Hey Scotty
I have a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 5.9l magnum. I have owned it for a year now and with the odometer ready 131,xxx miles I lost compression in cylinder 6. A wet test said it was the piston rings so I got new rings, gaskets and bolts, cleaned everything up and replaced old with new; also have proper torque. I put everything back together, filled the oil and cooling system and got all the air out of the system, or so I thought. I took it down the road and back and it was fine. Tried to take it to work and it built enough pressure to blow the lower radiator hose off the water pump. I lost all the coolant but was able to limp it back home. The temperature gauge nearly touched red line a few times.
Back home I realized I had the radiator cap on too tight. Instead of stopping at the stop notch I put the cap on it. I'm guessing that's where the pressure came from. Now it won't go more than five minutes down the road without trying to overheat again. Once the gauge starts spiking the coolant goes into the overflow tank which of course once it's full it spits the rest out.
I've tried flushing the system with a garden hose and sucking and blow every hole related to the cooling with a shop vacuum but nothing has come out that would clog it. Water and air seem to pass through freely. I tried another radiator cap and it's not the thermostat or water pump. Aside from blown head gasket, not sure what's left to check. Thanks in advance. Sorry for the long post.
I hate to say, but you likely have a blown head gasket. Use the kit to test it.
Is there any way to tell which one?
The kit can tell you if you have a blown head gasket or not.
Do you have any check engine light? That might tell you.
It came on and went back off. I already had the intake back off before posting on here.
Update???
No updates yet. I'm debating if I want to just pull the same head back off or put the whole thing back together to do the head gasket test.
A family member on my wife's side is actually rebuilding an engine for a much older dodge truck and his research said that the heads crack automatically from heat and wear and some cracked heads still work while others don't and it sounds like mine did not. A compression test showed 3 or 4 of the 8 cylinders at 90 something psi while the rest were 120. At this point, cracked heads make the most sense to me unfortunately. Thank you for the help.
I'm sorry for the outcome. Thanks for letting us know. Try to see if you can find a good engine from a junkyard, it is much cheaper than rebuilding the engine. If you found one, have them replace it.