Dang, it's been a long 2 1/2 days.

Wednesday afternoon I got around to fixing a few things that had gone long enough.

Replaced rear main seal, oil pump, oil pan gasket, timing chain, water pump, pulled the intake mainfold and modded it and fixed a water coolant leak. I didn't take too many pics as everything I did had already been well documented on pavementsucks.com and a few guys here. A few things I did notice and I will mention them here:

Timing chain was shot, done, kaput. Engine has 78,500 miles on it and my chain was just as stretched out as dhvaughan's and the ps photos. I had a slight stumble at idle that I had been chasing around for some time, it's gone now. Idle is now buttery smooth. I installed straight up, no retard or advance.

I had not originally planned on pulling the intake again and modding it, but I had a coolant leak that I could not find and needed to check the intake to head seals. Here's where I will rant a bit.

I'm very displeased with hughes engines. The quality of the aluminum pan is great, but they skimped on the gasket quality. The lower intake gaket was blown at the water jacket in the back, as was the plenum gasket after I pulled the plenum plate off. That gasket hadn't been on there for 8 months and it was blown again. I bought new Felpro gaskets at the parts store and I'll tell you that you can feel a substantial difference in thickness and rigidness. The hughes plenum gasket felt like paper whereas the Felpro was a type of reinforced rubber. Also found a great deal on intake bolts and plenum bolts. Huffines Dodge in Lewisville, Texas. Intake bolts for $1.95, plenum pan bolts for $0.45 a piece.

Angle Grinders Rock! I used a DeWalt 4 1/2" 7.0 amp angle grinder I got at Lowes for $50 on sale. Thirty minutes of grinding and done. The coarse 36 grit metal grinding flap disks chewed thru the intake runners very quickly. A word of caution if you go this route: you better be very careful, because you won't get a do-over if you nick the plenum gasket mounting surface; watch your grinder carefully. Safety goggles minimum, face shield even better.

Initial impressions:

Great smooth idle due to timing chain. Better throttle response and not nearly as much bog-before-shift as before due the the intake mod.

 

Damn, Aim
That's alot of stuff to fix on a truck with 78K miles. Do you beat on it or what?
I'm hearing (and reading) way to much on timing chains on these engines and am really starting to sour on Dodge trucks in general. And, imagine that! The Huges plenum kit has a crappy gasket too. Still don't believe all that different metals crud regarding the gaskets leaking, but I won't start on that again. Would be curious though if anyone has compared (as you did) the quality of the Felpro gasket but, with the factory replacement. Hopefully I won't have to worry about that if I can unload my truck soon.
Guess I'll go with a Nissan or Toyota that can go over 100K without a drivetrain rebuild or rusting out from under itself.
WC

 

I feel you're pain Wayne,

I've not been beating on it, but I've had a stumble for a while now and the oil leak started last month. I went into this with fixing those two things in mind. The Plenum gasket leak really set me off though. Had I not been diving in to find a coolant leak, and figured, "what the heck, I'll just grind the runners down while I've got it this pulled apart" I might not have found that. Perhaps the APS kit has a better gasket included. If it leaks agin, I'm having the thing welded shut.

As far as the different metals goes, IDK. I remember HankL posting that the real reason may be that DC didn't bore the bolt holes for the plenum bolts far enough down into the intake and the bolts actually bottomed out before they held the gasket tight, thus putting less than the proper torque on the gasket. The thicker pan would definitely fix that problem, but you need to use a quality gasket.

 

congrats on a job well done.
any problems with the rear main ?
did you find any way to remove oil pan w/o removing the $%$# starter ?

 

Only problem I had with the rear main was gettting the top half started to get it out. New piece went in smooth as you please.

I took the starter off to make it easier to get to the oil pan bolts, but the bolts on the starter weren't a big problem. The hardest part was getting the oil pan and inspection cover up and attached at the same time.

 

I havent done my Hughes kit yet.. mine came with the metal gasket.....is that the one that went on yours the first time? Or did your Hughes come with a different "paper" gasket? I havent decided on the felpro or using the metal replacement gasket that came with the Hughes kit....also.. if I can be a pain...

what kind of gasket did you replace the lower blown one with..felpro? I had also gotten the lower intake gaskets and bolts from Hughes.

Did you RTV the hughes kit the first time? ( my instructions say not too.. although I was thinking of using some Ultra Copper anyway..) and.. did you RTV it this time?

I'd like to know.. and would really appreciate the info so I can try to make a decision.. weather is just about right for the plenum/lifter job.....Thanks

 

The hughes plenum gasket I had wasn't reinforced with any metals, it was a composite material and when I pulled it out this time it was flattened out pretty well (and torn in a corner).

I didn't use RTV on the plenum gasket itself either time, but I did along the seams in the four corners of the intake mounting surface (ultra copper) where the heads meet the engine block and the intake sits on top. You'll see a gap running along there when you pull it all apart.

 

The gasket that came with my Hughes kit is all metal....I think I posted a pic of it for someone else here a few weeks ago... no rubber or "paper" on it.. looks like a thin stamped metal gasket with a ridge stamped into it...Arguement is.. it wont rip..lol..but.. there have been those who has RTV'd it and those who havent.....guess we'll see..I'll have to decide soon.. get past this last cold snap and I'm gonna have to get to it....

 

This is the post with the pics of the gasket that came with my Hughes kit.

https://dodgeforum.com/m_1201638/mpage_2/key_/tm.htm

 

Yeah that's definitely not what I got, If it's all metal I'd use some RTV.