[[email protected]]

So a couple weeks ago we were headed out to Tennessee to visit our property and for a wrenching rally with the Wanderlodge crew, right before we left our toad died as we were pulling up to our house. Its a 2016 Range Rover with the TDV6 diesel engine in it. This engine went on to become the Powerstroke engine in the F150. So as we were returning home the night before we were to leave, the car jerked and then died just before getting to the house. Coasted and got it partly in the driveway. I decided to pull it up some with my truck but then decided I wanted to get it under our carport so I could work on it when I got back home. I did not think about it but it was suggested to see if our golf car would pull it. So I hooked it up to the golf car and it pulled it right into the carport.
Fast forward to this weekend and I started tearing into the engine to see what occurred. I checked the engine codes and found that I have several codes for low fuel rail pressure. I was thinking the worst as this engine has the dreaded CP-4 fuel pump. I will also mention that I just changed the timing belt and the belt that drives the CP-4 pump recently since we just passed the 100k mile mark. I thought that the belt might have slipped or something.
First check was to pull the metering valve off the CP-4 to look for metal debris in the system, luckily the metering valve was clean as a whistle. No CP-4 failure, but I am not tempting fate. This is going to get a disaster prevention kit put on it before I run it again, or if it runs again.
Next check was to see if the CP-4 pump belt broke etc. After much work to get down to it, its on the back of the engine buried back by the firewall, I open up the case and the belt is intact and still under tension. Now I go ahead and put my ratchet on the crank and turn the engine over, the pump belt is not turning!! Well that's not good.
So now I go to the front of the engine to see what's going on. After removing a bunch of other stuff to get the front timing cover off, the new timing belt is snapped. Its strange, its snapped like someone almost cut it! What the heck is going on. I am thinking the worst at this point, as this is an interference engine. I am thinking valve debris scattered in the cylinders!!
So now I start digging into the injectors to get them out so I can put a bore scope down in the cylinder. Get all the injectors out and check the cylinders, no major debris. Some strange markings in a couple of them but nothing that looks like the valves have been destroyed. Keep looking.
As I am turning the crank, it stops, so I assume it may be hitting the valves, so I turn the driver side camshaft and all is well it turns some more. I turn the passenger side cam and it starts making some strange popping noise, no good! So I continue digging. Start removing all the stuff to get the cam cover off. BTW this engines cam covers are also the intake plenum. I pull the cam cover off the passenger side and there it is! There is a chain that runs between two camshafts on each head, the chain was broken and jammed. I am not sure what caused the chain to break but I am assuming the chain broke then that jammed and then broke the timing belt. I suppose it could have been the other way around and the belt broke, maybe the piston hit a valve stopping the cam and that snapped the chain? So now I am going to do a compression/leak down check of the cylinders to see if there is any damage to the pistons. If it passes that test then, I am going to re-assemble with new chains and new timing belt and hope for the best!


I will add some photos here from my phone for your enjoyment.


Piston, appears to have a small kiss on it. No debris inside. Mark seems to change with the light from the bore scope so hard to tell exactly what it was. The mark on the right side is not round like the imprint of the valve.
   

More possible debris or something happening around the edge of this piston.
   

Another shot of that kiss mark on the piston, here you can see how its more of a reflection on the side of the cylinder wall.
   

Close up of broken chain.
   

Here is how the chain looked when I pulled the cam cover off, it was bunched up locking the cams from rotating.
   

The snapped timing belt.
   

The chain tensioner, its not damaged at all and did not seem that it contributed to any failure.
   


Hoping this weekend I will be checking the compression and seeing what my next step is. 

[Richard]

Sorry about the challenge. I read it the other day on WOG.

Just curious about a few things. Will a Powerstroke from a F150 transplant?

Such a unique vehicle. I am assuming it is LONG term and worth the rehab.

As another wrench suggested on WOG. I would fab some sort of valve depressor, and carefully check each valve to make sure they did not get bent during the mayhem.

I had something similar happen on a BMW 740. Definitely had a valve kiss a piston. I got it timed correctly, put new timing belt and chains on it. It was still running 10 years later when I sold it.

[[email protected]]

Sorry about the challenge. I read it the other day on WOG.

Just curious about a few things. Will a Powerstroke from a F150 transplant?

Such a unique vehicle. I am assuming it is LONG term and worth the rehab.

As another wrench suggested on WOG. I would fab some sort of valve depressor, and carefully check each valve to make sure they did not get bent during the mayhem.

I had something similar happen on a BMW 740. Definitely had a valve kiss a piston. I got it timed correctly, put new timing belt and chains on it. It was still running 10 years later when I sold it.

