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Old December 17th, 2018, 06:21 AM
BobBray BobBray is offline
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Default Re: Interesting Article

Neither the ToroFlow or the 8.2L really had a good reputation, but since the 8.2L was more recent it's probably more widely remembered today. The early ToroFlow was known for bottom-end failures along with injector pump issues. A lot or the crank/rod failures were attributed to over-speeding, particularly downshifting on grades. The pump failures were caused by what passed for diesel fuel in those days, along with poor maintenance. There were several fleets that did well with ToroFlows, and they all had good maintenance programs. Another ToroFlow issue was dealers spec'ing them in trucks that were just too heavy for a mid-range diesel. There was a 637 inch V-8 ToroFlow that was supposed to be a heavy duty engine, but there is very little information about them. I don't think many were sold.

The 8.2L was another story. It was supposed to be a high-economy engine for medium duty trucks, which it was. Had a couple of design features that caused trouble though. First was an open-deck block. The cylinders were free-standing with coolant passages all around and open at the top. This was O.K. in the naturally aspirated versions, but the turbo'ed versions were very prone to head gasket leaks. The other 8.2L issue was the injection system, which was similar to the unit injection used on Detroit 2 stroke diesels. It was hard to set up and a little touchy, but if you knew what you were doing it could be made to work. My company had a few mid-80's GMC 6500's with 160 h.p. natural 8.2L's, and they did O.K.. No powerhouse, but reliable and got very good fuel economy.

Tell you the truth I think the 6.0L Powerstroke/VT365 is the least reliable diesel engine, even less reliable than the Olds 350 diesel. Complicated, difficult, and expensive to repair, we had one on our fleet and I lost count of how many times it went in for major repairs.
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