Cat 3126e engine was operating fine cruising at 60mph. Got to the bottom of a long incline, started up, and all of a sudden the unit lost almost all power. Heard a low "pop" and heard what sounded like the turbo winding down. The transmission downshifted to 1st gear and the engine RPM went to 1500 max with the pedal floored. It was a 2 mile uphill climb at 5 MPH. I noticed some black exhaust smoke, but not much.
Engine temp, oil pressure, charge voltage were all normal. On flat ground I could go about 25MPH in 2nd gear. Checked turbo boost on the CAT Messenger and it was low to zero. What else besides a turbo failure would cause the Cat 3126e engine to limit power? Could a sensor have gone bad? The exhaust pipe got pretty hot and softened some of the adjacent plastic. I don't see any blown hoses.
PS The Cat Messenger did not show any error codes.
