My apologies, I tried the search function, and it worked, but I couldn't find a DIY thread for this, so if there is one, please link it.

The problem is I just bought a 97 dodge ram 1500 4x4 with a 318, and during the initial oil change I was positive that I had coolant in my oil, but it was dark, (I love winter and not getting off in time to do things in the light). I had my dad double check it, but he said he didn't think it was. Well sure enough, a week later and I can confirm that I have both coolant in my oil and oil in my coolant.
Truck has not overheated during my ownership.

What I need to know is whether I will be going into this and expecting just a head gasket swap, head and gasket swap, or worse. And while I'm in there, what else would be optimal to replace on a 172,000 mile truck. Note I'm not looking for performance upgrades, just maintenance, as I own 2 other vehicles that also currently require my attention. Being 26 years old, not making a lot of money, owning vehicles with 500,000 miles between them is expensive to maintain, but I am willing to put forward the money on what needs to be done to prevent engine failure for a few (hopefully many) more miles.

Again, if someone has a link to help me with this, great, and if any of you recommend any mechanics books to keep handy, that'd be great too. I'm not much of a car mechanic, but I'm willing to give this all a shot.

(Note I have very minor experience, did an out and in motor swap on my jeep wrangler 2.5l, but that was effectively, just unhook and rehook from the old to the new, and helped with my uncle's overdrive swap on his identical truck. Never had to tear into things like this before)

 

Was the plenum repaired?

 

Haha, I was just reading that thread. With the insane amount of miles we have on all our dodge trucks, we've never been told or discovered that as an issue, so I'll be magnet checking all three of them to see. I'm at the Ms's house, so once I'm back on the farm I'll check. Note, I don't think my truck has it's cat still, the previous owner put on dual exhaust and I forgot to double check, or he may have it piped through. I hate buying a modded truck, hard enough to tell what the previous owner did to a stock one.

 

You need to pressure test the cooling system , and compression test the engine .

Cracks in these heads are semi-common . You're probably going to end up pulling them anyways , make sure you have them checked at an engine shop for cracks . Hopefully they are fine and it's just a gasket issue .

As said , do the plenum gasket while the intake is off . Even upgrade to the aluminum plate . Ebay has cheapest .

I'd also pull the timing chain cover and do the gaskets there . Good time for a new chain if you got $40 or so . Water pump , and t-stat too but I know you are trying to do this as cheap as possible .

 

Water pumps on the list, along with some hosing. I noticed it was leaking when I purchased it, but that's a fix we've done before. I'm hoping to keep all of this south of $600 if possible, but unsure of how well that'll work. If I put $1000 into it, then I have a $4000 dollar truck, and I don't think that's too bad. Good suggestion on the chain and gaskets, thanks.

 

The timing cover is a very common leak . Too bad your not close to me , I'm letting a good set of heads go to the wrecker's tomorrow , from my wrecked 98 5.9 Grand Cherokee .

 

The 5.9's and 5.2's take the same head? I think we have a motor sitting that came from one of our past trucks, can't remember which one it is. Thanks for the offer though, and I've driven quite a bit of distance to get some parts for my vehicles haha. I enjoy traveling, the gas cost is irrelevant if you get to get out and have some fun, meet new people. Not uncommon for me to put 50 thousand miles across my vehicles in a year. It's a big world, and you won't be able to see it once your dead.

 

The trouble, as I see it, is you have two fluids in places they should not be. Coolant in the oil isn't as uncommon as it should be...... as the heads on these trucks simply suck. Oil in the coolant though, THAT is a sign of Bad Things™ going on. The ONLY way that can happen is if a pressurized oil passage can bleed oil off into the cooling system. Not many places that can happen, and none of them good. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that engine isn't even worth tearing down. Yank the intake, and replace everything under it. Even if you just grab a junkyard motor, I suspect it will end up being cheaper......

Things to address on a high-mileage motor:
Plenum. (of course.)
Water pump.
Timing chain and gears.
ALL the coolant hoses. (included the one between the pump, and the intake.)
Valve cover gaskets. (save you money on oil.....)
Oil pump, pan gasket, front/rear main seals. Clean the pickup tube good, and 'modify' the end to have a larger opening. (you will understand when you see it.) Or, I think a new one, (better design) was like 15 bucks or something.....

 

The trouble, as I see it, is you have two fluids in places they should not be. Coolant in the oil isn't as uncommon as it should be...... as the heads on these trucks simply suck. Oil in the coolant though, THAT is a sign of Bad Things™ going on. The ONLY way that can happen is if a pressurized oil passage can bleed oil off into the cooling system. Not many places that can happen, and none of them good. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that engine isn't even worth tearing down. Yank the intake, and replace everything under it. Even if you just grab a junkyard motor, I suspect it will end up being cheaper......

Things to address on a high-mileage motor:
Plenum. (of course.)
Water pump.
Timing chain and gears.
ALL the coolant hoses. (included the one between the pump, and the intake.)
Valve cover gaskets. (save you money on oil.....)
Oil pump, pan gasket, front/rear main seals. Clean the pickup tube good, and 'modify' the end to have a larger opening. (you will understand when you see it.) Or, I think a new one, (better design) was like 15 bucks or something.....

 

Well, that's sucky to hear. In that case, hopefully it is just a cracked head. Turns out we have a "bad" (good motor, junkyard dropped the front, banged it up real good) 318 sitting but the head on it should be fine.

Turns out dad knew about the plenum gasket's failure, but didn't know the cause of it. He's replaced his every 75,000 miles approx. We'll be doing the aluminium upgrade on his next time we swap his motor (probably next year, his current one is sitting with just under 200,000, with too many of those with a bad computer). Or before if it fails before the motor does.

Thanks for the help so far. I'll get some pictures up of my truck soon, and figure out how to go about rebuilding this. Waiting on a quote from the guy rebuilding my dads truck, I think he's estimating upper $1000 for everything, so that's a no go. I just don't have a shop anymore, so I may be putting up a temp. one to get this done.