My wife has a 1999 Ram 4x4 V-10. 160000 miles and never used oil. The other day I was informed the check engine light was on and she noticed the oil pressure was down to 10 psi and jumping back to 50. Checking the level, il was only down 5 quarts, hmm. About 2k on the oil change. I changed the filter and put 7 new quarts in. Ran it a bit and it made no weird noises,good news. I started checking things out. No smoke. Interesting the end of the tail pipe was wet with unburnt oil, slippery between the fingers. I figured the culprit was the PCV valve not opening. Checking the Mopar manual they decided on the V-10 to not use a traditional PCV valve. In its place is a tee -plastic - with a orifice placed inside. All one has to do is remove the tee from the grommet and clean the orifice. My question is - has anyone removed this tee. I put some pressure on it, but it doesn't want to move out. Rather than snap it off, and then try to find this common part, I thought the better part of valor was to see if anyone has been down this path. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Your low oil pressure indication might be due to a bad sensor, located on the oil filter housing. With that kind of mileage, I would suggest keeping a closer look at the oil usage rate after all it is a huge engine and over time is bound to some oil. I have the '99 V10 2wd and have no issue with that orifice as it is. Although I have installed a valve cover breather.

 

Yeah, I don't think PCV is your problem. The fixed-orifice valve would be more likely to fail closed (plugged up) than open...... Might wanna do a cylinder leakdown test..... see what the numbers look like. (a career move on the V-10..... )

 

Hey thanks for the quick response. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I do have a Mopar factory manual. Under excessive oil consumption section 9 page 177 the first cause indicated is CCV System Malfunction. That sends you to the Emissions section 25 page 36. Cause indicated by plugged orifice. The V-10 does not have a PCV valve, only a tee with the orifice. If the orifice or PCV valve gets plugged pressure builds up in the system, valve cover area and can force oil out thru the valve stems, in or out depending on wear. I've seen this once before in a GM product. The thing that made this first on my list of items to check is that it looked fairly easy. I will temper that to working on a Ram is never as easy as it looks. Try replacing a front rotor on a 2500 or 3500 eight lug. Anyway, as i said before the tee is locked in pretty tight, and getting a bigger hammer is not going to fix that. I checked, Mopar does not list it as a part anymore, so toast it and pray for a used one. Now Torxhead had a great idea, add a breather cap. It will working in states that don't have emissions testing, automatically reliefs pressure in the valve cover area. Cool! My question would be "Where can I get one". Florida has no testing. If that doesn't work them I'm going to get dirty. Thanks again for the quick reply's

 

That's interesting.

Might try putting some lube down into the grommet for the orifice valve...... see if that doesn't make it any easier.

 

I pretty much made a breather by drilling a 3/4" hole in the oil filler cap and inserting a conventional breather in it.

 

Wow! That's really simple thanks. If you don't have the Ram manual, it is digital, I think it's on this site - somewhere. If you have a Ram you really should download a copy it is really interesting. Mopar sure does things differently. Like I said it is by Mopar, so it isn't so general like others. But one does have to search sometimes for the info. The rotor removal is not in the brake section but in the front end section. The 1500 is with the brakes. 2500 and 3500 isn't. Makes sense right? Thanks again.