some 2000 e7 460 odditys/issues

[Ezrider]

ok im going to say a lot of things here some may be related some may not be. 

starting about 2 months ago my truck started barely charging, about 12.8 volts. figured the alt sh*t the bed, drove about an hour up the road got a alternator threw it on still wasn't charging, found i was getting charging volts at the alt but not the gauges or the battery, jumper cable from the alt to the frame no change, from the body of the alt to the battery it started charging after a few hours of cleaning every ground wire i could find without finding the problem, ended up running a heavy gauge wire from where the alternator grounded to the truck frame to the negative lead on the starter, no issues with that for at least a month, following that my starter went bad, changed that still no charging problems

my truck has developed a little bit of a occasional low rpm low throttle position hesitation, it will occasionally stumble a little bit at less than 1/4 throttle at low rpms like when going threw the low gears slowly pulling away from a stop, occasionally i will see a small quick puff of white fuel smoke when it does this, it seems like there might be a slight loss of power when it seems to be running normal but i cant say for sure if there is its probably not much but it seems like maybe a little less power, i was thinking might be time for a new injector unit pump or two, the truck will occasionally throw a injector code on #3 maybe 2-3 times a week it will pop up for 5 mins and then go away. its done this for a long time, without any ill running issues what so ever. also not necessarily any where remotely at the same times that i can tell that the truck is running any different. it will also seem to idle a little rougher than normal from time to time. fuel millage hasn't seemed much different, i am averaging 5.6mpg and i run 96k lbs loaded every load. 

another thing iv noticed is sometimes my boost and oil psi gauges will fluctuate a couple psi with no change in sound/operating condition. like say holding steady rpm and throttle position pulling hill. i have kinda noticed this for a while never put much thought into it

now for the strangest thing its done, today i was dead heading about 150 miles to pick up a shorter load, i lost my first stage of my Jake break oil psi running at least 5-7 psi lower than normal. for givin rpm/oil temp. figured i popped a plug out of the end of the rocker shaft again, being i was already committed to the load and i didn't really have time to stop and pull a valve cover and still make it threw the port of entry into Canada before they closed i just decided i would pick up the load and then check it out later. it is a short mile load any way and would put me in a location with more services available if i needed to try to get anything to fix it. it was also did its new low rpm stumble a few times on the way up empty

get there to load have to wait for another truck ahead of me to load, so i shut the truck off and am poking around pull the pass threw plug off wiggle some wires plug it back in, get loaded take off and everything is normal again oil psi normal jakes working normal, never stumbled once i didn't see anything that looked abnormal or out of place. i can't see how the pass threw connector would change the oil pressure. but it has me wondering if all my problems might come back to a bad ground or a chaffed wire or something, i cleaned every ground i could find when i had the charging problem. but never did get it charging without adding a additional ground cable.

what are your thoughts?

[Underdog]

ok im going to say a lot of things here some may be related some may not be. 
 
starting about 2 months ago my truck started barely charging, about 12.8 volts. figured the alt shit the bed, drove about an hour up the road got a alternator threw it on still wasn't charging, found i was getting charging volts at the alt but not the gauges or the battery, jumper cable from the alt to the frame no change, from the body of the alt to the battery it started charging after a few hours of cleaning every ground wire i could find without finding the problem, ended up running a heavy gauge wire from where the alternator grounded to the truck frame to the negative lead on the starter, no issues with that for at least a month, following that my starter went bad, changed that still no charging problems
 
my truck has developed a little bit of a occasional low rpm low throttle position hesitation, it will occasionally stumble a little bit at less than 1/4 throttle at low rpms like when going threw the low gears slowly pulling away from a stop, occasionally i will see a small quick puff of white fuel smoke when it does this, it seems like there might be a slight loss of power when it seems to be running normal but i cant say for sure if there is its probably not much but it seems like maybe a little less power, i was thinking might be time for a new injector unit pump or two, the truck will occasionally throw a injector code on #3 maybe 2-3 times a week it will pop up for 5 mins and then go away. its done this for a long time, without any ill running issues what so ever. also not necessarily any where remotely at the same times that i can tell that the truck is running any different. it will also seem to idle a little rougher than normal from time to time. fuel millage hasn't seemed much different, i am averaging 5.6mpg and i run 96k lbs loaded every load. 
 
another thing iv noticed is sometimes my boost and oil psi gauges will fluctuate a couple psi with no change in sound/operating condition. like say holding steady rpm and throttle position pulling hill. i have kinda noticed this for a while never put much thought into it
 
now for the strangest thing its done, today i was dead heading about 150 miles to pick up a shorter load, i lost my first stage of my Jake break oil psi running at least 5-7 psi lower than normal. for givin rpm/oil temp. figured i popped a plug out of the end of the rocker shaft again, being i was already committed to the load and i didn't really have time to stop and pull a valve cover and still make it threw the port of entry into Canada before they closed i just decided i would pick up the load and then check it out later. it is a short mile load any way and would put me in a location with more services available if i needed to try to get anything to fix it. it was also did its new low rpm stumble a few times on the way up empty
get there to load have to wait for another truck ahead of me to load, so i shut the truck off and am poking around pull the pass threw plug off wiggle some wires plug it back in, get loaded take off and everything is normal again oil psi normal jakes working normal, never stumbled once i didn't see anything that looked abnormal or out of place. i can't see how the pass threw connector would change the oil pressure. but it has me wondering if all my problems might come back to a bad ground or a chaffed wire or something, i cleaned every ground i could find when i had the charging problem. but never did get it charging without adding a additional ground cable.
 
what are your thoughts?

