This truck came in with a piece of aluminum JB Welded to the front of the engine covering the seam where the cylinder head meets the block. The story we were told is that a shop in Ohio had installed an Industrial Injection long block with a $4,000 ported and polished cylinder head. We were told the cylinder head had fire rings, which we never recommend to customer that are daily driving the vehicle, as "fire rings" will allow the cylinder head to walk around on the block, and very often cause external coolant leaks between the head and the block. Once we got the head removed, we found that it was in fact NOT a fire ringed head as the customer had informed us, so there was some confusion between myself and the customer based off misinformation on his part.
The cylinder head was however O ringed, this means groves had been machined into the bottom of the head, and a thick metal ring is placed in the groove and protrudes from the head to double the clamping force on the head gasket. While this practice works in certain applications, we've not had good luck with O ringed heads on the Cummins platform in particular. This exchange is a perfect example of problems we've encountered with the O ringed Cummins heads. Industrial Injection built the long block they advised the customer to send the cylinder head back to them so they could check out the grove depth.
The customer felt that Industrial was going to get the cylinder head back and lie to him about the groove depth. In turn, refusing to warranty it for him. He asked us to have the cylinder head checked, so we sent the cylinder head to a local machine shop. The machine shop couldn't properly check grove depth at the cylinder head was warped, according to them. They machined the cylinder head perfectly flat, and checked groove depth, I personally emailed pictures of the varying groove depths to the customer. This test proved one thing, that the cylinder number 1 O ring groove was shallower that cylinder number 6, number 2 was shallower than number 5, and number 3 was shallower than number 4. So this information proves to us that the cylinder head wasn't sealing against the block due to the O ring closest to the front of the engine sitting too tall in the groove. This is why the truck was leaking massive amounts of coolant from the front of the engine upon arrival.
We did end up sending the cylinder head back to Industrial Injection. Now the customer has been slandering our business as well as myself for weeks. All over every social media platform known to man. This doesn't bother me personally, because I know we've done nothing wrong. But as part of his senseless ramblings of things he doesn't understand, he claims Industrial Injection voided his warranty because the machine shop we took the cylinder head to machined the head, without our permission or the customer's permission. This is simply a lie. Industrial Injection paid us $2,600 to help the customer with the labor involved in the repair. That implies warranty. If there was no warranty, they would not have paid for the labor they took fault for upon my assessment of the groove depth. They paid us the $2,600 as they took responsible for the need of repair.
We do many Cummins head gasket jobs a year here at Lead Foot Diesel Performance. We average 2-3 a week in fact. We ALWAYS use the regular ARP 2000 series head studs, I have countless invoices proving this. With an average of 100 head gasket jobs annually, we will warranty one or two per year. The repeat failures although rare, are always caused by a component failure. Example, we do head gaskets on the truck, check water pump, water pump is functioning perfectly, fan clutch is functioning perfectly, truck leaves, 4 months later truck comes back with a blown head gasket, we repair it under warranty. And of course fix whatever component caused the failure.
In this situation the customer never called us to make us aware of the head gasket failure. Instead he chose to tear the engine apart himself. He called after he tore the head off himself and told me the head gasket had failed. My immediate reply was to get the truck back to us so we could warranty the head gasket. No questions asked, no excuses made. He went on to inform me that he had already taken the head off. At that point, any other shop would immediately absolve themselves from any warranty implied, as the customer or other shop tampered with their work. I still offered to tow the truck back to our shop so we could warranty the repair. This offer was refused, instead a demand for money was made. No business would agree to that.
He then started a new narrative about how we sold him a new Cummins head but he found out upon removing it that it was a used Chinese head. I personally ordered the cylinder head for his truck from Black's Diesel Performance. When I placed the order, I ordered a new Cummins head. I work in the office, I don't personally get to see the parts on arrival. I did however walk past this truck when the technician had unpackaged the "BRAND NEW" cylinder head. Knowing Chris requires 100 times more attention and care than the average customer, I took the time to stop in passing to snap a picture of the shinny new cylinder head and sent it to him in an email with a caption that read "Brand new Cummins head, not cheap Chinese junk"
Upon being accused months later that we installed a 6.7L Cummins head on his truck. I simply replied that's not possible, there's too many things different between a 24 valve head and a 6.7L head. He claimed that Haisley machine told him it was a 6.7L head. Haisley machine has been around forever, nobody knows that Cummins engines as good as them. Or so I assumed. Surely they wouldn't have told someone something so stupid.... So I called there and spoke with Patty Haisley. She told me they assumed it was a 6.7L head because there were steam ports between the cylinders and only the 6.7L engines had these ports. This caught me by surprise because she is correct.
I started calling around to figure out how this was possible, that's is when I found out Black's Diesel had sold us a Brand New ProMax cylinder head, which we grossly overpaid for now that I know it wasn't a brand new Cummins head which is what I ordered. I then called Promax to discuss the steam ports. They informed me that they use one casting for 24 valve and 6.7L heads but they machine the final product differently.
So we did not install a cheap Chinese used cylinder head as Chris keeps spreading lies and false information.
