671 Detroit

[barry]

Two questions. Does my water heater on my 85 convertible have one or two elements ? It puts out some warm water for a very fast shower whereas it used to supply all needed. Second , I have a 671 that has poor rings on the third cylinder and smokes alot in neutral but clears underway. With this economy, can I rebuild that one cylinder ?

 

[TedZ]

Heater: Does it have two covers? The covers cover the elements. If you have a meter, on the lowest resistance setting and THE POWER OFF, a good element will read a fraction to a few ohms. If it is open it is dead.

There are better diesel folk here than me. If one is bad can the others be far behind??

Ted

 

[Avenger]

Yes, you can put a kit in one cylinder only.

Do the rest of them have good compression, or are you looking at this as patching the weakest link until it's time to buy a new chain?

 

[barry]

The rest of the cylinders have ok compression and I haven't talked to my mechanic but I will. The water heater i will also check

 

[MikeP]

Well, although I tend to agree based on my experience with gas engines that if one cyl is bad, the others can't be far behind, the fact is these engines were designed to be able to repair individual cylinders. The military did it all the time and I suspect virtually any industrial user did the same thing.

Again, it kind of goes against years of gas engine work BUT if it was my boat and I was comfortable that all was well with the other cylinders, I'd probably just redo that one. The engines are famous for lasting a LOOOOOOOOOONG time so what the heck.

 

[Will]

Unless you are doing the work youself where the primary difference would be in the cost of parts, I'd do them all. The labor to tear the engine down and put it back together is about the same whether you do one cylinder or all of them. While you're at it, inpsect the head carefully too. It too may need to be addressed.
Will