So here's the story so far, I have a 2002 ram 2500 with the 5.9 cummins. It has about 360k miles on it and hasn't seen much tlc over the years. The transfer pump failed on it and sadly took out my injection pump. The truck sat for about 6 months before i got a new vp44. When I finally got the pump on there it just wouldn't run right and turned out it was spitting oil and anti-freeze out the exhasut. At this point we tore down the head, got it planed down, re-seated the injectors and got a new headgasket on there. After we got it all put back together it would not start at all. After talking to some guys at thoroughbred diesel who I got the pump from we figured out the new pump was bad. So we got new pump sent out and got it put on. At this point we got it all together and the truck fired up and ran great, at first. Now we were still getting coolant into the oil. We thought the headgasket just wasn't seated properly. Pulled the head again and put another headgasket in. Fired it up and ran great at first again, but when I tried to give it some gas the pedal had a very slow respone, like 15sec, and then started getting a real bad knock out of it. Also coolant is still getting into the oil.

Now im thinking were gonna have to rebuilt the lower end of the engine. Does anyone know some good kits for this or the best way to go about it? Thanks.

--James

 

best to make sure you don't have a crack in one of the cylinders. Doesn't make since to me to have the head shaved, and two headgaskets later theres still coolant in the oil.

 

There's no cracks in any of the cylinders.

 

Not sure rebuilding the lower end is going to solve your coolant in the oil problem, I have to agree with BarryB seems like there is a crack somewhere

 

Oil cooler failure?

Head gasket / head not true?

Cracked head?

 

The reason I was thinking rebuilding the lower end was needed is because there is a knocking sound that seems like its coming from a rod. Guess i'll take a look at the oil cooler next see if anything is wrong there.

 

I second checking for a cracked head. When you take the head off, can you tell which cylinder is pumping coolant? If you are pumping coolant into the cylinder, it would either be from a leaking head gasket, pin hole in cylinder, or cracked head. You can check the sealing surfaces of the deck of the block also.

If coolant is getting into the oil but not going into the combustion chambers, then I would look at the oil cooler.

 

When we had the head off the first time and had it shaved it was checked for cracks and any problems and there wasn't anything there. If a broken rod is causing that knocking side could it have torn one of the sleeves in the cylinders causing the leak?

 

How bad is the knock. Is this something that happened after the head gasket was done? I would be checking things that I touched if it didnt do it before but now it is. Also is it misfiring when it is doing this?

 

Everyone above have good thoughts. Condor74 and Mopar1973Man especially.

When you take off the valve cover is there coolant on top of the head anywhere? That might indicate a crack somewhere that was missed on inspection. Did you have the head magnafluxed to check for cracks or was it just a visual inspection? I'd also check the water pump since the truck sat so long w/o running. I don't know if there's a connection to any oil passage on the back where it mounts to the block, just mental masturbation.

Also, when the head was planed, did you account for the the new deck height when you chose a head gasket? The clearance between the pistons and head is pretty close so the knock could possibly be one or more of the valves hitting the top of one or more of the pistons if you didn't make the thickness adjustment. If you're removing the head again anyway, check for contact marks on the pistons and valves. Also, regarding the knock, not that it would have anything to do with coolant in the oil, did you replace your pushrods? One or more bent pushrods would prevent complete valve opening/closing causing a knocking sound if combustion gases were returning through the intake. This would be especially true if one or more of the exhaust valves were stuck closed or if you have broken valve springs. Listen for the knock at your air filter and look for soot in your intake.

One last thing, check for broken injector nozzles tips. You didn't say anything about smoke but you may as well check everything while the head's off.