2004 Ram 1500 4.7
The car is in Costa Rica. I have had it for 2.5 years, it is stored for about 5 months each summer with the battery disconnected. Doesn't get a lot of mileage but twice a year does a boot camp week towing 3 heavy trailers and a bunch of heavy metal piping. Got her out of storage 3 weeks ago, checked oil, water, hydro fluid, all good. At some point I was away from base and noticed a lot of water leaking underneath but not from the radiator, wasn't heating up too quickly and when running didn't loose a lot of coolant. Bought 3 gallons of coolant spoke to my mechanic and set of home, stopped after the first slight hill (15 min drive) as the temp gauge was on just over halfway. decided to wait 20 mins for it to cool but noticed there was no more water coming out and the radiator cap was not very hot, opened it full but had drained half of the reservoir. Set off again and was noticing a nocking noise but not from the engine itself another 10 mins on a long steepish climb and when the box changed down there was a clunk. straight after I lost steering and managed to find a place to pull over after 100m. Turned the engine off. opened the hood and looked in. worked out pretty quickly that the water pump was bad to the point the fan was wobbling and had thrown the belt (hence no hydraulics). Called a tow truck and got towed to my mechanic. He replaced the waterpump but after noticed the idle was off and the rpms all over the shop. Then a MAP sensor code, replaced the MAP sensor, the coolant sensor and all the plugs. Then he says it is better it isn't really, low idle and erratic power when pulling away from a stop sign. Now he gets a P0305 cylinder misfire, if I read correctly.
What I know about trucks is they use gas, I need to check the oil and water and turn the key to make them go so I am at the mercy of every con mechanic out there. Everything has been suggested to me, from a sealer liquid in the cooling system to removing the headers and having the checked for cracks and the gasket replaced. He has supposedly (I trust the guy) removed the injectors and tested them. Also someone suggested swopping coils from one cylinder to another to see if the code changes. Part prices down here are ball crushing. My MAP sensor cost $115 as apposed to $30 on carparts.com so I would like to avoid replacing one part after another. gasket set for the headers would cost $230!!!
Any and all suggestions welcome

 

Yup I’m willing to bet it’s a bad coil on the #5 cylinder. Had the same issue with mine but on the #7 cylinder. Switched that one with with the #6 and the code went from 0307 to 0306. At first I just replaced the one coil but soon after that the others went one by one. I eventually just got tired of replacing one at a time so I bought the rest of them and haven’t had a problem since.
when you do it or have the mechanic do it make sure they use liberal amounts of die electric grease on both the boot of the coill and spark plug or or eventually your problem will return
hope this helps

 

if you store the truck with dexcool antifreeze for 5 months without driving it then I would bet that it’s one of your problems. This orange antifreeze will sludge up and clog up the radiator and even the ports in the engine block that will cause the truck to dump antifreeze out the overflow tank and overheat.

with the p305 code- I would have the mechanic swap the coil packs around, clear the ecm then drive the truck and see what codes come back up.