Okay, so I have a 1998 5.9L Ram 1500. I bought it last winter, and it came with a bum engine. Oil pump was shot, spun bearing, all sorts of unholiness. Had a reman 5.9L from Advance Powertrain Solutions put in this April. New oil pump, a few other new bits, runs fine. Today, driving home from work, it developed a horrible, loud knock. The knocking increases with RPMs. Frankly, it sounds worse than the engine that was taken out. I was only a couple miles from home, so I limped it back and will be calling up the shop in the morning. The engine came with a 3 year, 100,000 mile warranty. Until about two months ago, when my daily driver went up, this was a weekend truck. So it's got 7 months and about 5,000 miles on the engine -- hence I'm a bit irate about this issue.

The truck is nicer than my old D.D., so it's my baby. It has regular 3 month/3,000 mile oil changes, I religiously check the fluids -- just did so about a week ago -- never red-lined it (fuel economy won't tolerate that). Don't tow a trailer. The heaviest load I've hauled is about 500 pounds to the dump (as measured by their scales). So it's not like I beat it up or abuse it.

The first thing I think of when I hear a knock like it has is rod knock. You search for rod knock in Youtube and that's what you hear. But rod knock so often is due to oil starvation -- and oil quantity is fine, it looks fine, oil pressure is fine per the gauges.

I suppose it could just be a mechanical failure due to a bad reman. Is there anything else that I should be thinking? Anything I should be careful of? This obviously shouldn't be happening. I can't think of anything that I did wrong, and I want to make sure that the shop can't say it's my fault, void the warranty, etc.

 

The only other thing I can think of that can cause that sound could be a broken/cracked flex plate. Before filing a claim, I'd pull the oil pan and check the rods to determine if it is indeed a knocking rod, in addition to checking the flex plate.

 

If it's under warranty, don't drop the pan. THAT may void your warranty...... but, I would drop the starter, and pull the inspection plate, and see if the flexplate isn't cracked. That does tend to make some truly vile noises.......