I may have shared this before….had a remote project in the North Slope oil fields.
One of our subs with a base of ops up there was trying to wring out all the life out of their pre 2007 emissions light trucks because the emissions issues were prohibitive in vehicles that idle 24/7 and run in temps down to -50deg.
They had a pretty even mix of 6litre Flowerjokes and LLy and LBZ Duramaxes.
They had like 2 spare Dmax engines on the shelf and about 20 spare rebuilt 6.0s on the shelf….and Zero Cummins B series spares. (They didn’t have a lot of Cummins trucks to be fair, because they didn’t come in a full crew cab until 2010. Mostly just 5500 Dodge service trucks.)
its kind of eye opening, and doesnt say anything about the actual motor that they have so many sitting on the shelf. what it tells is how many of each brand they use. for instance our mine site traditionaly uses GMC trucks (gas engines, we thing the purchaser had a brother that owned a gmc dealership) and a few fords, but they are just starting to switch over to all ford. the GMC front ends can't handle the abuse they have to take, and it only took them 20 years to figure that out🤣. plus there are a lot of other issues. not a dodge in the mix. From what I see in other sites and from contractors coming to our site is a overwhelming majority of the trucks are ford. probably between a 20 to 40 to 1 ratio to GMC and a 100 to 1 ratio (or higher) to dodge, so if you base spare parts of numbers of vehicles then twenty 6L to two Duramax motors is about right.
I know it’s hard to accept that Ford couldn’t offer a truck with a good diesel engine for almost a decade…not sure how you explain whole new engine after 5 years and another whole new engine 3 years later (with a year gap when they didn’t have anything to put in the trucks…lol).
But good math skills other than I said they had similar numbers of 6 leaker trucks and early Dmax trucks.
um, so whats your point?
None I guess. Other than they blow. Figuratively and literally.
Or more accurately, one should heed any warnings about these engines and not presume any sort of reliability.
I wish Jeff the best of luck with this but it’s already been a money pit and now may have a blown hg or cracked head? The coolant puking at a low temperature is a likely symptom.
