helo everyone. i am from michigan. just drove to ohio last night and picked up a 1500 ram with plow and salt spreader. `135000 miles on it. some rust under the doors. clean truck for the age.

anyway. owner said because of the plow on the front the truck will over heat. so i have to pull over and let it cool for a minute.. well after i left his house. i had to stop every 5 miles to let it cool. untill it died. the guy will not take it back and he said the deal is a deal. i had to pay $500 to get it towed home. this morning i went and i bought a new coil for it , install it and it fired right up.

now back to the overheating problem, the pulley. or what ever it is called ( suppose to keep the belt tight) it looks like it is broken.. how about water pump? radiator is not leaking.. if i leave it running ideal. it will not over heat..

please , i need help to get it fixed. i dont have a lot of money to spend on it to fix it cause i still have to buy plate an drejistration. that is about $500 and insurance.

i will post some pictures up later on today.. thanks

 

damn, i hate reading sad stories like this. you might have been better off to have left the SOB on the side of the road rather than pay $500 more to tow it home.

so how did it die, and how hot did it get, and what's it doing now ?
will it crank and run or not ?

IF IT WON'T CRANK AND RUN - then check for major damage caused by overheating, or maybe even pre-existing headgasket leak or cracked head. do a compression check, which will involve removing the plugs from a 95 engine that's probably spent its entire life in the rust/salt belt operating as a plow truck. the plugs may or may not come out.

if you get it running ok, then you need to address the original cooling problem. its probably not just the presence of the plow on the front, as lots of people have plows, and it doesn't really block air flow. you might have a headgasket problem, maybe water pump, maybe just belt. check the large pulley in the middle (water pump), it should spin freely, yet not wobble any. tensioner spring/pulley out on the top passenger side shoud keep the belt tight. its about $65.

check the oil to see if its clean oil, and not milky white.
check the coolant to see if its sort of green, or very rusty. if the water pump and belt are ok, and compression check is ok, then the radiator may be stopped up.

 

hi there and thanks for the reply.
i couldnt leabe it on the side of the road. by the time i went to find towing company and get back. i found a paper on the window that i have 24 hour to remove it ot they are going to inpounded..

yes it is running good now after i installed the new coil i bought.. but again still overheat.

i just went to autozone and i got new intentioner puller and belt and waterpump and some antifreez. that was about $200.

i am going to the shop right now to install all of them. lets see what is going to happened.

thanks.

 

 

nice looking truck. good luck...
man, that's a lot of plow for a 1500.

 

dude it sounds to me if everything is ok under the hood and nothing is leaking, could be that the t-stat is stuck closed. pretty simple cheep fix

 

thank you guys for the reply.

today i changed the antifreez and the intention pulley and again there is no grill on the truck for beter air flow.

the overheating is still .. i took the thermostat out and now it will overheat. but it take longer and it wont go up to red anymore. it will stay on white.

tomorrow i will be changing the water pump .. didnt want to do the work all at ones so i know exactley what is my problem

oil is clean. no brown color or antifreez in it.. and my old antifreez is clean as well with no oil in it. so i am sure it is not headgasket.

i will keep posting. i am sure someone one day can use this information in case they run into same problem..

thanks.

 

here's some overheating discussion/troubleshooting from a past thread.
https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1808230-post10.html

 

did u try runnig the truck with out the plow ?
i had a truck with plow and it will overheat everytime i had the plow in front
it knda helped adding extra electric fans in front of the rad and running the plow low

 

First, take that plow off & drive it to see if it still over-heats.
My 1500 has the same plow on it and on the highway, it will
run way hot too. Stay below 50 mph and all is fine. (Doesn't
matter where the plow is tilted while driving), It will get hot
at high speed. It ain't snowing, take the thing off if you plan
on higher speeds. Hope you haven't lost a head-gasket or,
cracked a head.