We have recently put additional money in this vehicle and overall its in great shape, it rides nicely and gets really good mileage. So as long as its not catastrophic I believe its definitely worth putting the money into, especially looking at the price tags of new vehicles these days. 
I believe the F150 engine is different. Since it uses a different computer system I am not sure if they used the same sensors etc. I also believe it has 2 turbos where this engine has a single turbo, this could cause some fitment issues. I am hoping at this point that pulling the engine is going to be a last resort. Luckily we were at a very slow speed so I think that may have saved major damage. The compression/leak down test will give me enough information on how I will proceed. If it totally fails that then I know I have to dig deeper and will probably pull the heads at that point and see how bad the valves are bent. I will also at that point pull the pan as well and check the bottom end to verify for any damage there.

[arcticdude]

It certainly looks like the chain got heavily stressed, given the attitude of the pins.

The CP4 is a really stupid setup that should have had some type of containment or major upgrading to prevent the mess it makes when it goes. I’m at 110k on mine and trying to decide what to do with it.

Good luck and hope it turns out well.

[[email protected]]

It certainly looks like the chain got heavily stressed, given the attitude of the pins.

The CP4 is a really stupid setup that should have had some type of containment or major upgrading to prevent the mess it makes when it goes.  I’m at 110k on mine and trying to decide what to do with it. 

Good luck and hope it turns out well.

There are quite a few options out there now for the CP-4. They have some that they fixed, meaning they pined the roller to keep it from spinning and they block the fuel passage that allows the debris to get to your injectors. The problem is it’s mainly for the big trucks, have not seen any for these smaller engines. I have to assume the pump is different but who knows maybe it’s the same pump.

[[email protected]]

So I was able to do a leak down test on all the cylinders today. Drum roll please, so the results were fantastic. The gauge barely moved, meaning it has very little to no leak down on all cylinders. I was going to do the compression test if my leak down numbers were questionable. So I am going to move forward with my plan of replacing both cam chains and then put the new timing belt on and hope for the best. I have not scoped the driver side cylinders, I will do that when I do the cam chains as I have to pull the injectors to do that job anyways.

So as of right now I am waiting on the cam chains to come in. Once I have them in hand I should be able to move forward.

I did take some time today to look at the CP-4 disaster prevention kit. I am going to need to basically create my own lines for it, the ones for the 6.7 are all pretty much wrong. The ends are a different size and the lines are just not going to be configured correctly. I have created myself a sharpie and cardboard diagram to go by and I will get all the parts I need ordered. I am going to get some oetiker clamps so the install will look like its factory. I already have a crimper for my pex clamps that will work to clamp the oetiker clamps. Hopefully it will not take me too long to get all the parts necessary to do this modification.

If you want to see basically what I am installing for the CP-4 bypass you can take a look here at this diagram from S&S:
https://ssdiesel.com/wp-content/uploads/...IL2024.pdf

[[email protected]]

So I received the replacement chains this past week and today I got the chains installed. There is a ton of stuff that had to come off the engine to get down to the cams so tomorrow I will work on getting everything put back together again and hopefully be able to fire it up and check make sure it runs. 

I do have to modify the disaster prevention kit for it to work with this fuel system, I believe I have all the parts to do that and i will take care of that before I put back a bunch of the stuff on the top of the engine so I have room to work. 

I did check the remainder of the driver side cylinders with my bore scope and those cylinder are fine, no issues that I can see. So I believe once I have it all back together we will be back on the road again.

   

   

   

[[email protected]]

Well its been a bit of time, I was waiting on parts and then I had another issue. This time I am sure it was mechanic induced. I got it all reassembled and started it up and it was rattling and did not stop. Shut it off fairly quickly so it did not run long with the rattling. I turned it over by hand and it seemed that something was wrong, it was hard to turn over. Funny thing is though that I had turned it over several times to check the timing and i did not notice any issue with rotating the assembly. In fact I did at least four revolutions of the crank and double checked the cam timing with the crank. All was good. So not sure what happened but somehow the pistons were hitting the cylinders.
I will add some photos of the cylinders after this time, it definitely left a mark this time. So checked the leak down of the affected cylinders and to my surprise, no change. Somehow I dodged another bullet. I pulled the cam chain and realigned it. Then I turned the engine over several times, this time I put my borescope in the cylinders and watched them come to top dead center and made sure that the valve was opening just after like its supposed to. It was definitely aligned correctly this time. I can only guess that i accidently allowed the chain to jump a tooth upon assembly somehow. Got in a hurry and did not turn it over to test it like I should have. Its easy to do with your own projects sometime especially when you just want to get it back together and get it running again.

Here is my video of the not so nice noise of the valves hitting the pistons:
https://youtu.be/Pnh0cfvmXEs?si=Z_uq20GcPR4BZ2-E

Here are the cylinders in question:
   

   

   

[[email protected]]

So you are not in suspense, the latest result:

https://youtu.be/dNq_Pzl6RS4?si=yaGSR9AV7lyxTB5x

[arcticdude]

You could just hear the clatter in the first video while it was cranking after knowing what to listen for. Without that knowledge, it would be easy to miss.

The second video sounds smooth! It will be interesting to hear if there’s any driving difference now.