Was driving along yesterday evening. Just idling through town almost at a lug in 4th on a straight away. Heard a clunk that came from under the truck. Kids and I all felt it from in the cab. Didn’t see anything in the road at all that I would have ran over. Clunk sounded like it came from tranny area???

Pulled over and inspected but found nothing. Got back on the road and romped on her and she got up and went. Been running like a spotted ape ever since.

I’m just gun shy about that killer dowell pin. If it dropped down and clunked gears while I was idling along and the tranny survived and it would just sit down there at the bottom of the pan wouldn’t that be great?

Absolutely no more noises since then.

Am I just paranoid?

 

Umm I think you are mistaken about the KDP. The KDP is a dowel pin that is in the timing case on 12v motors. I believe the problem was fixed when going to the 24v IIRC. You probably just hit something in the road you didn't notice.

 

Don't know about the clunk, but the KDP is not in the tranny. It is in the front engine case.

Hope it all works out right. Could it have been a little import you ran over and are still dragging?????


Ed

 

Maybe the fifth gear nut came off.

 

While it seems to be primarilly a 12v issue, trucks as new as 2002 have been known to have the KDP problem.

 

Maybe check the transmission mount it could be broken causing the trans to hit the floor the odd time. Thats what happened to my truck.

 

Thanx. I'll do some more inspecting. Put 200 miles on since then and I'm ok. About this 5th gear nut thing - 5th has been going great. Dont really want to tear into tranny. Will check tranny mounts.

 

KDPs are a very real issue with early 24-valvers. Even though the timing gear case was upgraded to address the issue, even Cummins admits they do not know when the old cases were no longer installed during the build cycle.

If a preson is really lucky when a dowel pin falls into the gear train, it will sometimes fit between the gear casing and one of the timing gears and harmlessly fall down into the pan. This is very unusual.

So if you think your pin has fallen out, take a close look at the timing gear case just below the coolant pump. Monitor this area for an oil leak, resulting from a cracked case.

In the meantime, here is some info from Dave Fritz about KDPs.
http://dodgeram.org/tech/dsl/Dowel_Pin/tab.htm