I'm consuming coolant... and I have a noises that quiet down once the engine reaches temp...thermostat opens... looks like I may have a blown head gasket even though my oil is free of coolant...
I cant find my compression tester so I picking up the stuff to do a leak down test tomorrow.
all this started after I had my transmission replaced and a softplug replaced...they flushed my coolant and likely broke loose the stop leak I had added 3 years ago to stop the softplug leak that was likely aiding in stopping the gasket leak.

 

Sounds like a good time to check valves and replace valve seals if heads are still good!

 

its going to have to wait... truck doesnt fit in my garage and the weather is too cold to mess with it...

 

Understand the cold thing. I had to rearrange equipment in my garage so the Ram fits and allows room to get around it in front and back. Weather is holding me back on painting as I will have to pull in and shift across the width of garage for adequate room. And wife won't be happy if I leave her car outside in the cold!

 

Let the air out of the tire's.

 

Yeah I thought of that.... but theres two cars and two bikes in the garage...
I did the leakdown test on #1 cylinder and the one next to it and they both did very well? I got some white smoke that seems to come and go and my coolant smells like its burning but not consistently so I'm stumped.. (the codes I get from time to time are always p300 and 301...

 

Ok so since leakdown test passed fine multiple times I pulled the valve cover and from what I can tell the springs look fine...I would have to run it with cover off to look for bad lifter or cam lobe... But first my gut tells me it could be a bad injector... I had same codes on my dads ford from that and very similiar behavior... I just ordered generation 3 style 4hole injectors rebuilt.... well see how this works...
Funny all my valve cover bolts were only finger tight... like my spark plugs that were only half way in when I bought the thing...

 

Sounds like the thing was slapped together. Might want to start checking everything else.

 

oh JOY!! you get to play the injector game too!!!

which ones did you get.. p/n?

by the way- something as simple as a crushed o-ring will cause strange things on injectors.. it's exceedingly rare one will give up the ghost..

you may want to check this out.. through a lot of pain and aggravation, i discovered the 'red' injectors ARE NOT 22#r's that everyone (including me) thought they were.. they are in fact 23.6#'rs.. if you ordered from FiveO, here, the injectors quoted (p/n XF2E-C4B) ARE NOT interchangeable except for physical dimensions.. the ones pictured aren't XF2E-C4B anyway- they are XR3E's, which ARE the ones you want (24#)..

injectors are confusing anyway- so, the added confusion by people who sell them makes it even worse- and makes me wanna punch someone..

incidentally, since making this discovery, and adjusting the tune- I have lost the cylinder#2 miss that was haunting me.. also, the LTFT is single digit, and extreme low end (off the line) has drastically improved..

 

I ordered mine from a seller on ebay... He advertizes the second gen ones for 96-99 but third gen ones for 94-95 when I asked why the third gen ones wouldnt fit he said they were too small for my truck.... but he does have the correct bosch gen 3 style 4 hole ones for my truck for 165.00 plus $8 shipping so hopefully they show by the expected delivery date of next Tuesday. I'll keep this thread informed....I did search all this and read the other threads here on injector upgrades...your right lots of confusion...I'm just glad I have the 5.9. It seems its tougher to get the right ones for the 5.2L

I still dont know where my coolant went? oil is good and once the truck warms up there's no smoke... Only a tiny bit when cold which it likely moisture...
and yeah I thought the same thing about it being thrown together....in any case 147k on these injectors means they likely need replacing anyway...especially since I dont know what the PO's did to maintain things...