D8 14a having a bad day

I would think you will be better off taking off that head and pulling the sleeve and piston to do it properly even if you can pull it from the bottom.

I don't think it is normally done that way on any engine other than the D311 and D3400 where the connecting rod big end is too large to fit up the sleeve.

If you can patch up the block and don't have any cracks into the oil galleries or water jacket, with a good connecting rod and bearings in there along with the new piston, you should get good service out of it. I don't think the D342 (is that the right engine?) is one that you would successfully patch up the crankshaft/bearings/connecting rods/pistons/sleeves and get long service out of it.

I'm going to try a pic. These are the pieces of the block and the piston. All where laying in the dirt outside the push arm!

Boy, that's a crying shame, when pieces of block start showing up it could prove to be fatal. You just about have to pull the head to find out what caused the failure.Tad

Sorry to say, but when pieces blow off from an engine block, seems to me the block is beyond repair. 😞

Just depends on what the projectile came through on it's way out😆
Had an 855 Cummins rod come out through the camshaft:behindsofa:

I'm amazed that the rod stayed with the rest of the piston with that much broken off the bottom. I'm betting you didn't sit and listen to it knock!

We got a 12E with the block destroyed by a failed piston. When the rod came loose from the disintegrating piston it destroyed the sleeve and the block from the o-ring area up to just below the deck. I believe the damage might have been limited if the operator had been thinking!

As for the root cause, a small piece of a lock tab was stuck in the oil pump gears, causing the drive gear key to shear. That started a race to failure between the pistons and the bearings. The piston seized first!

I would certainly check the oil pump on the D8 by opening it up and inspecting it while you are in there. That should be part of any rebuild. We bought a "good used" pump for the 12E and all the keys in it were so worn, it probably would have failed pretty soon, so we sent it back and got a new one.

Thanks for the replies guys. I looked up through the hole in the block with a video probe right in front of the pony where #3 rod poked out the piston piece and found #3 piston looked good, So one of the other cylinders broke and the piece moved down to #3 and got punched out there. Should be an easy fix on the block. I'll be pullin the side covers on the right side to investigated further. Looks like I'll be pullin at least one head but I can't stand to do something half right so I see new liners and pistons in my future. Now if I can just get #2 D8 back together to pull #1 up to the shop.
Thanks again
LeRoy

Time for an update on this thread. I finally got a chance to get back to D8 #1 and attemp to drag it back up the hill to my shop. After fooling with #2 D8 for about a week to get the pony drained of water and running, I got it started only to be reminded I had robbed the clutch discs out of the CCU. Dang! A call to General Machine I had new discs in hand and a working blade control. So far, so good. As soon as I tried to move the machine it just jumped out of gear on the Johnson (forward/reverse) Damn, I forgot about that...

So plan B. Pull it up with the 235 excavator. That didn't work either. We bought this 235 with no stick or bucket and haven't found one yet, so all we had was the pull of the tracks... very snaky tracks.

Plan C. Tear the deck and top of tranny on D8 #2 to see if it is fixable. It looks like the shift fork has worn down to about half thickness and wore about half the dogs off reverse. Now my plan is to build up the shift fork to get full engagement and give her a go.
I'm going to post some pics since that's always my favorite part of others posts.

One cool discovery was the tool box in fine shape including the holder for the operators manual.

Thought I'd add a pic of me hard at work in the new power plant (PG&E). I'm lowering a main bearing for a 100 hour inspection. The con rods are above my head and crank counter weights next to me. Makes the ol' D8 seem small.
These are V18 natural gas diesel engines. 23,000 HP and we have 10 to keep running with a crew of 4!

Hope to have pics up soon dragging #1 D8 with #2. Thanks for reading and any advice welcome.
LeRoy