Hi,

I have a 1996 Ram 2500 with a 5.9 v8 and a 5 speed tranny. Truck has 114000 miles on it. I was driving one day and the truck literally just quit on me. I had it towed home and messed with it here and there and the truck always cranked funny like it was skipping. I did a compression test and the passenger side bank had zero compression on all cylinders. Truck still did some what run but very poorly. It also had quite a bit of blow by coming out of the oil fill. This all happened a few years ago and truck has been sitting in my driveway since. I recently have a need for the truck and the means to fix it. Im just not sure where to go next. Heads? Head gaskets? Something stupid I’m missing? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

Sounds like the engine is going to need a complete rebuild. If you're getting blow-by from the oil filler, the rings in the motor are likely shot (at a minimum) and will need to be replaced. Depending on your budget, you can also try to pickup a used engine from a salvage yard or a newly rebuilt engine and swap it out.

 

Even a bad gasket you will get some kind of compression and not all 4 cylinders. Sounds strange to me, You can do a leak down test to see where the compression is going or take the head off.

 

Had the same thing happen to a 1998 1500 5.2. Had to replace engine.

 

I’m leaning towards taking the head off. I already have it mostly torn down minus the intake. I was told it could’ve been timing way back when but it’s dead on. It’s still so strange to me that it ran so good for so long and just stopped in the middle of the road completely out of the blue. We loosend the rockers up to see if maybe valves were hanging open but no change. Not even the old oil in the cylinder compression test changed anything.

 

Sounds like the motor either ran very low on oil or really overheated to have something like that happen. Those engines have historically been very tough to kill.

 

If there is no compression on all four cylinders on one side, that is not a head gasket, not timing either, as it would affect every cylinder, not just one side. I suspect it's new motor time.

 

Did you verify the pistons are moving? Any metal debris in the oil? Zero psi sounds like you broke 4 rods on one side.Take the plugs out and shine a light down the cylinders then have somebody crank the motor.

 

Bent valves will give zero compression as well.