I'm in the process of swapping intake manifolds and doing the plenum gasket. Got the intake off tonight. I did end up breaking the oil pressure sending unit so I need to replace that. One thing I was going to ask I have had a very slow coolant leak since I got the truck with 67000 miles on it. Over maybe 4 weeks the over flow bottle would be empty. But it never drips coolant on the ground. I'm leaning toward it being the timing cover gasket. So while I have the front of engine off what else would be smart to change? Truck has 100000 miles on it. I was thinking water pump, timing chain , new gasket, bypass hose. Also someone has said something about a front crank seal as well. Any and all info will be appreciated.

 

i have a very subtle coolant loss like you are describing. it could very well be timing cover gasket. i am at 165k miles and never had any noticeable leaks so i am guessing that some coolant is evaporating internally somehow, perhaps due to cracked heads but really don't know. truck runs good, no leaks at all, so i really don't worry about it and just make sure to add coolant to the reservoir. similar to just making sure engine oil is good to go. i did install a plenum kit so i am burning normal oil instead of crazy amounts due to plenum.

if you are already there it would be a good idea to do injector seals, water pump, timing chain, the gasket for timing chain cover, bypass hose, water neck housing, and thermostat. i did not do it at all at once, had to re-visit that area three times to get it all done.

it's pretty good if you only have 100k miles.

 

Shoot, 100k is nothing. Not even close to worn out. I didn't dig into mine until after 200k. But had the plenum done at 70ish back in the day preemptively.

Coolant evaporates. It will always slowly go down. Unless you see it or smell it, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Dist cap and rotor are easy to change with the intake removed.

 

I changed mine at 160,000, I now have 265,000 on a 5.9 gas. Raised cane with the dealer I bought the plenum kit from and told them it was bad engineering have 2 different metals with different expansion and contraction rates and asked if Dodge would supply the kit non-gratis. He said I was correct about the cause and a service bulletin was issued on it. The problem was it wasn't a safety issue therefore no recall was issued. The government only requires a recall for safety not bad product engineering. Whole job only took about 4 hours, so at least it was easy.

 

It wasn't dissimilar metals that caused the problems. The difference in expansion rates is measured in thousandths of an inch. (and single digit at that.) The problem was poor quality gaskets, and bolts there were too long.

 

You're both wrong.

It was terrorism! haha

 

No, NO! It was a communist PLOT!!!!

 

Well, it was right around the end of the cold war that these trucks were designed so maybe the Russians hacked Chrysler and changed the spec sheet!

 

Nah, it's gotta be Trumps fault.... he was colluding with the Russians after all.....