Hi all ,
I'm hoping for some suggestions from people who are experienced with diesels.
This is kind of a long shot, but thought it might be worth a try.
My Grandpa has a 1999 dodge ram 2500 turbo diesel HD 24 Valve cummins 4x4, manual trans. Recently it has begun to stall while driving. From what I understand, it will start up fine from cold, and won't act up on short drives, but after about an hour of driving it will start to bang (Its not a backfire he says?) Extremely loud, after a few minutes of this, it stalls and will not fire back up until it cools down again, which is usually an hour or more. After the cool down it will fire up just as normal as initial start-up, and once more drive normally with no issues. He lives rurally and we live a 10+ hour drive away, so I'm going on what he's said.

It does have a C.E.L but he doesn't have a reader and hasn't been told what it says. He has taken it to a local shop and the local dealer, both say" ya, thats a common problem with that year of dodge diesels, but we don't deal with it anymore". Nobody wants to say WHAT the common problem is on the diesels, but it sounds like its a relatively easy fix?
I don't have experience fixing on diesels but some of the symptoms sounds like the same problem the 5.2L dakotas had of that year, which was the failing plenum gasket, causing temporary Oil "loss" when hot, which could explain the banging and the "stall" with a low oil auto shutdown? And after a time the oil drains back into the block, thus why it would start up again after letting it cool? He seems to have been told it has to do with #8 or/ & 1 cylinder ??

But I can't find any confirmation that the diesels had any issues with the plenum plate gasket, ( or if they even have a plenum plate?). Or what the cylinder or firing issues would have been ??

Is there any " common" issues that have symptoms like above described? We're hoping to help him fix it before winter sets In, but given the distance to travel, we wouldn't mind having some things at least in mind to try.

Thanks all, sorry for the vagueness.

 

No plenum plate on the diesels. Also, there is no cylinder 8 either. They are inline sixes.

Something is getting hot, and failing. What that would be though, I have no idea......

 

Okay, thanks for the enlightenment on the engine details. Ya that's about as far as we've gotten too... I wondered about some sort of sensor maybe throwing the fuel mix off?

 

I've been doing some digging, and I was wondering if it could be a lift pump related issue? It sounds like it can cause sinilar issues??

 

Failing lift pump would lead to fuel starvation. Would that cause the noise? I don't know.....