CharlesinGA
Junior Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2018
- Posts
- 17
- Reaction score
- 6
- Location
- 50 miles south of Atlanta, GA
- Ram Year
- 2003
- Engine
- 5.9L Cummins 305 hp HO
My 2003 5.9L HO 6 spd manual had green coolant in it when I bought it in early 2018. i drained it and removed the thermostat and took out the guts of it and put the plate and seal back, so coolant would circulate continuously. After flushing with Cummins acid and alkali flushes and many hundreds of gallons of water, I installed a new NAPA thermostat (bad mistake) and filled with Zerex G05 and ran it. It took weeks of running and topping to purge the air out. The engine indicated right at 200 with the new thermostat while the original was noticeably lower. After about a year I started having the thermostat stick. It would get hot and then unstick. I made the 60 mile (sigh) trip to Cummins South Atlanta and bought a genuine Cummins thermostat p/n 5292744 for about $53 (sigh again!). I installed it and went thru about three months of adding coolant till the level stabilized (finally). This took a while as I don't drive the truck that often but made a point of driving it more while trying to get the coolant topped off. It just turned 100K earlier this year.
Moral of this story is, buy genuine parts, not aftermarket. I have had to resort to buying Ford thermostats for my old '91 Ranger because the aftermarket hunted temp and would not stabilize, but I screwed up again (sigh) and I am 66 years old and have been messing with cars since I was 15, and have been a heavy aircraft mechanic for an airline for 31 years till I retired, and I still screwed up and bought the cheap crap, again.
Charles
Moral of this story is, buy genuine parts, not aftermarket. I have had to resort to buying Ford thermostats for my old '91 Ranger because the aftermarket hunted temp and would not stabilize, but I screwed up again (sigh) and I am 66 years old and have been messing with cars since I was 15, and have been a heavy aircraft mechanic for an airline for 31 years till I retired, and I still screwed up and bought the cheap crap, again.
Charles