Hi all,
Just bought a 97 Ram 2500 with the 5.9 Magnum. Got it cheap because of a coolant leak. Leak turned out to be the timing cover. So I replaced the water pump, bypass hose and timing chain while I was in there (along with new gaskets of course and front main).

Now it's not leaking but it's blowing coolant out the expansion tank and the radiator hoses get hard super fast. So I'm assuming head gaskets at a minimum are gone. Sound right? Not too surprising since who k ow's how long it had a leak and was driven.

In planning for a head gasket repair anything else I should take care of while I'm in there?

Probably will do the Hughes plenum repair, spark plugs, thermostat at a minimum. Not going to go overboard and a full rebuild as the truck is pretty beat up and not worth it.

thanks in advance!

 

Yeah, tune up, plenum fix. I would be real tempted to just replace the heads..... as they are prone to cracking.

 

That's not what I want to hear, lol. I'm trying to stay as reasonably cheap on this truck as I can because I don't know how long I'll be keeping it. If the heads check out fine I'm sure I'll just have them cleaned up, planed and reuse.

However, if I do end up needing new heads, any recommendations? I'm new to the dodge world.

thanks!

 

If you want to stay cheap and reliable, you should likely go with a new set of Odessa cylinder heads. An example can be found here
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-FITS-DO...FSXCoP&vxp=mtr

If you want better performance, you can look at Odessa EQ heads, found here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-DODGE-C...tSyvdV&vxp=mtr

There are also other performance cylinder head options, depending upon how much you want to spend.