96 2500 Diesel Ram. Upon accelerating up to highway speed the truck began to shake and loose power. Then blue exhause from the pipe. Suddenly a loud thumping noise in the air intake arrived. Truck will just barely idle, hitting on about 4-5 cylinders. Great loss of power. What do you think happened? Great loss of money?? Thanks, Ken

 

Sounds like the turbo may have grenaded and the engine ate some pieces. Either that or it swallowed an intake valve. Have you pulled the intake hose off and looked inside yet? Is it continuing to make loud noises out the intake, or was that temporary? I think you hit the nail on the head there, this will be expensive.

 

Pull the valve covers and check for broken rocker arms, excessive valve lash, etc. If you see a valve with lots of lash, look for a broken valve spring or bent pushrod.
The first step may be to disable the shutoff solenoid, and crank the engine with the starter. It is easy to hear a cylinder with bad compression this way.

 

Yeah, pull the intake hose off the turbo, look for broken, chipped fins. If there isn't any obvious damage, try to spin the blades. If that feels normal, then check your valves. A blown turbo will be easier to deal with than a damaged head/valvetrain.

 

You have a definite valve train problem. Best to start with pulling the valve covers off and check rocker movemant to make sure they are all the same, if they are then check for broken springs, if all looks ok then pull the rocker arms to see if a valve stem sticks way up. Also check the push rods for being bent. Good luck.

 

You could also loosen each injector line-one at a time- to help locate the weak cylinder.

 

Thanks for the help. Got the valve covers off and found a beaten and bent exhaust push rod on the #6 cylinder. Wouldn't you know it; the hardest one to get to. Thanks again .... Ken