Hey, pics of my 53 are on that site...

 

Your so famous Doctor.

 

....um, no....


Just unlucky

 

My buddy has one he welded up at 100K. Now he's at 300K with no problems.

 

Got 170K on mine and no issues ...

 

i have a 12valve 53block sitting in the yard that threw a rod :P

 

I had a53 block with 190k miles on it and it cracked from front to back but the po was shady and smeared jb weld all over the side of the block smoothed it out and painted it black. 3 days after i bought it I was half way to the lake (150 miles away) and the jb weld gave out. when I was buying my new truck I looked at 2 trucks with 53 blocks with close to 300,000 miles with zero problems. There are 53 blocks casted in brazil (which are typically the bad ones) and there are 53 blocks casted in Mexico which are NOT known for cracking.

 

I am looking at buying a 2000 Dodge 2500. Is there anyway to tell if this vehicle has a 53 series block from the VIN? Just in case I can't figure it out by looking for the stamped number.

 

http://image.dieselpowermag.com/f/te...ws+53_cast.jpg

O you'll be able to tell easily enough. It's the cast number on the driver(?) side of the engine, pretty big and bold for the naked eye. If it does, it doesn't mean its the end of the world, like they said above, roughly 1% of all the blocks have issues.

 

My 01's got a 53 block and it's good so far.My dads friend has a 53 block with close to 400k on it and no problems.Some people think the 53's are a death sentence but if it has'nt cracked yet i think you're OK.