I have a 2001 Ram Quad Cab 5.9L 360. I am second owner and there are about 94,000 miles on it . When i start it up in cold temps, for the first few minutes it sounds like ice being thrown around in a concrete mixer....it's coming from the engine compartment. Any ideas on what this could be? I'm hoping that it wouldn't literally be ice somewhere.....

 

That would be pretty unlikly for ice to be somewhere. Unless its hitting the fan and making that noise. Thats very wierd. Can you discribe it any better? [&:]

 

Nope, I wish I could. It does it for the first couple minutes of running and then goes away. Sounds like a bunch of ice in a tumbler...

 

What % of your coolant is water? It could actually be freezing and your water pump is trying to push it through making that noise. Then when it heats up its all melted. I would change your coolant for sure. Sould be roughly 50/50.

Also use the green stuff. Etholyne Clychol. Not Dex-Cool (Propolyne Clychol)for GM. Make sure its not already 50/50 when you buy it too. That stuff is crap.

If that is the case and it freezes solid...your looking at a new engine. A common misconception is that the plugs on the engine block are suppose to "push out" if that happens and its fixable. Thats a wives tale. The plugs on the engine block are just from when the block was made.

 

I have no clue what's in it, i just bought it last month and haven't had a chance to really explore under the hood. So, I should take how many gallons of green stuff mixed with how much water???

 

I'm guessing it's the lifters knocking. It's taking a while to get the oil into the lifters so they rattle until it's there. Could be low oil, a clogged pickup, cheap oil filters (an anti-drainback helps a lot, the Napa gold ones from wix are great), could even be that the oil pump is getting weak (a high volume one is $30 or so from Napa). That's my guess, you could confirm it by watching your oil pressure gauge when you start it, it'll probably read low until the clatter goes away.

Geez, I sound like a Napa commercial, sorry, that's where I go fer lots of parts.

 

Hehe, thanks Mr. NAPA, I'll keep an eye out on the oil pressure, etc. I've never heard that noise come from a vehicle before, had me stumped.

 

Ok, just started it and oil pressure was fine. I did notice that it seemed to kind of "speed up" and get worse when I revved the motor. It went away within about 30 seconds.

 

If its speeds up when you rev is it could very well be an oil problem. The pump might not be working right, or the pick up might be clogged.

Or it could still be my off the wall coolant freezing idea

 

I'm gonna take it in and have it all serviced....the differentials, transmission, oil, antifreeze, etc.