For the most part that is true, except one thing.... We have cast iron heads on our engines, not aluminum. And to add one more thing... head bolts are torque to yeild, so the old ones will be severly weakened compared to new ones.

If you don't want to take our word for it, read this article...
http://www.enginebuildermag.com/Arti..._bolt_use.aspx
It stresses the importance of head bolts.

 

Thanks for your opinion as i would myself replace the head bolts and like i said since i live here and i was rebuilding my head i had it pressure checked and surfaced as should be done. In his case he is from chicago and may not have the time or finance with him to do so. New bolts should be bought and it should be checked for cracks and surfaced professionally but it may not be possible.

Thanks

 

Harris, about an hour north of Minneapolis.

I checked at NAPA in regard to the head bolts and he couldn't find them listed. But if I do work on that engine I am planning on replacing them.

 

hey dbilik, how'd you get home? You catch a ride, and leave your rig, or get it towed? pardon my prying.. but since I started following this I wanted to know how things went lol.

 

He borrowed a friend's dually and trailer and hauled it home.

 

Yep, borrowed a 6.6 L turbo charged GMC dually and towed it home on a U-Haul double axle trailer. It was an extremely tight fit too, only had 6 inches to spare on the trailer. But good to know a Dakota will fit on a U-Haul. Couldn't go much over 55 MPH because the trailer would start swaying, so it took me almost 10 hours to get back, even longer day for my dad who drove it up there to get me.

So I checked my oil today and it had a ton of antifreeze in it. When I cranked the engine over it sounded like it was crushing itself, so I took all of the spark plugs out and checked them, the front passenger side plug was the only one that was wet. So to check and verify if that head was bad a Dodge mechanic said to crank it over and see which one water squirted out of, so I did. It was a little more than a squirt, more like a small water cannon that shot coolant out of the front passenger side plug hole. So it is confirmed that I have one bad. I will change everything though. This will allow me more time to prep all of the parts I am collecting for my V8 swap.

I was thinking about it, and I never saw antifreeze in the oil until 1 day after the initial break down, and I also never really overheated. My check engine light never came on either.

 

Step 1. Insert foot in mouth.
Step 2. Chew vigorously.

I seem to be doing allot of that lately.

 

pull the spark plugs out and check them for any abnormal coloration/smell/deposits/ or wetness, the head gaskets if you go from start to finish they should take about 6-8 hrs for just doing one, i just recently did mine and i spent a weekend doing them but i also had the heads/intake/valve covers hot tanked and i sandblasted the valve covers/intake/air filter housing and painted the valve covers/filter ***.

 

never been called a dodge mechanic before . i agree with the v8 swap, but just remember is will rape your v6 tranny if you dont get it built too.

 

He's getting an NV3500 to swap with his AX-15... so he's good there.