Ignominious Death on the Freeway

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IHCScout78

Member
Cruising along the freeway, notice oil pressure going up, but not to the top of the gage.

Watch for a few minutes, notice engine temp going up, but not to the top of the gage.

Suddenly engine power is gone, smoke coming in through the vents.

Coast to the curb; oil is sprayed all over the inner fender, steering column and header about mid engine. Can't figure out where it came from, but everything is dripping. Walked two hours then towed it home.

I have been listening to a pat pat pat for awhile that I thought was an exhaust leak, but I never found it.

Drained the oil; looks fine. Pulled the valve cover and everything looks fine.

Any ideas?
 
Sorry about your mishap. Stock gauges or ?? What engine we rockin'? Tell us the whole story. How long have you had it? What kind of driving do you do with it. What's your maint routine like? Any major work done under the hood recently? Condition of gaskets and seals? Brand and viscosity of motor oil?
My first wag without knowing too many particulars, based on your report that the dripping oil was on the driver's side of what's probably an sv8, is that it was blowing out of the dipstick tube. I'm thinking you had an episode of excessive blow-by caused by internal parts that are just plain too worn out to allow normal crankcase ventilation, and/or your positive crankcase ventilation (pcv) system became compromised and wasn't doing its job. If I'm right...and bear in mind this is only my preliminary wag here...the prognosis isn't so good. The engine is probably shot and in need of rebuild or replacement.
 
Thanks for the reply.

345 rebuilt 14 years ago...

Only used 5,000 miles/year. Auto trans, 3.73 gears, so it spins pretty fast on long highway drives.

Fuel injected last winter, good compression check before that.

Just returned from round trip to co and wheelin above ouray. Scout climbed like a billy goat at altitude with the FI.

Parked for a couple days, then the clutch went out on my daily driver...I would say I was lucky it did not happen in co, but now I have 2 dead ones in mi.

Engine rotates by hand, not seized.

No holes in the side of the engine for the oil to spray out, so I am going with your suggestion on the dipstick hole.

It ran rough and had several episodes of no starts and exploding mufflers in the dying days of my carb, and it was running really rough when we got to co this year, traced to virtually new help! Vacuum caps splitting. Fixed and ran great rest of the trip.

The 10w40 in the pan smelled burned, but looked pretty good and felt slick. There were some pin head size bits, but no glitter. The pin head sized bits were light colored but did not look like metal. Could they be cast aluminum piston?

Given the relatively recent compression check, the sudden failure, and the excess blow by, could be a hole in a piston. I'll do a compression check today.
 
Stock gauges, so no numbers for temp or oil. When I said oil pressure increased followed by engine temp increase, that is relative to what the gauges normally show on the highway.

A few more engine details: aluminum intake, shorty headers, stock cam, affordable fuel injection.
 
Thanks for the added detail. So it isn't from extreme wear/slop on some 285k mile motor. 75-80k is nothing for one of these engines. Yep, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you find at least one piston with a crater in it. In fact I was even thinking of that possibility and making an edit to my original post last night, but then I got sleepy and that was that.
 
Thanks for the input scoutboy74.

I need clutch parts for my daily driver, so I switched back to the Scout...

Pulled the plugs; all 8 look good. Both tail pipes are clean as a whistle. It was running good before.

Did the compression check by bumping with the starter with no oil because I could not figure out how to fill it with the valve covers off...

Not good, but not the smoking gun I expected from a piston with a hole:

1) 70 psi 3) 90 psi 5) 75 psi 7) 90 psi
2) 90 psi 4) 85 psi 6) 95 psi 8) 95 psi

I checked 1/5 twice and gave them a few extra cranks. They are not going to get better. So 25% variation. If it had not been running so well before, this would be clearer.

Thoughts on next steps?
1) get the valve covers on, fill with oil, start it (hopefully) and repeat compression check ~or~
2) start pulling engine....
 
70-75 on the compression is too low for my taste. Even 90-95psi is cutting it close. Almost seems that the rings are not, or didn't, seated properly. Just a thought
 
No question; 70 psi is too low, variation is too high.

But I am not sure I found the catastrophic failure that put me on the side of the road with oil suddenly spraying out the dip stick hole and the engine died. I thought I would find one near zero.

