i blew my engine 95 ram 5.9l

[clanceman427]

That worked! I was able to push the connector in further while pushing the tool in towards it and it popped it off, thanks!

Made some more progress, the passenger side wiring octopus is off! Just gotta get the rest of the passenger side wiring off.

Here's a quick tip- the paint can lid tool works great for helping to disconnect the fuel injector wiring plugs!

So, does that aluminum mounting bracket that is underneath the alternator and a/c compressor need to come off too? I'm guessing yes...

 

[Micchi]

That worked! I was able to push the connector in further while pushing the tool in towards it and it popped it off, thanks!

Made some more progress, the passenger side wiring octopus is off! Just gotta get the rest of the passenger side wiring off.

Here's a quick tip- the paint can lid tool works great for helping to disconnect the fuel injector wiring plugs!

So, does that aluminum mounting bracket that is underneath the alternator and a/c compressor need to come off too? I'm guessing yes...
View attachment 116778 View attachment 116779 View attachment 116780

Yeah, the bracket needs to come off. Only a few bolts and then you can get that short coolant hose off the intake.

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[Gr8bawana]

Yeah, the bracket needs to come off. Only a few bolts and then you can get that short coolant hose off the intake.
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For sure change out the by-pass hose while you have that bracket off even if it still looks good.

 

[clanceman427]

Thanks guys. Yeah, I now see that the bracket is simply a bolt-on, and must be removed as you stated. Good advice about replacing that little hose, especially after 168,000 miles! I'm there, no better time to replace it while it's exposed.

 

[EvilSpirit]

I just read this post, and might have been able to save you some time i. First, all you mentioned doing was replacing bearings. Did you do anything else besides changing the bearings? Since the bearing tangs are gone, the bearing spun in the rod, and the rod more than likely was damaged and should have been reconditioned. Then, in the one pic, there is an obvious step showing between the #1 and #2 journals. Is the #2 bearing shells still on the crank, or is the crank hurt that bad? In any case, most of the time when a bearing spins like yours did, the crank gets damaged and needs to be polished at the least, but probably needed turned to remove the damage. So, did you have the rod and crank repaired, or how did you determine that they didn't need repair? The bad news is since the knock was there immediately upon start-up, you probably had a bad repair and the engine would have needed to be pulled again, and it would be a waste of time to pull the head with the engine in the truck.

Now on to the no compression. One scenario is when the bearing failed, it let the piston come up high enough to bend valves. Another is if there was a big ring ridge, it could have broken the top piston ring or the top ring land.

Kinda coming in late to this party; just trying to cover a few bases and ask a few questions that I didn't see asked.

 

[clanceman427]

Hi EvilSpirit, and thanks for your reply. I think you are spot-on with your assessment. Very good insights. In summary, all I did was replace all the rod bearings with standard size bearings as-is, and rolled the dice. I didn't know about the zero compression on cylinder 1 until after I got it running again with the new rod bearings. I heard that loud knock immediately. The engine had great oil pressure (I replaced the pump and had completely cleaned the pick up screen and oil pan.) But I never measured the rod's big end because I was doing all the work from underneath with the engine in the truck. I agree with your theories on why there could be zero compression.

I am now at the stage of pulling the intake, and then driver's side cylinder head in order to completely investigate the zero compression reason. More details to come once I get it all apart.

 

[EvilSpirit]

I understand the intake needs to come off either way - no wasted labor there. My point was that with the likely hood that the noise was still in the bottom end, well, the engine will probably need pulled to fix the knock anyways. And that said, it would be easier to pull the head at that time, than to do it under the hood.

A person with experience using a boroscope could probably go in the spark plug hole and find the compression issue, and without pulling the head. Wouldn't show broken ring damage, but you would probably see if there were damaged ring lands, evidence of the piston contacting the head, etc. Bent valves usually leave "eyebrows" stamped in the piston.

