Your opinions regarding the engine compartment.

[rmrc]

I posted this to Wcaldwell's post "New Ram is Sweet". I thought I'd make it a seperate post to get more responces from those of you who have had the opportunity to inspect the new Heavy duty's in person.



My question follows;





Is the engine compartment really that much tighter that doing your own servicing will be a real head ache?



From what I've seen, I really like the new design,,,, but that engine compartment with the Cummins shoved half way under the cowl with a more narrow width really turns me off!

 

[BCFAST]

With respect, I'm not sure why that'd be a consideration. It's new, with warranty should anything go wrong... ie: not your problem. If you wanna do oil and fuel filter changes yourself, I understand from other posts that the locations are easily accessible. There really isnt anything else to do to it that you'd need to get in there. Down the road, I'm sure folks like Piers will come up with bigger turbos that are properly matched to the new motor and within the physical constraints of the new compartment. As I understand common-rail engines from Europe, there's PLENTY left in the motors without even changing injectors! Personally, I'm not concerned in-the-least that the engine in backed up under the cowl, from a service perspective. It DOES bother me from 2 other points-of-view: (1)crash safety; I do not want that thing in my lap in a crash! I wonder about shear bolts in the engine mounts. (2) Noise... and I guess that really isnt a factor.

Brian

 

[kaffine krazed]

I didn't climb under one to see if the oil filter is accesabile from the bottom but it isn't from the top. The fuel filter might be a little harder to change they are useing the same style as the 01 but it doesn't look that bad to do. Injectors are going to be a fun install. There seems to be plenty of room on the passenger side of the diesels you might be able to put twin turbos on without much of a problem although they changed the exaust manifold some in how the turbo attaches. At least diesels don't have spark plugs the HEMI engine looks like you have to remove the brake booster to change the spark plugs I'm hoping they used platnuim plugs.

 

[Pit Bull]

Got to agree, the more complex these trucks get the less you can do to them yourself. Looks like you can change oil and filter with out a problem. I would not let this issue bother me if I liked the new trucks. Go for it

 

[kaffine krazed]

So is the oil filter easy to get to from the bottom? I really don't want to wait until tuesday to find out. Thanks.