I posted some time ago asking questions about these trucks with V10 motors. After reading a lot of posts about this truck, and weighing all the options, I decided to buy it, anyway...

So as of a couple months ago I'm now the proud owner of a 2001, Ram 2500 SLT+, Quad Cab, 4X4, with a long box and a V10. GAWD! What a beautiful Truck!!!

Pic to prove it...



The main problem with this purchase was that the truck was in Florida and I'm in Washington State. It couldn't have been much further away in the United States, without being in salt water. I didn't want to go to Florida and check it out, I mean what could you do in a parking lot, kick the tires, check the oil, drive it around the block? So I had the owner go to a local dealership and perform a 33 point pre-sale inspection. On top of that I had them do a compression test on all 10 cylinders. The seller paid for that. Everything looked good, and the 24 pictures I had of the truck looked great, so I paid 10 grand for the truck and $1600 to ship it to me.

It had 45,106 original miles on it when I received it, and now I've put about 1K more miles on it. I changed the engine oil and filter shortly after I got the truck and sent a sample of the old oil to Blackstone Labs for analysis. They said the wear particulate was pretty high, and there was coolant in the oil. OOOoooooNooooo!!! So after reading all the horror stories about cracked heads on these motors I was sure I was in for a nasty repair bill. I had no maintenance history on the truck except for one issue in CarFax that said the driver's door window regulator was replaced under warranty in 2008. So I took the truck into a local dealership and had them pressure test the block and cooling system. They said there were no signs of a cracked head/block, head gasket problem, or leak in the cooling system. Well that's a good/bad thing... Good because their tests didn't show a cracked head, but bad because it doesn't explain why the oil analysis showed coolant in the oil.

So I had them flush the coolant and replace it. It hasn't been using a noticeable amount of coolant, so I'm not sure what to think about that. There is a small leak around the thermostat housing, but it doesn't seem like anything to be too concerned about, and that wouldn't account for coolant in the oil anyway.

So, what do you think, how is coolant getting in my oil, and should I worry about it. I told Blackstone I'd keep an eye on coolant loss, and send them another sample in another 1K or 1.5K miles to see if the coolant in the oil is still there...?????????

I'm going to have to see if I can get the mods to change my user name to RamRocket instead. I'm REALLY enjoying driving this truck!!!

 

I'd monitor the coolant level closely. It may have been a fluke, it may be the lab screwed up (its rare, but it does happen, we're all just human beings, we make mistakes).

If you lose small amounts of coolant, its going someplace. If its a really small leak, IIRC, a pressure test won't necessarily show it.

I'd let the V10 guys here kick in more before you did anything, as I'm more familiar with 5.2L V8 and 5.9L V8 problems.

Welcome back to the forums!

 

nice truck.

did the lab report show the concentration of coolant in oil in layman's terms (trace, some, lots, etc). intake gasket, head gasket, cracked head, or cracked block would be the only culprits I can think of, but a cracked head or block would let in a LOT and not just a trace. a head gasket could be anywhere between a lot or a minute trace but should be accompanied by a loss of compression. an intake gasket would explain coolant w/o loss of compression. i'd guess this as your culprit.

If its just a trace, i'd monitor it and try not to worry about it unless its a big problem. lab reports can be overly misleading. a few parts per million might be an insignificant amount. that could be related to a spill, or even re-using the same funnel for coolant and oil.

a compression test and/or leak down test should be an adequate measurement of whether you have a major problem or not.

check in with the V10 guys about how that intake gasket is accessed. and don't spend more money analyzing it than it would cost to just blindly replace the gasket.

 

If the compression check tests okay, the coolant level is fine, and the oil wasn't milky colored on the change, then you probably had a trace amount. I'd wager the OP used the same funnel for oil and coolant.

 

Beautiful truck. A friend of mine was rebuilding a Chevy 350 and he used the same funnel for all the fluids. When the rebuild was complete he sent the oil in for analysis. It came back saying there were "trace amounts" of coolant in the oil. He's put over 15,000mi on the truck since then with no problems at all.
Just monitor the coolant level closely and make sure your oil doesn't doesn't turn a milky color. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I've used Blackstone to monitor wear in my vehicles for years and I trust them implicitly. They said there was a LOT of coolant in the sample. The report said 4.58 % coolant and there should be zero. Here is a quote: "Potassium, silicon and sodium levels show lots of coolant in the oil."

The Potassium should be about 1 PPM, and in my sample it was 3422. Silicon should be about 9 PPM, and mine was 89. Sodium should be 8 and mine was 2288 PPM. So I definitely have a problem with coolant in the oil, I'm just surprised that the tests the dealership did didn't show where the leak was.

The compression tests done in Florida showed the following:
#1 cylinder: 155
#2 cylinder: 160
#3 cylinder: 160
#4 cylinder: 160
#5 cylinder: 160
#6 cylinder: 165
#7 cylinder: 165
#8 cylinder: 165
#9 cylinder: 160
#10 cylinder: 160

Since you guys mentioned it, I've read somewhere else on these forums that there can be a leak on the intake manifold gasket, where coolant can get into the oil. In fact the guy at the dealership said that the original gasket material was cork and that it degraded with time and could leak. The newer gasket material supposedly doesn't have that problem. Anyone know about that?

The coolant level in the expansion (overflow) tank was low (below the fill mark) when I took delivery of the truck, so I topped it off. In the 1K miles I've put on it since then, it has gone from the full mark down about 1/3 of the way to the fill mark. This is in a tank that holds about 1 gallon or so, and the distance between the two marks is about 2". So it's not using an alarming amount of coolant, but it doesn't look like it's leaking that much around the thermostat housing. The fact that the oil sample shows a significant amount of coolant is what concerns me.

One last observation, is that my only experience with coolant in oil was in my old Honda Civic that I had severely modified. It blew head gaskets frequently, and one my heads cracked in a few places. It's not the fault of the old Civic CVCC engine, because I had shaved the head, put a big Weber carb on it and an aggressive cam and headers. But my point is that it leaked a LOT of coolant into the cylinders and oil passages. So much in fact that the oil was milkey, and foamy. That isn't the case with this motor, so I'm a little perplexed...

Thanks for your input.

Mark -

 

Rick has a new buddy.

 

Thats a really nice truck! I would love to have a long bed 3/4 ton! Except maybe in a Cummins HO version...

 

imay be wrong but ill throw it out there.

the timing covers have problems with leaking. and IIRC there is a coolant and oil port in the front cover. maybe the seals are gone? When i did the timing chanin in my Nissan truck, i got it back together, started it, and i checked the oil 3 minutes later, and it was all the way up the dipstick, and it looked like milk. so i had to rip it apart again and replace one little seal and it fixed it.

so theres something to consider...