Hello and welcome all to my cursed thread,

I've been working seasonally in western Montana the past few months and got an 01' Ram for $800 to get to and from the mountain for work. With my seasonal contract coming to an end on the 26th, I'm tasked with driving my *** back across the country to Virginia with all of my possessions. But there's a catch. About 3 weeks ago, my truck started to overheat on a short trip to the post office. I recently had changed my thermostat and flushed/replaced my coolant so I figured that either the thermostat failed, or something horrible had happened. Much to my surprise when I limped the truck back home (after letting it cool, I pulled my *** over the second I saw that gauge approaching the red) I found that my overflow bottle and radiator were bone dry. No leaks, no bubbling, no coolant in my oil, but a very noticeable white smoke plume. I took it to the one half-assed mechanic we have out here in the middle of nowhere and had him do a compression test, the results came back as follows:

125 - 2 1 - 150
150 - 4 3 - 95
125 - 6 5 - 60
150 - 8 7 - 70

So I've got low compression on most of one side and my engine is clearly burning coolant. He put new coolant in and set me on my way. No mechanic around has been willing to take the time to figure out if it's specifically the head gasket, cracked head or a valve / ring without charging me $1000+ and all have told me to just dump the truck. I was ready to do so but the truck just won't stop running. It has no codes, idles like a dream, starts up on the first turn over, has kept clean oil and coolant, and the coolant level hasn't gone down any noticeable amount what so ever. I've even driven the thing over an hour each way to Bozeman's airport multiple times and it hasn't had a single problem besides obvious reduced performance and a little extra smokey exhaust. The tranny is flawless, the 4x4 works great, it's got brand new studded snow tires and frankly, I don't have the time left or the money to sell it for something of equally cheap-*** pricing that would instill more confidence in me driving it across the country.

I have next to no tools, a beginners level of knowledge (I've been learning and working on cars for about 9 months) and a wallet as dry as the sahara, so I'm going to give it a shot and just drive the thing as far as it will go with a jug of coolant and a bottle of oil in the back of my truck. My guess is its a slight crack in my head gasket and it is burning coolant very slowly. In the weeks after I changed the coolant, I did multiple hour and back trips and let a co-worker take the truck on a 600 mile journey across Montana. I assume that's when most the coolant must have burnt up, but I'm at a loss for how it all managed to vanish as quick as it did while there's next to no difference in coolant level now.

If I can make it all the way back home I could turn it into a fun tear down project with next to know consequences for me and my pops since I've got my old daily driver back at home (There was zero way in hell I was driving a 13 year old Volvo across the country), but I expect to have the feces hit the fan somewhere along the way and to have AAA haul me to a junk lot and just U-Haul back, but I want to give it a shot. If for some reason you're interested here's more information from an old reddit thread I quickly threw up a few weeks ago.

I guess this is a plea for help and admittance of insanity---I'm not sure, somewhere between those two. But this truck is damn curious that's for sure. Feel free to chime in on everything and anything.

 

It has a lot of telltale signs of a blown head gasket. Another indicator would be if there's any "gassing" out of the coolant from combustion gasses being pushed into the coolant. It's kinda weird that the shop claimed the cooling system is holding pressure but maybe it doesn't show when the engine is cold. No milkshake in the oil pan is a good sign.
In the reddit thread you wrote the engine is not original, who knows what had been done to it before it was installed. I'd try two things: Check the head bolt torque. That's a bit of a pain because half of them are under the valve cover. Just check, do not loosen and re-torque. The other option is using a head gasket sealant. There are a few of those around, obviously they are not a proper fix but might get you by for a week of driving. For some people it has held up much longer. Make sure you follow the instructions to a tee.

 

Personally if you plan to work on it when you get home, I would use Blue Devil head gasket sealer (money back guarantee) or the one that looks like gun powder (buddy had luck with that to this day). If it clogs up something, no biggie since you will be working on it. My guess, head gasket or cracked head.

I just can't believe he didn't do a wet test or a leak down test.

 

That's exactly what I was thinking guys, I was looking into doing (the proper way) the blue devil maybe a week or so before my trip so if I gum up and ruin everything I at least have prior warning to it. As for what DerTruck said, I'm not quite sure what you want me to do---should I check by hand if the head bolts have any play in them with my hands? And yeah, neither place would do a leak down or a wet test, it made absolutely no sense but the other shops I've called as well have had next to no interest in investigating the issue besides saying "It's either valves a head gasket or the head."

Ironically enough in a twist of fate, I did the hour voyage to civilization again today and the truck has completely stopped any and all white smoke. I even noticed improved engine performance in the low end. The only thing I've done is throw in maybe 1/6th of a bottle of Bar's Leaks radiator and heater core leak-stop because my friend had a little bit left laying around. The thing is I did that like a week ago and I have no idea how that would resolve any of the problems I've stated now. This truck wants to live, that's all I know. Currently I'm trying to find a shop that will actually bother to do a leak down or wet test, so I'll keep things updated as the big day approaches.

 

I should also mention that it is definitely a junkyard engine, it's got yard markings on the bottom left of the block, so I'm assuming that the last owner bought one of those "rebuilt" engines from a yard, since they listed the engine as rebuilt 45k miles ago in the sale listing.

 

Well if the bolts were loose you'd have bigger problems... No, as this appears to be a very small leak I was thinking maybe the head wasn't torqued down quite right. Set the torque wrench to 105 ft/lbs and make sure all bolts are tightened to that number. However if a little stop leak already showed improvement that might not make a difference.

 

I'll give 'er a try some time tomorrow if I can borrow a tool from a friend. I'm still paranoid that the stop-leak helping is just my imagination but hopefully not.

 

That's the problem today these "techs or mechanics" don't do proper diagnostics and just load the parts cannon. Is your passenger floor wet?

 

To bad your just south of me or I would give you a hand. I live up here in Calgary, Canada. I bought my 2001 1500 5.2L last year, the truck had no oil pressure and the engine was junk but it still drove two hours (100 miles). I tore down that engine and found the oil pump was plugged up with carbon, but for an engine with no oil pressure. The 5.2L engine is tuff engine. I bet your fine for your 600 mile trip, but plan at some point to do some mechanical repair. I found a $500 low miler 5.2L in a junk yard and threw it into the truck. I probably have 20000 miles on the engine and its doesn't burn oil/leak. That bar's **** makes a mess of your rad and heater core. Lucky for you they are cheap from Rock Auto. Best of luck.

 

I wish I could say my overall experience so far in life with mechanics was different but I feel like you're right. Nope, it's bone dry. I will say however that I can definitely still tell that there's still some low compression but its better than it was and there doesn't seem to be any problems overheating or burning coolant at the moment.