Hey yall, so I have been working on my truck and pulled the plenum out to repair what appears to be a gasket leak in that area. In doing so I sheered a bolt off on the Thermostat housing. I drilled the bolt out and attempted to use an easy out which broke off into the hole. I have used every bit I could get my hands on and the easy out doesn't even have a scratch on it. I have attempted to contact several machine shops where I live and only 2 can do it, but require close to 200 dollars. The plenum isn't even worth that much. I found one about an hour away but its from a 99 ram 1500 and my truck is a 98. Will the entire plenum manifold be compatible? I really screwed up on this one no pun intended.

 

You might be able to shatter the easy out with a hammer and punch, but, I think going and getting the 99 manifold will probably be easier. (maybe faster too....) The manifold are exactly the same. The 99 will bolt right in. Just put your sensors and such on it.

 

Hmm I will have to attempt that. They said they have a couple and only want $65 bucks. At this point even getting someone over here with a welder would cost me that much. This place is only an hour away. Thank you for the help! I know this has nothing to do with the thread title but I promise I will update once I am done putting this all back together.

 

Went to the junk yard and pulled a 99 plenum, thank you HeyYou it bolted right on and was the exact same thing. I finally got everything installed after a few set backs (water pump inlet tube leaking, wrong power steering return hose etc)

So far this go around I replaced:
MAF Sensor (the stick type sensor that screws into the plenum)
Coolant Temp sesnor
Plugs/Cap/Rotor
Installed plug separators and followed the TSB manual to the letter
Plenum gaskets (including the one for the plate) followed the manual torque spec sequence to the letter
Fan clutch
Power steering pump and lines
Power steering gearbox
Distributor pickup coil

I cleaned the hell out of the throttle body, IAT, throttle blades etc. Last night after everything was installed I filled the PS reservoir and turned the truck on, it fired right up, I noticed almost immediately the power steering pump sucking fluid down into the lines and as I was filling it up, the pump whined and I could see the fluid start to rise and foam. I shut the truck off immediately. Had my GF help turn the steering wheel to bleed the system but noticed the fluid turn red which matches the type of fluid in the new steering gear box. Its a red head steering gear box. Just want to make sure that is okay and not going to mess up my fluid?

Drove the truck this morning to work and I had no shaking at 40-60 at all. The truck idled perfectly, still a little high on the RPM side for shifting but its not as bad as it was and I feel like the shifting is smoother somehow. I did notice this morning when I first started the truck she wanted to stall when I put it in reverse, but kicked right back to normal after a second. Switched gears to drive and the same thing, felt like it was going to stall but came right back to normal. As I pressed the gas the truck was hesitating and usually when it does this if I press the gas to hard the truck jerks into gear but I have gotten to know how that works so I backed off the gas and that prevents the jerk. Press the gas again and it was fine. I think I am going to tackle an inner/outer band adjustment next and see if that eliminates my issue.

Lastly I had broken this very small fragile plastic tube that goes into a line that connects to the intake manifold right below the PCV valve, its got vacuum of some sort but the tube goes into the cabin, I have no clue what it is.




Lastly since #7 was misfiring (or at least the computer says) here is what most of my spark plugs looked like, except for #7 which is the black one, that cannot be good.

 

The vacuum line going into the cabin is likely source vacuum for the HVAC controls. You'll wanna fix that.

Number 7 is running excessively rich. Likely a leaking/sticky injector.

 

That sounds like its going to be fun :|

Do you think the injectors on ebay are any good? Or is it you get what you pay for?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Set-of-8-Siemens-Fuel-Injectors-For-1996-1999-Dodge-Ram-1500-5-2-5-9-V8/273849620971?fits=Year%3A1998%7CModel%3ARam+1500%7 CMake%3ADodge&hash=item3fc2b599eb:g:ISIAAOSwTadc3c 5y

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-24LB-Fu...oAAOSwJmFdhIti

 

I bought mine (only one) from advance.

 

Those fellers are NOT cheap...... Guess I am used to GM prices...... get a set of 8 for under 300 bucks....

 

I think in paid almost 50 for one....

 

So when your truck doesn't let you rev up, it's gone into limo mode. Same goes for when it won't let you go past 2nd gear. It's detected a problem and has gone into a safe or limp mode designed to make you take it to a diagnosis tech to have it's looked at . Happens quiet frequently. For the guy who it drive ok for 30mins the drops away . The intermittent occurrence suggests a possible wire connection coming loose could be a sensor like your fuel pump sensor or your duty cycle off your fuel pump it doesn't match or gets out of spec when it checks in with the pcm so the PCM orders the transmission into limp mode it could be a couple of different scenarios you really do need a diagnostic tool and a really really good one one that you can monitor all codes as a transact in real time so you can determine which code pop up first which ones are and where to go start looking for your trouble situation like this especially you could throw 15 codes all the way to the knock sensor to the camshaft sensor to pressure regulators I mean it could it could throw out everything just going to limp mode usually you know depending on how long you had it there will continuously throw more codes than what's really wrong with the car comes under uses one problem here's a video of a guy I've been watching his videos lately he's he goes into he goes into a real good detail about what he's when he knows what he's doing he's obviously he knows the stuff that he's learning but he's got a real good grab on this situation he's done two trucks so far with limp mode problems you guys can check this out

You Tube