Overheating at low RPM

[DieselSharker]

On that note...does anyone know about what it will run me to get the head milled .010 or so?

[dpuckett]

IT's not unusual for the head gaksets to blow on the nonIC trucks. I had one let go in my early 91 at about 240K. Head was flat, so I put a new stock gasket in it, and drove another 70K before selling it. I even reused the head bolts. If you get the HG kit from Cummins, it has a bolt length gague; if you get just the gasket, drop the bolts head down on a concrete floor and see if they ping. If they do, reuse them. No joke, that is an approved test. Do the torque + angle the first time on lubed threads, then retorque to 125ft-lbs if you decide to retorque. I never retorqued my 91, and had no issues.

If the head is flat, leave it alone. I had one milled on Rumbelfish's 92, and it ran me about $70, IIRC.

Dan

[DieselSharker]

Thanks a lot Dan, that's exactly what I needed to know. I will be ordering the Cummins gasket tomorrow and I have a friend who works at a Dodge dealership seeing how much new bolts will cost me. I would like to reuse the bolts for now or replace them with stockers because I plan on pulling that head off later on anyway. I'll probably be doing the work next week or weekend and I will let you guys know how it works out and I'll try to post some pics.

[DieselSharker]

Finally got the rear end back together today so I took the head off. Gasket was leaking coolant between #2 and 3. You can see the rust in the pic:


Checked the surface for warping and everything seems fine. It has 2 or 3 hairline cracks in the usual spots between the injector bores and valve seats. The crosshatch still looks great for the most part and the valves were smooth as a baby's bottom when i got the carbon off. The gaskets should be here Wednesday so I will be buttoning her up and will finally be back to daily driver material by Thursday night.