i bought a 1999 dodge ram 2500 in april of last year. drove it for a little while and it was leaking coolant somwhere but never could find out where. finaly found the leak. it was coming from a crack in the block that had been **** poor welded to get it tradded off.
tried contacting the people who i got it from and they wouldnt talk to me. then tried e-bay but it was just over three monthes and they said there was nothing they could do.

one day i was driving doin about a hundred and heard a pop. still had power and all so i drove it to work and dicovered the exhaust manifold was cracked. so i got a new manifold from ats. i tried and tried to get the turbo off the truck but the bolts were to rusted to get off. tried to pull the turbo and manifold off together and th bolts rounded off there to. asked every one i knew what i could possible do ( before i discovered dpm or diesel bombers). the best any one could think of was to cut the manifold off sinc it was bad. disconneted the batteries and used a plasma cutter to cut it off.
fanily got the turbo and manifold off the truck. took a magnet and stuck inside the exhaust ports and got all the little bebes out. decided since the turbo and manifold was out the way i would have someone weld the crack better. put the manifold back on and the turbo. got everything back tegether.
went to start the dang thing and nothin. discoverec the statered had froze up while it was sittin so long, about two monthes. got a new starter and altenator, cuz it froze up also, and put them on. went to start it again and it cranked but nothin. tried and tried but nothin. during all the crankin the lift pump went out so i bought a new one. still nothin. so we got some startin fluid and tried it and it still wouldnt hit a lick. i was gettin so fed up at this point that i was ready to blow the s.o.b. up.
i attend church with a guy who was a retired diesel machanic from little rock. seemed to be pretty sharp. took it to him after i screwed around with it for six monthes. told him all i done. he said he thought he new what the problem was. he messed with it. took the injection pump off and took it to cummins in little rock andthey said it was a sensor and a baffel was messed up so they fixed it and we thought we had the problem solved.
he put it back on and geuss what? not a dang thing happened. so he decided even though the i diconnected the batteries that it may have still firied the computer. took it off mine and put it on two different dodges(a 1999 and a 2001) and they fired right up with my computer on them.
he was lost so bad that he finaly decided that he couldnt figure it out so he took it to dodge. they called up last week and said that there was to much blow bye and it would take 17 hours just to tare into it to find out what the problem was. there is no way im havin them work on it though.
this is where i stand on my rust bucket of a truck. it has been exactly 11 months since it went down for the count. im open to all comments on how stupid i was. or on comments on where i can find replacement engines or blocks or any thing else. if you made it this far thanks for listenin to me up on my soap box.im steppin off now.

 

That sucks man!I'd be annoyed to if i'd gone through the same thing.

 

WOW that Really sucks ! Just Throwing parts at problems Sucks ! Have you scanned it for codes ? was it a Katrina Truck ?

 

/me moved here

 

no it was a truck that spent its life in nj.
the stuff i replaced was bad. the starter was just about rusted in to. the altenator couldnt be turned with a big set of channel locks. the lift pump worked at first then it quit when tryin to start it.

 

this is probably a dumb question considering you have an old diesel mechanic helping you but if you loosen the injector lines do you have fuel when cranking?

 

when i took it to him i know for sure it did but not much pressure. so he had a few things fixed on it at cummins. he said it has plenty of pressure out of one but the others have fuel but notas much pressure as #1

 

I was thinkin,are your fuel lines free of stuff,Maybe the fuel lines are plugged?Just a thought.

 

Better check the timing and do a compression test. Does it smoke at all when cranking? You said it wont even fire once or twice on starting fluid?

 

when using starting fluid it would when it left my garage but it wouldnt hit a lick.