i have a 2000 dodge ram 1500 with the 318 magnum with 156,000 on it. I recently noticed coolant is leaking out of the head gasket, not bad just drips and does not happen when the engine is fully warmed up there is no coolant in the oil at all.

About a month ago did my plenum repair and also the timing chain/sprockets and modified a holly Tb but for some reason i did not change the head gaskets.

So basically i want to put new piston rings on it and a fel pro full gasket kit, also a buddy of mine can machine the heads for 20 bucks.

The previous owner of the truck was my dads friend and babied it he put 107,000 on it and had it serviced regularly. I have put 50,000 miles on it and used ams oil every 3000 miles since i bought it

I'm pretty sure the motor is 100 percent sound internally so does anyone have any suggestions for me besides piston rings full gasket kit and machining the heads? i am hoping to have headers by the time i decide to pull the motor

Anyone's input is appreciated, thank you

 

Are the heads stock? If not, then port and polish the heads. You'll thank me after you've done so. If they are stock, chances are very good they have cracks. Replace them and do as suggested.

Stop changing the oil every 3,000. That's an old wive's tale, not to mention today's oil and filters are superior to that of 40+ years ago. If you drive a lot of highway miles, chance the oil at 10,000 or so. No, you won't damage the engine one iota.

Replace the timing chain and gears while you're in there and also replace the core plugs with brass versus the stock steel plugs.

 

Don't bother with the stock heads. I'm with VW on this one, replace them with BETTER aftermarket units. Porting/polishing is optional, even just doing gasket matching on the ports will make a difference though.

If you are going to have it all apart anyway, new bearings, and oil pump are a good plan too.

Yes, we enjoy spending other peoples money.

 

yes they are stock heads. hey vw i see that you are selling a pair of magnum iron heads do you still have them and would they work on my 5.2?

 

They sure will fit, they came off a 5.2 , PM him , looks like they are still for sale according to the FS section. https://dodgeforum.com/forum/parts-s...ine-heads.html

 

Yep. They're still for sale, so please drop me a PM.

Also, with that many miles on the engine it would be advisable to replace the serpentine belt tensioner.

 

Well took it for a drive last night and its leaking bad now like my whole radiator capacity in 3 miles.

Im going to be taking all the brackets off for ac and alternator and all that good stuff today to try and pin point the leak.

my new guess is i messed up with the timing chain cover/gasket or my water pump is leaking from somewhere. The coolant is leaking all from the front of the engine and getting the cross member and all

 

Turns out the coolant leak was the hose connecting from the water pump to the intake manifold.

which does not surprise me because when i was fixing my plenum i gave myself a week which included timing chain/sprockets and the guy at the parts store gave me the wrong one which made it take even longer

I had 1 night left to finish the project so i stayed up all night putting it together to drive to cedar point in the morning and obviously overlooked some stuff, hoses, head gasket, valve cover gaskets ect

So now that the truck is running right with no problems, leaks or codes i decided to cut my 3 inch exhaust pipe off today and put the 2.5 back in from the y pipe to the rear axle the rest is the stock 3 inch it came with. I ditched my flowmaster supper 44 and put a stainless magna flow on.

I left the shop and within 2 miles i get a CEL and pull in a gas station to check it out p0132 for the pre cat sensor (cat is cut off but have never had any problems or CEL for o2 sensor

while getting off the highway i stopped for the red light when i took off the truck barly moved sputtered and wanted to stall but didn't, luckily i live right by the exit so i only had a half mile to go which it was sputtering the whole time i could hardly get to 25 mph

both o2's are within a year old, pre cat was changed with the plenum with a Bosch. i will be looking into the wires, volt meter check, resetting the ecu and i believe there's a fuse for the o2's?

 

Replace them with dummy O2's and it will run fine ! My 96' 5.9 ex cab has all dummy O2's which have been it for over 10 yrs and it ran fine !

 

Your engine actually needs that front O2 sensor working correctly to run efficiently. Simulators are a band-aid fix for some other problem, and can lead to still more problems. Simulator for the post-cat O2 isn't an issue.

Our trucks generally don't care for the Bosch O2 sensors.... replace it with an NTK, or Denso.