Just offering friendly advise to give you options for trouble shooting. Some people think nothing of doing underhood work - they just climb in and get after it. My age and health forces me to steer away from the underhood stuff and stick to the bench work, so anytime I see where underhood work may be avoided, I tend to advise accordingly.

 

[clanceman427]

Hello, now that we are starting to sorta thaw out in the northeast (although it was snowing overnight last night!) and had to brush the car off this morning, we had some nicer weather so I was able to get the engine torn down some more. I pulled the intake, didn't break any bolts but one in the front passenger side (as you would expect with the adjacent cooling connections) needed the torch to heat up the surrounding metal to remove it. The EGR tube fitting at the back of my intake was a PITA but I got it removed. My exhaust manifold needed at least 3 of the bolts helped via torch, but again no broken bolts or studs. I hammered on a 12mm 6 point socket onto most of them to get good wrench grip.

I got the head pulled tonight and then had to stop working on it. Took a couple pictures. So far the head looks fine to me regarding cylinder #1. Nothing obvious for damage to either of the valves. I'll take those valves out and fully inspect the seats and valves to be sure. The #1 piston also had nothing too obvious except looks to me like a small piece got chipped off the top of the piston at it's lowest (6 o'clock position on the piston with 9 oclock being towards the front of the engine.) My next step is to pull the pan again and then ultimately remove the #1 rod/piston assembly to fully assess the situation. Will report back what I find out.

 

[clanceman427]

the last 2 photos i took from today:

 

[ouch1011]

Something significant happened in cylinder one to break that piston. I suspect you'll find more damage when you pull it out. Have you checked to see if that piston actually moves when you turn the engine over, and reaches the same stroke as the others?

 

[clanceman427]

Tonight I got the broken #1 piston out. Looks like the upper compression ring area got all smeared-over and the rings were all stuck "in" so no compression being generated. Also, major damage to the wrist pin area of the piston on both sides, see pictures. So now I have the full picture on what happened to cylinder #1.

 

[Gr8bawana]

Ah crap!

 

[EvilSpirit]

Something significant happened in cylinder one to break that piston. I suspect you'll find more damage when you pull it out. Have you checked to see if that piston actually moves when you turn the engine over, and reaches the same stroke as the others?

I'd be surprised if you don't find the intake plenium gasket sucked in where that cylinder draws its air from (right front corner). The oil reduces the octane and the resulting detonation kills the piston. And it's hard to hear detonation in a truck when it's only 1-2 cylinders getting hammered, especially front ones.

 

[clanceman427]

Well still removing parts. This EGR tube was a joy to remove both at the intake manifold AND the exhaust manifold but it’s finally off. Surprised to see it was quite free-flowing and not plugged-up.

 

[clanceman427]

I'd be surprised if you don't find the intake plenium gasket sucked in where that cylinder draws its air from (right front corner). The oil reduces the octane and the resulting detonation kills the piston. And it's hard to hear detonation in a truck when it's only 1-2 cylinders getting hammered, especially front ones.

Interesting, I should have the intake pulled apart soon, and when I do I will report back my findings

 

[clanceman427]

Interesting, I should have the intake pulled apart soon, and when I do I will report back my findings

Well the intake plenum gasket was fine. But I replaced it anyway. Photo is the old one.

 

[clanceman427]

More post mortom analysis. Today I pulled the 1, 2, 3, and 4 main caps to see the status of the main cap bearings. number 1 looks good, however number 2 sustained pretty bad damage, although doesn't look to have spun, but the bearing surface is rough and the one edge is chewed up. number 3 looks like it was just starting to get damaged right on one of the ends where it meets the other bearing half. the rear facing thrust surface was starting to wear down to the copper. number 4 looks good. I didn't get a chance to pull number 5 today but I'll post up what that looks like once I pull it.

 

[clanceman427]

and number 4 main cap bearing

 

[clanceman427]

I’m back in action! Got the truck running again and took it out for a shakedown drive. I ended up replacing all the main bearings as well as the rod bearings and that piston. Good to be behind the wheel of the beast again!