Hey guys; here's the situation:
My Ram used to be a plow truck in Philly. Has 97k on it. Not too much rust, but occasionally in inconvenient places. On the driver's side of my Ram I have an exhaust leak... turned out to be at the manifold.
I pulled the manifold off, but only got (the front) three of the bolts out successfully. The other three all twisted off more or less flush with the head. Of course, with only three bolts on, I have to drive around with the windows down because a fair amount of exhaust comes in the cab since I can't honk down on the bolts to hold the manifold snug to the engine...
This past weekend I tried to extract the three bolts... I successfully drilled out the centers of them, but in two cases when I put the stud extractors in and twisted, the extractors just snapped off flush inside the bolt.
SO at this point it's looking like I would have to get the heads off and have a machine shop drill them and tap new threads.
My buddy suggested I just swap out the motor, because I should be able to get one for not too much and it'd probably have less rust on it. Called around and found one for $600, but they want $1200 to swap out the motor. I'm hoping I can do it for less in a weekend. I watched a Youtube video of a guy pulling a cylinder head on one of these and it seemed more complex than just doing the whole engine...
1) Is $600 a good price for a 5.9 with about 140k on it?
2) What else should I do while the motor is out? I don't want to drop too much coin since this is just a beater work truck, but I recognize there are some things that are just going to be a million times easier without a motor in the way.
3) Tips? Opinions? What am I overlooking?
4) (Less seriously) if I were to swap in a Cummins... how much extra work would that be? Probably a different tranny, and computer, and...? (Not worth it, I think....?)
Thanks in advance!
My Ram used to be a plow truck in Philly. Has 97k on it. Not too much rust, but occasionally in inconvenient places. On the driver's side of my Ram I have an exhaust leak... turned out to be at the manifold.
I pulled the manifold off, but only got (the front) three of the bolts out successfully. The other three all twisted off more or less flush with the head. Of course, with only three bolts on, I have to drive around with the windows down because a fair amount of exhaust comes in the cab since I can't honk down on the bolts to hold the manifold snug to the engine...
This past weekend I tried to extract the three bolts... I successfully drilled out the centers of them, but in two cases when I put the stud extractors in and twisted, the extractors just snapped off flush inside the bolt.
SO at this point it's looking like I would have to get the heads off and have a machine shop drill them and tap new threads.
My buddy suggested I just swap out the motor, because I should be able to get one for not too much and it'd probably have less rust on it. Called around and found one for $600, but they want $1200 to swap out the motor. I'm hoping I can do it for less in a weekend. I watched a Youtube video of a guy pulling a cylinder head on one of these and it seemed more complex than just doing the whole engine...
1) Is $600 a good price for a 5.9 with about 140k on it?
2) What else should I do while the motor is out? I don't want to drop too much coin since this is just a beater work truck, but I recognize there are some things that are just going to be a million times easier without a motor in the way.
3) Tips? Opinions? What am I overlooking?
4) (Less seriously) if I were to swap in a Cummins... how much extra work would that be? Probably a different tranny, and computer, and...? (Not worth it, I think....?)
Thanks in advance!