I think you're on the right track, cleaning wire connections and grounds. An 18 year old truck is going to have these issues.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[Ezrider]

well it gets stranger, so i got loaded drove about 160 ish miles from there to where i shut down for the night everything was fine, shut down sleep get up drive another 30 miles to the us border shut the truck off for a few mins and the port take off no jake low oil psi again, ran a total of 400 miles today problem never went away cleaned the connectors didn't help. jumped power to the pass threw you could hear the solenoid click, started the engine idled it up to 1300 rpms jumped power to it nothing, jump to the rear head jakes would work. 

 

end of the day i pulled the valve covers all my rocker plugs are in place, jumped the solenoids rear jake would shoot oil 3 ft high front oil would just barely trickle out, swapped the solenoids and the problem did not move with them.  

 

going to try getting the oil changed first thing in the morning and see if that helps, i am due, was planning on changing it this weekend, i am past where i would normally change my oil but should be well within acceptable range, this oil change has just shy of 19k miles and has 460 engine hours. this is on full synthetic 5-40w, i am not really thinking that this is going to help but probably worth a try

 

i have no idea what could cause oil psi/jakes to have a issue then go away then come back?

[Dirtymilkman]

I would be running heavier oil. 

[Ezrider]

5-40 should be just fine, 5 is the cold rating 40 the hot, been running 5-40 in this truck for 3 years i changed the oil today used 15/40 because i didn't want to spend the money on synthetic oil cause i didn't really think the oil was the problem. i did get a very slight bump in oil psi. with the oil change, full jakes worked a couple of times here and there running empty with cooler oil temps as soon as i got loaded though didn't have both jake breaks for the next 330 miles to where i am at now. 

also my stumble/hesitation seems to be getting worse. and my gauge isn't showing that i am getting normal boost, egt's normal felt like a loss of power but then again it was really windy today as well the wind can have a way of sucking 100 hp out of ya...lol

 

sent in a oil sample from my oil change. probably wont get the results back for a few days. 

 

does it sound to you guys like maybe the cam is going bad? just trying to think of what would cause good oil flow to the jakes on one head and not the other as well seems mabye if the same oil passage that feeds the head feeds the cam that would make sense but i really have no idea on this one, im thinking for the first time sense i bought this truck i might have to take it to the mother bulldog to figure this one out. 

Edited May 25, 2017 by Ezrider

[RowdyRebel]

Electrical issues can be a mother. I was having an issue with my cab marker lights, trailer lights, etc...couldn't find where the problem was. Then, decided to swap out that fuse box on the fire wall under the hood. When I did that, I found a few corroded contacts in the plugs to the box. Sucked cutting brand new wires on the brand new harness to splice in jumpers around the harness plugs...but all of my lights work now.

 

When you said jiggling the wires seemed to help, it definitely sounds like it could be electrical in nature, especially since it doesn't seem as though you've got a dead cylinder.  Might try zapping the temp on the exhaust manifold again if/when it throws the unit pump code...if the temp on that cylinder is off from the others while the code is active, and normal when the code is inactive, then I'd focus my attention on the wiring to that unit pump. Unplug every connection to make sure the contacts aren't corroded.  

 

I hate electrical issues.

 

If all else fails, take it to Mack and see what they say.

[carlotpilot]

I did a round in our 2000 vision this past week to mass. and back . first trip i have ran in this unit in probably 2 yrs, its a 460 e7 also .ran empty up to mass returned grossing just under 74.000 I can say i`ve owned and drove 220 cummins engines that pulled that much weight better than what this one did. it seemed to be having many of the same issues you are having  jakes not working right oil pressure fluctuation `   boost pressure up and down ` at one point the boost pressure gauge went off the scale  then back to 20p  in all it was a miserable trip   this critter will be at the mack shop wed morning for a checkout.    changed the fuel filters thinking that could be the prob.no change

Edited May 30, 2017 by carlotpilot

[Ezrider]

im thinking its not electrical, im thinking that was coincidence, it came back that one time, and it seemed to run ok i stopped for the night and then was ok till the first time i shut the truck off the next day then its been running like dog sh*t ever since, plus with the lack of oil flow from the front jake is making me lean mechanical. both jakes will sometimes still work when the oil is still cold. i think the front cam bearing went out personally. but i dropped it off at Mack this afternoon has a appointment for tomorrow i guess we will find out what they have to say 

[Ezrider]

a little bit of a update, tech has looked at it no real diagnosis yet, i checked on the status of oil sample i sent in when i first started having jake/oil psi issues there working on the sample now they said no results yet, but particle count is low so they don't expect to see a bunch of bearing material but they should have the oil sample completed in the next couple hours and will call me with the results.  

[Ezrider]

not good

 

[Keffer inc]

I didn't read all the replies so I may be repeating someone. My old CH had a "not charging" issue once and it took me forever to figure it out. I was a ground breaker on the fire wall. If I remember right it has two ground cables coming out of it and it's close to the starter solenoid. The cheap way to see if that's bad is to use a jumper wire between those two grounds and if your gauge is back up to 14 volt, that's what's bad. Hope that fixes all.

[Ezrider]

that would make sense, i suppose i had not checked that, will take a peek at that when i get my truck back from having the camshaft replaced. i had run a additional ground wire that solved my charging issue, but i would like to know where the original problem was

 

[kevgibbs]

How many total miles were on the truck/engine when you had the camshaft replaced?