to 2 shops and sat there for 6 weeks with no answer. So I said, the hell with them and took it upon myself to pull the cab off. Tear into the engine and what I find is no cracked piston, however, cylinder one piston was starting to melt slowly(picture attached). Probably because when they put the new short block in, they didn't change anything else out but what the short block contained. Cross hatches looked perfect(picture attached) and everything looked great. Machine shop could not give me an answer to what caused the smoke or rattle. So I said the hell with it, let's build it since it's apart.
I contacted Morgan at Midwest Diesel(great guy to deal with) and started ordering upgraded parts since the engine was fully disassembled. I ordered HD Pistons, stock injectors, engine rebuild gasket kit, 59/72 turbo kit, 6.0 manifolds, up pipes, ARP Head Studs, Airdog-II, Hamilton Valve Springs & Pushrods, Suncoast Converter, Upgraded Solenoids, EGR Delete, Clevite rod bearing set. Machine shop polished cam & crank. Ported the heads and intake plenum as well. Checked the block + head for any cracks or abnormal wear. Get the engine back together & into the cab/chassis of the truck finally. Fire her up and the entire truck is shaking violently. Immediately turn it off and check motor mounts, engine codes, leaks, etc. Nothing at all out of the blue until a Powerstroke mechanic tells me that he seen this before and he thinks it is from the crank adapter that isn't suppose to be removed from the crank but the machine shop did not know any better. So I take the transmission out, flywheel off, thin spacer out, then the 1" spacer/adapter, and sure enough. The adapter was off by 3 bolt holes. Put it back in on top of where the dowel hole/mark is for the crank. Fire her up, and she is smooth as can be.
But here is where I am getting mixed answers from. The videos I have attached, you can see the shake from before the adapter fix. But after the fix, I still have that same knocking noise when raising the RPM's. Someone said it could be the lifter broke since the engine builder did not replace them(I thought he did but did not do so since he said the new short block looked new and no wear signs on the cam when he polished it). Or could be the rocker arms, since they have 93,800 miles on them on a F-450 with 4.88 gears that probably was running mid to high RPM's through out it's life in Texas on the highways. Or the one three different people have told me, wrist pins. Said the vibration caused the engine to unbalance and probably damaged the wrist pins for the 5-6 minutes it's been started since put back together. I've attached photos, as well as videos of the knocking noise this nightmare is making. I'm honestly tired of it and ready to burn it to the ground, if it is the wrist pin and the motor has to come back out.
Hopefully someone here can help with this situation and maybe have some solution to what this knock could be because I'm stumped with this motor. It won't fire up until about 4 seconds of turning it over constantly. I could turn it off and go to fire it back up, 4 seconds of turning over later it fires up. I don't think the rattle is noticeable at idle but when you raise the RPM, you can hear it coming from the passenger side of the truck. It sounds like it's on the top end but I don't know. I ordered 2 new rocker arm assemblies from Sunrise Ford Parts and will replace the old ones. But maybe it's not worth it, if this knocking is more internal.
When it was out of balance:
http://youtu.be/lWjrYEXos2E
After the counterweight was put on the right way:
http://youtu.be/eNA3wjohu-s
First and foremost, great forum with a lot of knowledgeable members. I have been reading on here for some time and learning slowly but surely. Well here is my story of the nightmare that I am stumped on honestly at this point.
Purchased this 2009 Ford Crew Cab F-450 cab & chassis with 92k miles (was owned by a construction company that went bankrupt in Texas) at a auction in SoCal. Paperwork said that Ford had a repair shop put a new short block in it and the short block had 188 miles since the short block when it arrived at the auction judging by the paperwork of all the work done to it. Went to pick the truck up from the auction after winning the bid. Let the truck idle for 20 minutes while I chatted up the auction manager, great no issues, so far. Went to take off and the truck starts pouring white smoke out of the factory exhaust. So I tell the guy, hey, it won't pass CA smog and I don't want the truck until they fix it. One week later, truck was smogged by them and they said they fixed it. Well, after about 800 miles, the truck did the same thing again and that is when I deleted/tuned the truck thinking maybe the DPF was clogged up.
