Cummins Diesel Spanner

[bratkid63]

Fabbed this up in about an hour. I needed a way to hold the crank on my Cummins so I could loosen the harmonic balancer bolts. The front seal was leaking, and I wanted to check to see if I had the "Killer Dowel Pin" problem (do a Google search if you want to know more about it), so the timing cover needed to come off. Being I have an automatic trans, I needed a way to hold the crank, without removing the starter and locking the ring gear. It fits into the grooves in the balancer.

It's made from a piece of 4" rigid conduit, a piece of 1/2" rigid pipe and some 1/4" plate. It worked like a champ. It would hold itself against the frame of the truck, whther I was loosening or retorquing the bolts.

[TigWiz]

Making tools on the fly is always fun, especially when they work out perfectly. Hope the truck is ok

[bratkid63]

All is good. Truck was back together last night and on the road.

[ponch37300]

I love seeing tools guys make when needed. I try to make what I can.

I have a powerstroke but I thought I read that there is a replacement dowel pin for the cummins?

[bratkid63]

The dowel pin that locates the timing case can fall out on the 12 valve and some of the 24 valve Cummins. When it does it can either fall harmlessly into the oil pan, get caught between a gear and the housing resulting in the housing getting broken (about a $2000 repair), or it can get caught between the gears, shearing the cam gear off and destroying the engine, hence the Killer Dowel Pin name. Mine happened to have an updated housing that had a shouldered dowel pin hole, but there was no way to tell without taking it apart.

[Mondo]

Originally Posted by bratkid63

The dowel pin that locates the timing case can fall out on the 12 valve and some of the 24 valve Cummins. When it does it can either fall harmlessly into the oil pan, get caught between a gear and the housing resulting in the housing getting broken (about a $2000 repair), or it can get caught between the gears, shearing the cam gear off and destroying the engine, hence the Killer Dowel Pin name. Mine happened to have an updated housing that had a shouldered dowel pin hole, but there was no way to tell without taking it apart.

Is there no documentation from Cummins noting the date or serial number that the ECO fixing the problem was introduced?

-Mondo

[ponch37300]

Glad you had the "good" version! I thought I had read in a diesel magaine about the killer dowel pin and a replacement or fix they had for it. I didn't read the full article because it didn't pertain to me.

[denrep]

For anyone who wonders what the pin failure can look like, somewhere I had posted pictures of an on-the-truck front cover patch job I did.

The 5.9 engine's gear train had swallowed the pin, and then spit it and a few other pieces out through the front cover. But the engine still ran, so it didn't warrant disassembly.

I'll try to find the pictures.

Good Luck

[highplainsdrifter]

I had a 1st gen dodge which had the potential dowel pin issue.

I opened up the front cover, and just hit that shoulder that the pin sits in with a ball peen hammer which flared the end of it enough that the pin could never fall out.

Free fix.

Russ

[denrep]

Originally Posted by highplainsdrifter

I had a 1st gen dodge which had the potential dowel pin issue.

I opened up the front cover, and just hit that shoulder that the pin sits in with a ball peen hammer which flared the end of it enough that the pin could never fall out.

Free fix.

Russ

FREE?!?

If you consider the draining of fluids, and the R&R of radiators, coolers, fans, accessories and front covers, as a "free" fix, man could I line up some work for you.

[bratkid63]

Originally Posted by Mondo

Is there no documentation from Cummins noting the date or serial number that the ECO fixing the problem was introduced?

-Mondo

Based on the DTR (Diesel Truck Resource) forum that I frequent, Dodge never put out a service bulletin on the issue. It's as though they didn't want to recognize it officially, and were hoping that the trucks would pass their warranty period before the pin fell out. I though I was OK with the 24 valve motor, but it turns out some of them still had the older design timing cover with the through-hole for the dowel pin. Mine was the newer design. I would recommend anyone with a Dodge Cummins up to 2003 check theirs. Here's a photo of where the dowel pin USED to be, and the damage it can do. Fortunately, this guy didn't ruin his engine completely.

[denrep]

Originally Posted by bratkid63

. . .Here's a photo of where the dowel pin USED to be. . .

And here's a photo of the way it went:



This one drove home about 150 miles after the pin jettisoned. I figured that was a good enough test, and just patched the hole.

[bratkid63]

Originally Posted by denrep

And here's a photo of the way it went:

Attachment 41057

This one drove home about 150 miles after the pin jettisoned. I figured that was a good enough test, and just patched the hole.

WOW! I can't imagine how much oil was jettisoned as well!

You gotta wonder, how in the world would an engineer worth anything design a flaw like that, when all they had to do was make the hole blind?

[MarkBall2]

Limited lifespan engineering.