Luck of the Draw

Gday all.

I recently bought an International C1300 dualcab off Ebay.

I'm always a bit sceptical when buying stuff unseen off the internet but she had obviously had a half decent attempt at a backyard restoration.
Both front and back seats had been reupholstered along with the door cards. Had a 2 pack paint job sometime in the past 5 to 10 years and no rust popping out from under it so I was reasonably comfortable that the cab was half decent at least.
It had also had a first registration for many years done in NSW less than 12 months ago and still had 4 months rego, so that said that the running gear was acceptable too.
Been a long time since I rego'd a car in NSW but the first rego involves a trip over the RTA pits doesn't it??

Anyway, so I bought it and flew up to Sydney yesterday to pick it up and drive home.
Had a quick look over it when I got there and decided it was what they had stated and the deal was done.
By 1PM I was fueled up with petrol (and a faulty fuel gauge ) and on the road for the 550k trip back to the border at Albury Wodonga.

I done about 125 to 130k and pulled into a servo somewhere past Mossvale. Was pretty impressed that I only put in 26 litres which meant I was getting somewhere around 5k to the litre (13.5 MPG).
It was at this stage I found out about the dicky (which had been mentioned) starter motor and had to put the gentle persuader to use but, in all the joy and distractions I omitted to giving the ol girl the once over :-[ and jumped in and hit the road again.

Truck ran like a dream. Was`easy to drive (other than heavy full lock turning at corners and such) and ran in a straight line and was comfortable sitting on the highway with the bigboys at 100+ with enough grunt to pass a few on the hills [smiley=thumbsup.gif].
All in all, I was pretty chuffed at the way things were going, till then.

Thought about calling into the Yass roadhouse and top up again but everything was running sweet and I would have plenty of fuel to get me to Gundagai so I peddled on.

About half an hour later I noticed it a nittle hazy inside the cab and put the nose to work. It wasn't an electical smoke smell so that was good but certainly wasn't normal so I swung off at the next safe spot and had a look around.
There was oil spotting on the right hand inner gaurd and steering column but the motor looked pretty clean, till I noticed the oil dripping out the back end of the motor.
Hmmm, I thinks, Looks like a rear main seal.
Wasn't much I could do on the side of the road so I headed on towards Gundagai roadhouse.

Things got ugly pretty quickly after that . I knew I had 30 or so Ks to go before I got to the roadhouse and there wasn't much in the way of towns in between us. All I could do was push on steadily and see what happened.

Didn't take long before I started to notice a gravelly noise. It was loud enough to hear over the stereo but not enough to pinpoint where it was coming from.
I backed off a bit and it got a little quieter so I kept hoping that I would make the roadhouse before anything serious happened.

Progressively the noise got louder. So did the smell of a hot engine, even tho the temp hadn't risen .
The noise turned to what sounded like a delaminating fan belt with the loose bit slapping up against the inner gaurd.
Another quck stop said everything was still together under the bonnet and at idle the motor didn't sound too bad, but it didn't smell too good and I had no oil with me either.
Back on the road again quickly changed that noise to a horrible clatter and I swung off the highway soon after into Coolac,\ and bought 2 litres of oil.
All too late I fear. I decided that I still needed to make the roadhouse , or better still, Gundagia itself which was still 20 Ks away, as there was nothing in Coolac that could help me other than a pub. I was too scared to take the revs up much over a fast idle. It was hammering away inside like something big was trying to get out and it wasn't waiting for me to open the door [smiley=evil.gif]. Within 2 kilometres it turned to a squealing noise and I shut it down. End of journey.

Gotta say (NO,this is not an infomercial ). I am glad I had RACV totalcare. They send an NRMA tilt tray out to me which got me back into Gundagai, even tho he was overlength with my truck on it's back.
They organised and paid for a motel room for the night and this morning it got loaded onto a longer truck that took me and my dead boat anchor back home by 11am today. All for $186 a year.

Damage? Don't know yet. Will be a week before I get enough time to pull the sump off and have a proper look but I am thinking I have spun a big end or main bearing. If not, then broke a skirt off a piston. It did start to have a miss noise at the exhaust pipe like a burnt valve, but that didn't confirm anything with me.

