Just wanted to run this by everyone - I'm going to change out the coolant on my truck pretty soon and this is what I'm planning on doing along with it:

Serpentine belt (heavy duty)
New coolant (obviously)
T-stat (is 190* stock spec?)
Water Pump
Belt tensioner
Idler pulley
Upper and lower radiator hoses

Any ideas or input? I'm still relatively new to Cummins trucks but I've enjoyed doing almost all of my own wrenching to this point. Any other maintenance/parts to add while the front end is torn apart? The truck has 136k and I try to make it as reliable and durable as possible long-term. With this, I'll finally have changed out all of the fluids in the truck!

Thanks!

 

Sounds like you listed just about everything related to the cooling system. If you want to replace all of those things then now would be the time for it. Myself, I only replace parts when they fail....I guess that's good and bad on my part. My belt, hoses, and water pump lasted 300k miles before they needed to be replaced.

 

i bought the coolant at napa, only dodge, napa or cummins dealership have the right coolant for our truck.

proper coolant is a 50/50 solution coolant, distill water

locate the plug in or around the thermostat cover, when you remove this plug it will allow the system to burp and get the air out, when you refill the system.

note to file: dodge neglected to put a drain on the motor, so to get all the old coolant out you will need to fill and drain system about 3 times to get (most) all of the old coolant out. what were they thinking.

do not loosen the radiator drain, its a piece of crap on a otherwise fine truck.

drain system by taking loose lower radiator hose from radiator, as many times the radiator drain will not lock back and you will have a serious problem, if it does not stop leaking!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

my water pump weeped at 142k Change it out, They are known to go

 

If you are performing a complete flush of the system, you will need 3 gallons of coolant concentrate. I also recommend you purchase several gallons of distilled water to flush through the system and dilute the new coolant it. The total capacity of the cooling system is 7.4 gallons,however;it is unlikely you will get all 7.4 gallons out of the system due to the lack of a drain plug in the block.

The third generation Dodge Ram specs. a G-05 HOAT coolant as the OEM fluid. There are only 4 G0-5 HOAT coolants marketed. Cummins does not market a G-05 formulated coolant. The G-05 coolants are listed here:

1). Valvoline Zerex G-05 Hoat -
Available in concentrate. The NAPA part # is ZXG051. The finished fluid is a Yellow/Gold in color. If you don't see it on the shelves or behind the counter, they can order it for you.

2). Ford / Motorcraft Premium Gold Engine Coolant - Ford Part #VC-7B is the U.S. part number and CVC-7-B (Canada). This fluid is yellow/gold in color.

3). Mopar 5 Year/100,000 Mile with (HOAT) Embittered (factory fill) Chrysler spec-MS 9769. Red/Orange in color.

4). Mercedes Benz Antifreeze Agent - Part # Q 103 0002 Dark Gold/Bronze in color.

Here is a good writeup on the coolant flush process that may be helpful.

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...=coolant+flush

 

Thanks everyone for the quick help!

Looks like Geno's has all the parts I need other than the coolant I'll buy locally. Local Cummins dealer wanted about $140 for the water pump, Geno's has it for $42 I think? The other items were close to the same prices.

 

I would also replace the radiator cap or at lease have it pressure checked. Also pressure check the radiator. I would hate doing all that work with new coolant and water pump just to find out I had a leak somewhere else after all the work is done. Example is external trans cooler hose that always leaks on cummins diesels.

 

You can also get the Zerex at CarQuest.

 

Thanks for all the help! I finally got this done today...

Started with the coolant flush - after the last flush, I just left it empty so I could tear into the water pump and hoses. I used a trick I found online and installed the thermostat housing with just a gasket (no thermostat) to allow the coolant to flow without having to warm up the engine all the way.

I needed a fan clutch as well, so I did it all at the same time. It would have been a really easy job, but I had a heck of a time getting the old fan clutch off. Long story short, I ended up with the loaner wrenches from every auto parts store within a few miles of here... All of them were marked 36mm, but were actually .5mm too big and tried to round off the nut.

I finally found a true 36mm Lisle wrench at Pep Boys for a mere $83. Since their loaner wrench was the wrong size, the manager let me use the Lisle and return it when I was done. If the wrench was more reasonably priced I would have kept it. Maybe the Geno's wrench wasn't overpriced after all - wish I had bought it! It still took a fair amount of work to get the fan clutch loose, but it went pretty quick.

I had to drop my steering box stabilizer to get the fan out. I also took out the air filter box to help get the lower radiator hose replaced.

With no fan, the water pump was a breeze. I ended up skipping the tensioner and idler pulley since they're easy enough to do later and I'm running out of funds! I used the Gates heavy duty serpentine belt from Geno's

Filled her back up with 3 gallons of G-05 concentrate and topped off with distilled water. Topped off the overflow with 50/50. Fired it up and good to go!

This was one of my bigger mechanic projects to date, so it felt good to get it done! It's always good to walk away knowing a lot more about your truck.

 

Glad you got some experience with your truck!!! Make sure you don't have an air pocket trapped in the system or it'll get hotter than a firecracker and won't circulate. I know from experience on that.

Congrats on the repairs.

 

How soon would this happen - or how long should I worry about it? On every drain/fill during the flush I pulled off the heater hose on the back of the block. I would fill until it overflowed from there and then I'd put the hose back on and top it off. It seemed to work pretty good.

I drove about 45 minutes yesterday and so far so good!

 

Yes....that is the correct way to 'burp' the system...by pulling the heater hose off of the short nipple at the left rear of the engine. You should be good to go...HTH

JIm

 

If you're practicing that method for the flush then you have nothing to worry about!!!

 

Sweet! Gonna have the gauges hooked up tonight too (I hope)! 3 days of working on the truck... should have been 1 1/2, but too much running around for parts/tools.