i just got done replacing rings in an 05 dodge cummins parts alone where around 600 dollars for rings, rod bearings, and gaskets. the truck had only 120 thousand miles. two other shops told the guy he had a whole in a piston from a bad injector. i pulled the head since it had excessive blowby and found pistons and injectors looked fine. pulled pan and rod/pistons out and found two rings broken and all rings wore horribly and 3 more broke pulling off pistons. i fixed the truck for around 2200 dollars u dont have to pull engine on a 4x4 just need to undo motor mounts and raise engine for pan to clear. not sure if this will work on a 2 wheel drive. good luck.

 

man i would have never thought rings would go out like that.

 

Ya I am thinking the rings are either breaking or I have a small hole in a piston. The engine still sounds rough sometimes but then other times its not as bad. Although smoke always comes out of the breather tube and the oil cap. Sometimes worse than others but it does happen.

This saturday I am going to the diesel dyno in East Texas so I will be able to put my truck against other straight piped cummins and hear the difference.

I really hope its not the rings but there is really not too much I can do at this point

Edit: Also I shouldnt have a problem clearing the axel and crossmember under the oil pan. That might be one of the good things about a 6in lift! I wish I could do this myself but I do not have a shop here at college . If I can't get a good price here I will try and hold off till Christmas break and pull the head and drop the pan myself. Hopefully I can make it a nice one week job.

 

Man I hope this goes well for you. If it is rings, I would not run it until I got it fixed. I would not want to take a chance on scoring a cylinder! (You aren't going to run it at the dyno are you? )
I have a 12V that has a hole in the side of the block large enough that it 'removed' the motor mount. Supposedly it was well cared for at least most of it's 145,k. I don't know why some don't make it.... Another I have with at least 350,k had lots of rod knock and lots of 'shiney' stuff in the oil filter. Since the speedo quit, there is no way of knowing if the guy guessed right on the mileage or not. I do know that one missed proper maintenance, so it has a reason for self destructing....
I don't know why some fall apart for no apparent reason. Since no one is perfect, maybe it is just the .01% showing up that have a defect.... Who knows.

 

My '03 started producing some blow-by at 107k miles, and by 109k was REALLY smoking out of the breather (but idled and ran flawlessly), so I had the engine pulled (2WD and too hard to pull the pan in place).

Unfortunately #1 cyl has a deep vertical gouge on the dead front 5/16" wide and about 0.015-0.020" deep, and #6 has a vertical scratch at the dear rear of the bore.

Haven't pulled the pistons, as I am getting my engine remanned to STD w/ 6 sleeved cylinders.

The engine started perfectly, ran flawlessly w/ no shake or vibration, so the injectors seem fine, but the damage was dramatic, and without explanation.

Checking around, a LOT of 24v 5.9s destroy #1 and #6 at just over 100k miles. A lot of theories, but no real answers...

Anyone have any ideas why our engines are having this problem at low miles?

Bob

 

my 01 pwerstroke has exessive blow by and i am gettin my motor sleved and new rings. Make sure ur cylender walls are scared or you will continue to have problems.

 

The shop basicly said CHECK THE INJECTORS. In my case what started to cause it was that my crank position sensor went out and did NOT throw a CEL. Therefore, I never had any idea until I noticed the blow by.

Don't let the dealership fool you, the #6 is the one that almost always goes out and it is not because of dirty air. The tube goes right to #2 first and #6 last, if there is bad air #1-2 will suffer first. It comes down to two reasons:

1. Too much heat on #6. It is tucked in the back with the worst air flow and maybe the coolant gets too hot in the back and the temp sensor is in the front.

2. The injectors. I went ahead and replaced the #6 injector on my truck during the rebuild just to eliminate that idea. Although you couldn't link that was the problem, a $300 injector is good insurance!

Also the 04.5-05 engines are the worst for this problem, and seem to happen between 100,000 and 125,000 miles. So be careful and watch out between those years

 

Wonderful, I'm at 83 thousand and have to worry about not getting half the miles out of my CTD that I got out of my 318 and it was still running fine at 222 thousand on AMS oil.

So I guess I need to do that mod to get more coolant to number 6 to keep it cool

 

Herb, I have ran amsoil in my truck since 50k miles and I guess I can say it did not help me any unfortunatly. Also, I do not know of a mod to keep the number 6 cool and nobody knows if that is the problem, it just logicaly makes since. I would say when you get a couple thousand more miles to go ahead and just replace the injector for #6 that way you can check that off of the list.

Hopefully Dodge will get enough complaints that something might happen.

 

So replacing the #6 injector will help stop this from happening or is it just what there trying and I don't expect Dodge to do a thing, but you think Cummins would step up