Any ideas What do you reckon I have done, and is it a motor out or do the bottom end in there???

Cheers. Cobba.

You never mentioned checking oil level. At high revs with load only takes seconds to do all the bearings when the pump starts to gulp air, from there on there is bugger all oil pressure with consequent comprehensive destruction.

Sounds like it ran out of oil with what you say about the hot oil smell. I had a oil burning 318 Phoenix and when i got that burning smell it was time for oil.

Didn't state it but I checked the oil level when I first looked at it then fuelled up before I left liverpool area. Was down a little on the stick but would have only taken 1/2 a litre if I put any in so didn't worry about it.
Also didn't say that the oil pressure gauge wasn't working either so had no idea as to weather there was a loss of pressure on the run either.

Did say that I didn't check the oil down the road an hour and a half later tho. Kickin myself for that one too.

Started it again today and that little demon is still in there with his hammer.

I'm pretty pithed off. I reckon I ruined a good motor thru desire to get home before dark and blind faith in inaccurate gauges (along with stupidity).

Seriously debating about weather to rebuild the petrol 6 or go for a japanese diesel (along with the gearbox and rear end as well). Won't be original any more but a winner on economy and reliability.

Yeah hard to say without more information - does it still have coolant, oil level is etc etc.

The oil leak seems to point directly to a loss of oil, but sometimes it can be other factors.

Sometimes pushing these old engines can get them hot and if you have a faulty temp gauge and bad thermostat, hose, water pump or welch plug things can get really interesting.

Once the coolant goes the engine goes into self destruction, oil breaks down, bearings fail and you get that burnt smell - which isn't all that pleasant.

The missing could be a burnt or seized valve due to overheating.

It will be interesting to find out the verdict



A

Probobly not a bad idea putting a Jap diesel in it. You can probobly get a rusty SBR/JCR Isuzu or something else Jap for $2-3,000. I was contemplating putting a 1HZ Toyota motor in a C1100 a little while ago, but they are still getting around $4,000 for them unless you buy a wreck. Don't kick yourself too much mate, the old 345 is probobly all right if you don't want to do many K's. I doubt if heat would have killed it, more like lack of oil. Quite a few years ago I worked for a concrete pumping mob and the boss had a Scout with a 345 in it that was involved in quite a few interesting stories. One of them being, that over a period of a week or so it would just stop, we looked at the ignition, the fuel, as you would. Anyway it just stopped one day, and he caught a cab to where he was going. Me and another bloke went out to get it and it fired straight up, half way back to the shed it stopped, only this time we could smell it was hot. The only thing we had to carry water was gum boots. A few trips back and forth with the gum boots and it was full, and never had a drama. We bought a new ciol and told him we'd found the problem.

Yeah hard to say without more information - does it still have coolant, oil level is etc etc.

Narh. Coolant level was good when I looked at it today. down the usual 20mm for a cold motor.
The radiator cap seals so well that it wouldn't let air back in when it cooled down and the bottom hose was sucked in under vacuum. Radiator was full right to the top when I cracked the cap.
Possible that the bottom hose had sucked in when running and starved it of water but the smell was of oil and the radiator didn't feel or sound hot when I pulled up.

It will be interesting to find out the verdict

Well I have decided that no matter what I do, the engine has gotta come out weather I am doing a rebuild or a transplant. Just as easy to bring the gearbox with it I would think.
Just for my own personal knowledge, I will have to strip the engine and find out what went wrong so I will let you know then.
Who knows, it might be an easy fix/patch up job and back on the road.
Might be a full heart/lung transplant with a double knee and hip replacement too. Lol


Hey bigcam,

Don't know much about diesel motors. Always been a petrol head myself and only owned 3 diesels in my life.
Probably owned around a 150 cars, bikes, small trucks and tractors over the past 35 years, so only 3 diesels in that time pretty much says it about my knowledge

Have had different guys steer me towards any of the Isuzu engines. Not sure if any one manufacturer is better than the other so open to opinions of any that will give one.
More than likely, if I went that way I would be aiming at buying a complete truck with usable running gear and a throwaway body. preferably a big 6 engine and most likely a decade or more old so I can get it at the right price.

Have to get the digital out and take a few photos as I do this I think.