Blow head already? 8,757 miles
 

Completely stock Ram 2500. Manual transmission.
I just purchased this truck, have only been the owner for less than a month. Truck currently has 8757 miles on it, i'm the second owner. Truck still has its factory warranty.

This was my first towing trip. Was towing 7000 lbs. I had been driving for a few hours before this happened. I was on the decent of a 6% grade, in 5th gear with exhaust brake. Speed was under 65mph, rpms at or under 2500. The engine started sputtering and then shut off. After rolling to a stop I tried starting the engine and it would crank but not turn on. The cranking speed was pretty fast which makes me think it lost compression. I had the vehicle towed to the dealer. We shall see what they have to say.

I have been reading the forums and searching. I'm pretty sure the head gasket blew due to excess pressure. Most failures that I've seen are with people who have modified their truck. Mine is not modified and I don't think I was abusing this truck. Main question is if I blew the head gasket, how can I avoid another failure? Should I not use the exhaust brake on hills while towing?

I have a hard time believing that the exhaust brake caused it. Unless the po really hot rodded it. I have been in numerous situations as you were, except I've always had a lot more than 7000 pounds in tow.

From what I heard, the previous owner did light towing. He traded the truck in for a Honda Ridgeline. He said he couldn't park the truck and wanted a smaller one. Ha.
The dealer called and said they are backed up with work but would get back to me soon once the diesel tech could take a look at it.

You could pull each head bolt and replace with an ARP stud. One by one pull and replace for piece of mind.

If you have a stock truck, stop worrying and let them fix it. Stock trucks are not the ones that blow head gaskets. Your Exhaust Brake was meant to be run, it's one of the best things about these trucks. The more load you put on them the better they work. Sorry you had an issue, but stop worrying and see what they say. You are using your truck as you should and had an unfortunate break down, I hope they have you running soon.

On a side note a blown head gasket generally does not cause a no run/no start situation. Keep us posted and let us know what they find. Good luck, Rye.

Also let me clear up you don't need head studs on a stock 6.7 and the vast majority of blown gaskets are from the main 6.7 tuner having a major issue with De-Fueling settings in their programming and not educating consumers or fixing the problem! If you run de-fuels tuning for goodness sake please do your research! Head studs are a great option on a Modded 6.7 but realize gents tuning/timing and Fuel blows gaskets far more often and all most exclusively. Drive pressure and overall boost pressure while a concern are not nearly as problamatic as thought.

Sorry, rant off.

Thanks Rye for the info . That makes sense that it would not be a blown head gasket. Hopefully it's just related to fuel or computer issues. The dealership has yet to call me back for an update. I'm hoping today they will at least tell me what they found.

Gosh. I'd like to agree with rye about stock engines not blowing head gaskets, but I have seen several already that have. Usually happens in the same towing situation, although with heavier loads.

They aren't all inherently bad, the op just got "lucky". Most of these things will run a long time in stock form, with no issues other than clutches or trannies going bad. However. The joy of the new ememissions compliant engines, they tend to do weird things at odd times. This is not limited to pickups either, it's across the board.

Let warranty repair it, and move on. You may simply have gotten a bad gasket, or an assembly issue. Definitely keep us posted on the dealer findings.

i'm curious as to whether all the head bolts were/are torqued correctly from the factory.
when my 07 gasket failed, i found head bolts 3,4 and 5 to be just a bit more than hand tight during extraction.

I cant believe it. The engine is totaled!
They finally gave me an update today, apparently they were waiting on a specialty tool to look at the fuel pressure. That tool came in Monday. I assume they found bad/no pressure and then proceeded to inspect the injectors. They said every single injector was damaged/smashed! I don't fully understand the interworkings of the engine but they said each injector was smashed from piston contact. They suspect the damaged was caused by the motor over revving.
I believe the over revving occurred directly after the engine sputtered and shut off, the engine was still directly connected to the drive-train for a few seconds before I came to my senses and pulled the transmission out of gear. Going down a 6% grade i'm sure it picked enough speed to over rev the engine quickly.
So, I can understand why it would over rev, but why did it shut off?! The service manager could not give an explanation for that. He is hoping it will present itself after the new motor install.
They did find the computer was "blank"(no history) when I first dropped the vehicle off and they immediately asked if I used any programmers, which, I did not/have not/will not. The service manager said that was very unusual.

Do you guys know if its normal to have a "blank" history? The engine did not throw any codes at all so I would assume it would be blank. Right?
There are a few unanswered questions, so far they have been great and haven't hassled me. Fingers crossed! Lol, I have no answers for them! I don't understand why this happened and I can see how this looks bad on paper.
They put in a claim request for a new engine under warranty. Apparently that needs to get approved first then they can ship the engine over and install it.
What a mess!

Engine is rev limited so I can't see why it over revved. I suppose if the ECM crapped out then maybe it had no control but then it wouldn't be feeding fuel to it either. Strange case for sure. Hopefully the cat that owned it before you didn't have a programmer on it without your knowledge. I can't see how that would matter or cause your problems anyhow.

The over rev can happen exactly as the op described. Truck driving the engine, rather than the other way around. The governing system is simply along for the ride at that point.

As far as the blank ecm, that is rather suspicious. Not unheard of, but odd. I know with cummins programming we can look deep into abuse history and so on, but I am not sure what Chrysler can see, if anything. I know they don't tend to see near as much as we do.

Even when no codes are present, the ecm stores a running history of the engine's life. Perhaps something went haywire, internal to the ecm?

Again, keep us posted.

In the old fuel governed engines that would be correct. However the electronic engines are counting on a sensor for revs and that simply can't be taken out of the equation unless the ECM craps out and loses sensor input or rationale. The "blank" ECM could be the common denominator here albeit strange.

Staarma, if the truck weight is pushing the engine mechanically through the drive line, it can and will over rev, electronic or not. In this case brute force wins every time.

I have seen electronically governed pushrod engines bend pushrods repeatedly due to over rev conditions. Took us a while to figure it out,and what was happening. As it turned out, these trucks were coming in to a load/unload point on a steep decline, and the weight would end up pushing them too hard. The drivers weren't paying attention, and chaos would result. We probably went through 5 or 6 sets of push tubes before one of us was there to actually witness what was going on.

It was a simple case of brute force vs electrons screaming "No don't do that". Brute force wins every time.

If the engine did over-rev it would set a code. I had to change engine because of that. But failure was turbo seal and engine ingested all the crankcase oil and ran away. Have they checked the intercooler for oil? if filled with oil that is what happen. Bad luck