One of the guards at work isn't much on maintenance. The engine in his '02 Ram 1500 started making noise and he wanted to get rid of it and spend the money to fix a car he's had sitting for a while. He overheated it a while back and then last week, it started making noise. the best the salvage yard would do was $350 so I bought it and gave him a bit more so he could fix his car.

I've brought back overheated engines before although they were the old fully iron engines.I always liked Mopar V-8's as if you let them sit and cool gently, an oil change and they were good to go. If it takes, great. If not, I'll probably pull the engine and swap another one in. It actually looks fairly easy compared to the last Dodge truck I swapped an engine into. That was an '84 W150 and I removed the radiator support to pull the engine straight forward. This '02 has two sections of the support that are bolted in and will come right out.

So, if I have to replace the engine, what engines will go right in without much fiddling? Mine is an '02 with engine code N. I think it's a 16 tooth toner ring. Here's what I found when I cracked the oil pan. I've resurrected worse ones, but not the dainty later engines.





The last engine like this I brought back was a '54 dodge 270 Red Ram Hemi. A shop vac with heater hose to get down in the lifter valleys and a quart of Marvel Mystery oil, run it for 10 minutes than fresh oil and filter will do wonders. If it doesn't take, I'm no worse off than before.

 

Is that a 4.7? Looks like the sump is clogged up, that'll make some noise...

 

It sure did. The pickup is currently soaking in kerosene. I've seen worse settlement in oil pans and on top of the heads. I guess modern oils are more resistant to coking.

 

Well, put the old girl back together today and fired it up. Topped off the coolantl and prefilled the oil filter to get pressure as soon as possible. The noise went away and oil pressure went to where it ought to be. Warmed the engine up and then took it on a short test/parts run. It's going to need shocks, tires and possibly u-joints in the driveshaft. The radio likes to blink at me until it decides if I'm worthy of music. Probably going to slap a cheap radio in there. I'm hard of hearing but the drone on the highway puts me to sleep so I need noise.

 

Congrats! I brought an old 79 ford back to life the same way, except I replaced the oil pump while I was in there... I got two years out of it before the pump driveshaft broke, then I parted the car out.

If you want a replacement factory radio with cassette, I'm about to toss the one that came in my 04 in the trash. You pay the shipping and its yours, I think it'll fit in a usps regional box. I stuck my old 1500 CD factory radio in my recent acquisition. Radio worked good, it had some old country cassette in it too... PM me if you want to arrange shipping.

 

I stopped by an automotive audio shop and they put a decent little radio in for $200. He did mention is was an easy install as the data input type radio didn't come until the '04 model year. Thanks for the offer but already have a new radio. I ran a salvage yard from 1980 to '84 and brought many engines back from the dead. I changed the oil 5 times in one month once to clear an engine up inside. I was driving to work one day and wondered why the front end was rattling so bad. It had always been rattling, I just couldn't hear it until the lifters all came loose and pumped up.