Only question for me is should I put it back together and recheck compression warm with a little oil pressure, or start the rebuild?
 
I agree with scooter. All those numbers are well below where we'd like to see an 8-slugger that has relatively low miles. Was this test done with the tb plate blocked open and all plugs removed? If so, I wouldn't waste my time with another comp check warm or cold. I'd say its bite the bullet time.
 
Forgot to block open throttle. That accounts for the low numbers, but not the variation.

Thanks for the input. I'll let you know what I find:icon_eek:
 
Inquiring minds want to know...

I repeated the compression check: cold, no spark plugs, as before, but with the throttle open. Everything went up 20 psi; bad ones are now 90 psi and good ones are 110 psi.

What do you usually see on a cold compression check?

Could have a lifter leaked down. That would account for the for the variation. A hot check would answer that, but there is still the oil blasting out the dip stick hole:(

I founjd my next project:gringrin: I mean the one after the focus clutch:icon_neutral:
 
Much better on the compression. But even at 90 psi is still very low. 100-110psi is about as low as you wanna see in any motor -including forchevheep - hot or cold.

Only thing I could think of for the oil blow by, is the lack of crank case ventlation.

Might almost be time for a thought of a rebuild. If it was my motor, I would consider a rebuild for the low compression. Robert kenny would have a better input on the subject.
 
Thanks scooter. I forgot about your earlier comment about the rings seating. This is an International "renewed" engine, but I don't think the rings ever seated properly. It has burned oil (quart per 1,000 miles) since the day I put it in.

I am already thinking rebuild, but I would like to understand what happened when the truck died.

This is a catastrophic failure; oil pressure went up, engine spewed oil, engine died, smoke filled the passenger cabin through the vents. I had thoughts of a rebuild for most of the two hours I spent walking home. I have had tired motors before, but this was new for me.

I don't think it is a pcv issue. The check valve rattles, I can blow through it. I have had Scout/pcv issues before. The usual sympton is oil in the air cleaner (I do have some of that, but not a lot, and given that oil blew out the dip stick, not much oil in the air cleaner at all...)

any thoughts will be apreciated. If not, the answer should be clear in the post mortem:smilewinkgrin:
 
The oiling in these IH beasts is unique. I don't think I would have a definate complete answer to exactly why your motor did what it did. But as it's running the oil rushes up the the valve train then basically trickles back down to the pan. Unlike the other manufacturers, the heads in the IH sv motors don't really have the freeflowing back down to the pan. Mike mayben has several real good write ups regarding the oiling systems along with some of the issues and miay have some work arounds.

At this point I could only speculate on the possibilities as to what happened with your experience.
 
Check the oil filter and oil filter gasket. I'm guessing from the sound of it that the filter plugged up and it is not the internal bypass type. Starved the engine of oil and it is done....

Pull the of and cut it open. Wash the paper in solvent. Filter it through a coffee filter in a funnel. See what you find.

Hope not though.

By the rise on oil pressure you have some failure that restricted oil flow in to the bearings. Could be a spun bearing or the like. My statement at the top of this post is not likely if you have the pressure sender on the side of the block down stream of the filter.
 
Thanks Robert.

The oil pressure gauge is on the side of the block.

I did not cut open the filter (fram ultraguard), but I did let it drain overnight and looked at the oil. Like the oil in the pan, smelled a little burnt, but felt thick and slick, no glitter.

My first thought was spun bearing. Before the cataclysm, I had a sound I thought was an exhaust leak I could not find. After the failure, thought maybe it was a bearing. Same idea you had; spun bearing covers oil passage raising pressure. Fished the internet. Seems a spun bearing is normally associated with low oil pressure.

The engine also turns normally by hand.

Stay tuned. When the to do list permits, the engine is coming out.
 
In case anyone was curious, issue was a bent connecting rod.

Engine continued to run until the piston wore against the bore and the journal bearing wore at an angle. Then the rings lost sealing and excess blow by sprayed the oil out the dip stick.

Don't know how the rod got bent. I sank the truck 4 wheeling a few years ago. Flooded the engine in the dying days of my last carb.

Time to get the block to a machine shop.
 
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