Cleaning up an engine for a project, dropped the pan yesterday, saw no pin. Cleaned the rust off the pan, painted it, and installed it with a new gasket.
Today I went in for the KDP. Pulled the cover off, and there was no damage, and no pin...
Where did it go? Did the previous owner remove it? Did it plinko past the gears, fall into the sump, and get drained? Cover is still off. Is it important to have a KDP, or can I just seal it back up and call it good?

 

There are others here that can answer your question better but I can share my experience and thoughts. I had to replace the cover because the KDP plinko'd right through it. The pin is there for a reason...the engineers wouldn't just put a pin in there because they had some laying around. I believe the pin aligns the case to where it needs to be...if the case is misaligned then, at the very least, I could see that it would affect how well the front seal seals. That's just my thought...no experience other than my own. I put a new pin in and my new case had a capped pin area.

 

Ive read quite a bit since my posting. The pin keeps it all aligned, since the bolts have a tiny bit of play... Went to cummins today, and they said they would have it tomorrow. Thanks for the reply

 

If you buy a killer dowel pin fix kit it usually comes with a new kdp. Like bd's kit or whatever

 

Sooooo. Bout a dowel pin and it wouldn't fit. Couldn't figure it out for awhile. It appears that the case was broken, and replaced with a new style timing cover, which prevents the pin from falling out WITHOUT replacing the KDP

 

Considering drilling it out, replacing the KDP then Tabbing it

 

mine came out around 325k.. wife was driving it and noticed a large oil leak when she parked for work. called me and i looked over the engine to discover a-lot of fresh oil sprayed out fairly high on the block. got it home,pulled grill off because i needed to repair radiator anyways and proceeded to dig into timing cover gearcase. dowel pin was right there in front of my face! lodged into cast aluminum case like a bullet in wood.. apparently it fell out,shot around inside for a bit and finally blasted out my cover punching a perfect hole in cover. i siliconed the hole over and problem solved. very lucky indeed.. could have been worse could have been better. i saved the pin and examine it often. it took a beating for sure.. almost egg shaped and huge deep gouges along the length. still finding metal on my drainplug after three changes and running strong at 370k!