happened to a client of mine. Chain broke on the oil pump. That's all she wrote. If the engine killed itself before
too much damage occured (not probable, but possible) it might still turn over, just really really hard, and woul be very hard to keep running. ie: the bearings are toast, but not completely locked onto the crank and the pistons didn't seize to the cylinders. That's more or less what happened on the one that I had experience w/. That one seemed locked up solid, but only one crank bearing was seized, and it moved freely after breaking that one free. Still had to rebuild the whole motor.
First you need to determine that this is you problem. Like the others said, there are many other possible problems. But for the record, there are quite a few documented cases on the forum of that oil pump chain going and killing a motor before its time (it was a cheap single bicycle style design, not a double like the old 617s). What milage was the failure at? Seems to me most I've heard of were around 145-165k mi or that area.
Hope this isn't your cousins prob. We've all got our fingers crossed for you!
-Matt-
PS: Don't buy a used motor out of a yard unless you do compression tests first!! If one of these diesels sits for too long the rings and therefore the compression go to hell for some damned reason. That was our error. Didn't rebuild the original until after the junk yard example (65k mi) turned out to have about 50-70psi per cylinder!!!!
That wasn't a cheap motor either....Live and learn!
