1996 Indy Ram purchased 12-31-1999

5.9 with 162000

This is only my second 360, the first was a brief (until I could find a big-block) replacement for my blown 340 in my '72 roadrunner back in 1980. Apparently, this engine was released in 1971. I cannot help but wonder why this engine is so much more trustworthy than the engines that I had the seventies. Maybe it is not the engines that were so bad as were most everything attached to them. The only thing that I have replaced is the water pump at 148000 miles.

I do, however, have a number of minor issues...

1. On day seven on a recent trip to the Colorado mountains, the oil pressure gauge started flexing from just over the middle line to below zero. I tried to find a pattern but could not. I did notice that it would occasionally rise after coasting.

2. No air flow from the vents under heavy acceleration such as going up a hill.

3. A shimmy while braking for the last year or so. This happened back in 2000 with 89000 miles. I must have been feeling lazy as I took it into a brake shop thinking that the rotors would need to be turned and they called saying that they would need to be replaced. There is very little pad left and I see no serious scratches on the rotors. Is it common for these rotors to warp? I plan on pulling the wheels this weekend.

4. The cruise control button sometimes needs to be pressed a few times for it to turn on.

5. The drivers side window control button needed to be pushed a few times last Friday before the window rose. Sunday morning, I drove the last five hours with the window down as it refused to go up. When I returned home that afternoon, in order to remove the door panel, I disconnected and reconnected the harness from the switch…it then worked…another bad switch? I last replaced the it back in 2010 with 134000 miles.

 

1, Replace the oil pressure sensor. They are a known failure point.

2. You are still getting flow, just not from the vents you want. You are experiencing what we call "wild vents", there is a DIY to address this in the faq section. (couple vacuum check valves.)

3. Rotors or drums. Do you feel it thru the steering? (rotors) or the seat? (drums) it happens..... they warp for some of the oddest reasons.

4. May just be dirty connections somewhere. Finding the 'somewhere' is the fun part.

5. Mine do that too. According to theory, you can disassemble the switches, and clean them, and that is supposed to fix it. I haven't tried it yet though.

 

I appreciate the input!

3. The first time I had the rotors replaced the vibration was definitely coming from the steering wheel. I believe that is the case now although I did not know about the seat vibration observation so I will take it for a short drive and pay closer attention. Maybe it is time to also replace the rear brakes again (pain in the ****!) which were last done at 82000 miles.

35 years ago, the rear brake springs broke on my '65 Fury so I did a brake job on the side of a country road...ah, memories!

I will post when I find the solutions to this and the other problems!

 

Let us know what ya come up with. I know when my rear brakes were badly worn, stepping on the pedal would make the whole truck try and shake itself apart.

 

Is that an SS/T or painted black Indy? I like the road runner on the front of the door! The magnum engines are recreated LA engines. The same for the most part but with a few improvements. Your wild vents and cruise issues are probably issues with the check valves. At some point there was a tsb that added one check valve. If you don't have two get two new ones and install them like in the diagram. The first check valve is after the elbow in the passenger side of the intake.

http://dodgeram.info/tsb/1996/24-01-96a.htm

 

Thanks for the diagram!

I changed the pads, pins, rotors and bearings over the weekend. I did not see any way to disassemble the window switch so I sprayed some brake cleaner into it.

I have no room for vehicles in my garage/shop so the truck was forced to sit in the hot Colorado sun which resulted in most of the paint peeling from around the stripes of the hood and cab. There was no reason to spend the money restoring the paint just to have it happen again so I had it painted in a tent in someones driveway with John Deere blitz black which I assume can handle the sun as it is formulated for industrial applications. The jambs, engine compartment and bed are still blue. Maybe someday it can be restored to its original condition and it will hopefully look half as nice as yours! I thought it would be fun to remove all decals and apply the roadrunners stickers...beep-beep!

 

The on the diagram is a straight through unit and the ones I find online are at an angle.

I am also not sure where to place it.

 

Talking about the vacuum check valves? I think napa has the correct ones.... The part numbers are actually listed in a relatively recent thread, if you can find it.

 

The napa # is 730-1349. Make sure you check the flow direction before you put them in.

https://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p...349/NDP7301349

 

Finally got around to replacing the check valve. I blew in the old unit and air passed through from one end and not from the other, just like the new unit. The brittle lines broke so I used rubber hose (t


hey had been patched sometime in the past). One of those seems to have fixed the problem. Could have been the hoses and not the check valve all along!