Hello all,
I recently purchased a 2003 CH613 with an E-7 (pre-emissions) to get started in trucking. I have no experience and I usually attend the school of hard knocks and teach myself as long as it is safe. A friend of mine has some extra work from time to time and I have always wanted to get into trucking, he offered to ride with me and show me the ropes when he is not busy. I am an auto tech and fabricator by trade, no diesel experience.
The truck has 900,000 miles on it and a miss when it is cold. I got it for a good deal and it is in nice shape. I noticed when the truck warms up it idles well (possibly eliminates the miss) and hold 20# on the oil pressure. There is significant blowby from the tube under the engine and it looks like clear water that drips...... I am guessing that is condensation from the excessive blowby. No visible water in the oil, and goes down the road well. I was thinking that if it pulls OK enough for a rookie under load I might be able to push off a rebuild for a while. My rookie question is obviously this truck needs an inframe but when is it mandatory. The previous owner says it doesn't use oil but then again I was handing him a stack of cash....
Can DOT get me for blowby (there are steady puffs from the tube at idle)??
If the engine runs cool and has good oil pressure am I doing other damage?
Is there a good trick to verify the miss when warm?.... I can't just disable the spark plug lol, or use my snap on scan tool to kill the injector and watch my RPMs
Could something be making this blowby worse than it is? I read about other things that causing high crankcase pressure, obviously, the 900k is the major concern.
I know the inframe is going to be expensive even if I try and do it myself and it will, of course, open a bigger can of worms than I can possibly plan for. I am just curious if I can drive it for a few months learn a little about the business and maybe save up some money.
Great Info on here.... This site convinced me to buy a MACK