kshansen
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2012
- Messages
- 11,173
- Location
- Central New York, USA
- Occupation
- Retired Mechanic in Stone Quarry
I'm sure some here have heard the story on this engine and maybe a picture. I was looking at many old files on older computer and came across all the pictures I had taken at the time.
A little recap, local dealer did a major rebuild on this 3408 engine in a 769C at 13,737 hours. This was March of 2001, the following pictures were taken August of 2001 at 14,388 hours so 651 hours on rebuild. Operator was told by one or more people in the pit that something sounded bad in his engine. So as any operator will do he decided to drive it half a mile mostly up hill to the shop to tell someone, me! Well he got within maybe 500 feet of the shop when this happened!
Wrist pin in last picture was the one I found about one hundred feet back from where truck stopped it was next to the other connecting rod!
Cat dealer put the cause as failed connecting rod bearings as they said Cat had a run of them that de-laminated and this was probably one that slipped through the cracks and ended up in our engine. Don't think the pictures show it but the crank journals were not bad looking, other than a few good dents from hitting the rods on the way out. Not sure about the progression of a failed lamination of a rod bearing but would have expected obvious damage to the crank journal. But as they were eating the full cost other than down time did not seem to matter what the full story might have been.
Still would have been interesting to know what better information could have been discovered if driver had shut down the engine and used his CB to call for help. Engine would still probably needed to come out but a ton more parts would have been salvageable.
A little recap, local dealer did a major rebuild on this 3408 engine in a 769C at 13,737 hours. This was March of 2001, the following pictures were taken August of 2001 at 14,388 hours so 651 hours on rebuild. Operator was told by one or more people in the pit that something sounded bad in his engine. So as any operator will do he decided to drive it half a mile mostly up hill to the shop to tell someone, me! Well he got within maybe 500 feet of the shop when this happened!
Wrist pin in last picture was the one I found about one hundred feet back from where truck stopped it was next to the other connecting rod!
Cat dealer put the cause as failed connecting rod bearings as they said Cat had a run of them that de-laminated and this was probably one that slipped through the cracks and ended up in our engine. Don't think the pictures show it but the crank journals were not bad looking, other than a few good dents from hitting the rods on the way out. Not sure about the progression of a failed lamination of a rod bearing but would have expected obvious damage to the crank journal. But as they were eating the full cost other than down time did not seem to matter what the full story might have been.
Still would have been interesting to know what better information could have been discovered if driver had shut down the engine and used his CB to call for help. Engine would still probably needed to come out but a ton more parts would have been salvageable.