Ok I needed a work truck and found a decently priced 99 ram 4x4. So I bought it for $2000. It is a tad beat up and the track bar is thunking around something horrible. Here is where I need some help. It runs good and has about 150,000 miles on it. Now when I bought it the truck didn't seem to smoke but I get it home I noticed there is black soot on the rear by the tailpipe. It doesnt smoke when I idling it seems to be shooting it out more when the trans is shifting. I am planning on doing a good tune up to it but what should I look at for the smoke?

 

Look down your throttle body. (engine NOT running...) See any oil? Do a search on "Plenum"... You will find a boat load of threads on that one.

 

I shall sir thanks for the tip.

 

Also check the PCV valve. If it's stuck and a vacuum gauge plenum gasket test doesn't indicate a failure, replace the PCV valve and do a Sea Foam treatment.

If it's stuck and the test does indicate a failure, then of course you want to replace the PCV valve, the gasket (and the bolts that hold the pan to the intake manifold because their being too long caused the gasket failure), AND do a Sea Foam treatment.

Good luck with it!

 

doesnt black soot normally mean an excess of fuel? a black film normally means oil. if im wrong please correct me

 

Is the air filter clean? Housing or air inlet crushed somewhere? As stated before might be oil suckage from the plenum too. Sounds like the truck may have had a tough life.

sprntpshr

 

or maybe the cat was gutted at some point in its life..

 

I haven't had any time to mess with this truck yet. Been busy with work. Yes I am pretty certain this truck had a tough life. It might have been an old farm truck. It had a 5th wheel hitch in it at one point. there is not a single body panel without a dent or ping of some sort. I am going to start with the basics and check the plenum and go from there. Once I do the plenum which I am sure is leaking I plan on seafoaming it. After I get it running halfway decent its new trackbar time.

 

So went out and looked down the throttle body, def needs a plenum fix. I also found out the airbox is cracked basically in two and the super great dealership didn't bother to tell me it didn't have an air filter in it. So I drove it 30 miles home with no filter.

 

Hard to say how long its run w/o a filter and the damage done, sounds like you are on the right track.