Engine/Transmission (1994 - 1998) 227,000 miles, should this be a concern?

[Silver Bullet Ram]

Looking at a 12 valve engine to put in my truck. Has 227,000 miles and wants $2000 What are your guys thoughts?

 

[jgillott]

Is out of a running truck where you can see how it starts, check for blow by etc?

 

[champspa]

too much for a engine with that little life left , bought mine with 82k for 2500 . after all Cummins says 350k is the average life to overhaul

 

[Missouri Mule]

At 227,000 your at half of the engine life there are a lot of Cummins 12 valves that are over 500,000. ( If they are taken care of and treated right).



I believe the 350,000 mile mark is for med/heavy duty trucks (33,000 to 65,000 GVW) our Dodges should be able to go over that.



Depends on how good the engine is. Pull the valve cover off to see how clean(or dirty) the rockers are. ( I've seen gasser where they didn't cange the oil and the valve spring and rocker were full of sludge)

 

[GAmes]

At 227k the cylinder walls will still show the machining marks. Sounds like a good deal to me.

 

[Silver Bullet Ram]

I guess me next question will be how hard is to convert from a gasser to a diesel

 

[JTH]

The motor in my 96 has about 380K miles on it and the cylinders look like they were just honed (I know this because I'm in the process of changing the head gasket)



About the gas to diesel conversion... It depends on what you have, my truck was originally a V10 which has the same bellhousing pattern and I converted it to a 12 valve. If you have a 5. 2 or 5. 9 gas then you will need a trans out of a cummins/V10 also. The swap is not that bad, you'll need: complete motor, intercooler, radiator, wiring harness, gauge cluster (or you can just swap out the gas factory gas tach to one out of a diesel, which is what I did), mounts, all accessories, etc. As long as you have everything it's pretty straight forward. The hardest part for me was getting the DMV to make it smog exempt, but I don't think you have to even worry about smog where you're at...

 

[CumminsPower98]

The hone marks were still clearly visible at 262k when I did a head gasket on mine. See here: Picasa Web Albums - Mark - Truck Stuff I now have 402k and it runs perfectly. Of course there those with over a million miles. I personally know a guy who put over 900k on a '98 24 valve hot shot hauling. So yeah if taken care of or even some that are abused will go a long ways. Its just hard to know what you have no matter the miles when you don't know it's history so do the simple checks like the others are saying.

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

At 386k the hone marks were still visible but pretty much gone on my '96, and all gone on cylinder #6. But from what I understand the rings wear out faster than the cylinder walls. At 414,700 miles my 96's engine is showing its age and using a fair amount of oil.

 

[robbiesworld]

You will be fine with that many miles.

 

[RVPILOT]

miles

Over 900,000 thousand on my 12 valve, original injectors, never been apart except to replace gaskets. uses about 1 quart of oil between changes at 7,000 miles. it really depends on the care, something only the original owner knows. sounds like a good deal as recylers want a core. Stormy

 

[ParsonsDRW]

I have a motor with 104k

if your interested