Let's go to 1k more miles(1,800 miles total)of trouble free issues. Other than a light white haze here and there. Thought it was condensation or the EGR acting up maybe. Go to pass a car with the H&S out of the box street tune and the truck starts rattling/knocking with white smoke out the tail pipe. Drive it 1/2 mile to a gas station and all is normal until you get into the skinny pedal and RPM's climb above 2k. Then the rattle/knocking starts again and white smoke out the tail pipe. Drive her home 80 miles and decide to call around shops to see who wanted to tackle the job. Truck went to 2 shops and sat there for 6 weeks with no answer. So I said, the hell with them and took it upon myself to pull the cab off. Tear into the engine and what I find is no cracked piston, however, cylinder one piston was starting to melt slowly(picture attached). Probably because when they put the new short block in, they didn't change anything else out but what the short block contained. Cross hatches looked perfect(picture attached) and everything looked great. Machine shop could not give me an answer to what caused the smoke or rattle. So I said the hell with it, let's build it since it's apart.
I contacted Morgan at Midwest Diesel(great guy to deal with) and started ordering upgraded parts since the engine was fully disassembled. I ordered HD Pistons, stock injectors, engine rebuild gasket kit, 59/72 turbo kit, 6.0 manifolds, up pipes, ARP Head Studs, Airdog-II, Hamilton Valve Springs & Pushrods, Suncoast Converter, Upgraded Solenoids, EGR Delete, Clevite rod bearing set. Machine shop polished cam & crank. Ported the heads and intake plenum as well. Checked the block + head for any cracks or abnormal wear. Get the engine back together & into the cab/chassis of the truck finally. Fire her up and the entire truck is shaking violently. Immediately turn it off and check motor mounts, engine codes, leaks, etc. Nothing at all out of the blue until a Powerstroke mechanic tells me that he seen this before and he thinks it is from the crank adapter that isn't suppose to be removed from the crank but the machine shop did not know any better. So I take the transmission out, flywheel off, thin spacer out, then the 1" spacer/adapter, and sure enough. The adapter was off by 3 bolt holes. Put it back in on top of where the dowel hole/mark is for the crank. Fire her up, and she is smooth as can be.
But here is where I am getting mixed answers from. The videos I have attached, you can see the shake from before the adapter fix. But after the fix, I still have that same knocking noise when raising the RPM's. Someone said it could be the lifter broke since the engine builder did not replace them(I thought he did but did not do so since he said the new short block looked new and no wear signs on the cam when he polished it). Or could be the rocker arms, since they have 93,800 miles on them on a F-450 with 4.88 gears that probably was running mid to high RPM's through out it's life in Texas on the highways. Or the one three different people have told me, wrist pins. Said the vibration caused the engine to unbalance and probably damaged the wrist pins for the 5-6 minutes it's been started since put back together. I've attached photos, as well as videos of the knocking noise this nightmare is making. I'm honestly tired of it and ready to burn it to the ground, if it is the wrist pin and the motor has to come back out.
Hopefully someone here can help with this situation and maybe have some solution to what this knock could be because I'm stumped with this motor. It won't fire up until about 4 seconds of turning it over constantly. I could turn it off and go to fire it back up, 4 seconds of turning over later it fires up. I don't think the rattle is noticeable at idle but when you raise the RPM, you can hear it coming from the passenger side of the truck. It sounds like it's on the top end but I don't know. I ordered 2 new rocker arm assemblies from Sunrise Ford Parts and will replace the old ones. But maybe it's not worth it, if this knocking is more internal.
When it was out of balance:
http://youtu.be/lWjrYEXos2E
After the counterweight was put on the right way:
http://youtu.be/eNA3wjohu-s
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