What was the actual purpose of the dowel pin? If all the bolts are in the actual housing, then why couldn't you just take the pin all the way out and not have to worry about it anymore? Does it keep the housing from rotating or something?

 

IMHO the dowl pin ia a close tolerance hole and will keep te housing in posistion better, the bolt holes have slop and will let the hosing move if a little lose.

Floyd

 

Also to hold it in place during assembly .
It is also common that some / many of the bolts come lose over time at this point , its important to have the dowel pins " with the tight fit to keep the cover from moving .
I the world of mechanics , this very common that the vast majority of parts have dowel pins for the same reason , heads to blocks , trans to eng , ect.

 

Even if the dowel pin(s) didn't have an important purpose I highly doubt you could pull one out unless it was hours away from falling out on it's own.
The pin is very hard so it's hard to get a grip on it with pliers even if half of it was protruding. It's even hard to pound one back in.

 

Ok, gotcha. I kinda figured it had something to do with keeping the housing in place. Thanks

 

All I know about it is it cost me 500 bucks + a weekend of wrenching. Tab it before it falls out,wish i had. Oh and ya, 80% of the bolts were loose.

 

Is there any way to check if this has been done without pulling it apart?

Was this a recall?

I suppose I could pressure wash and degrease and look for non OEM sealant or something.

Any ideas?

 

Is there any way to check if this has been done without pulling it apart?
NO

Was this a recall?
NO

Any ideas?
Only way to tell if it's been done is to remove the cover. Unless the previous owner belonged to a website such as this one you can pretty much bet that it hasn't been done.

 

Then I will conclude that it has not been done.

It wasn't owned by a guy who modified much.

 

I searched and found tons of conflicting info....what year trucks need the KDP "fixed"

 

There is a method where you drill the timing cover , thread it and put a bolt in to hold the pin inplace. You would be able to see that. When the pin fell out i heard a sound similar to a ball bearing being shook around in a coffee can when I started the motor ( dowel pin plaing plinko with my timing gears). I lucked out and it did not shear the cam gear off like Ive read can happen causing valve to piston clearance issues. I got out looked and didnt see anything. Drove up to the filling station to fill up. There I noticed a puddle oil under my front end and found out I had a problem. If you fix it before it falls out you dont have to spend i think 435$ or so on a new timing cover and pull the cam (big pita, do a search). I think I read that when they came out with the first year of 24 valve they used up the last remaining TCs from the 12v motors so some of those could be affected. Well, I think ive scared someone enuf

 

12v and 24v do not share cases, as that would have made my conversion much easier. But the 24v case could be susceptible, as not all of them will retain the dowl. Mine didn't, but the dowl was still deep in the block. New 12v covers are necked down, so there is no way for the dowel to come out. Not sure if that was ever original in the dodge's though. My 98 12v didn't have the new cover on it. So just assume yours is the old style and needs to be done. Not that bad, just pull the fan and fan shroud, the cover and have a peek. Or, if you have access to a boroscope, you could look in though the oil fill hole in the cover, might be able to see it.

 

Engine years that I know from first hand experience have had a dowel pin failure are '94 - '99.
Yes, it does happen to early 24 valves.
Some people tab the pin on first generation engines but I've never heard of a failure.

Cummins claims the actual problem stems from a batch of pins that were less than a thousandth of an inch smaller in diameter than spec.