Does anybody know any kind of problems with freeze plugs blowing out of the newer Common Rail trucks? My buddy is at a loss for why this could've happened and can't figure out why it did it. He also can't figure out how to put the new one back in. He can't reach it with his tools. He said he was going to get it started and use a socket and hammer to get it the rest of the way in. The dealer told him it would cost $562 for them to do it. He took his head off thinking it would make it easier and jacked the front of the motor to get a better angle at it. It's on the very back of the block next to the firewall. He's running out of ideas b/c he still can't reach it and he's afraid he's going to have to pull the motor to fix a $7 dollar freeze plug. By the way, truck is no longer under warranty. Any suggestions? thanks. RD

 

I can't give you a good way to get the freeze plug in, but I can give you a back yard fix for it that would be permanent. The engines with an air compressor have a cast housing on the back that uses that port to supply water to the air compressor. He can go to Cummins, get the gasket for it, make up a steel plate with the mounting holes and bolt it on. My truck has the casting on it which is an inch or so thick, there is plenty of room for the plate. It will cover the freeze plug hole.

Now I am talking about the 24 valve but I am assuming that the back of the block is the same. A visit to cummins parts will give you the firm information.

The only other way without pulling the engine would be to unbolt the cab mounts and raise the front of the cab. I have not done this but other threads have talked about doing that for other repairs.

 

They used to make a neopreme freeze plug that simply pushed into the hole and then tightened a nut up on the freeze plug to seal. Used a form of compression / expansion to seal up. Auto parts should have.

 

Common rail injection hasn't been out that long.

Why would this not be covered under warranty?

 

Is he over 100K?

 

Does my memory fail me or wasn't there a known factory defect in some of the new CR engines that had leaking freeze plugs? Cummins had a rather drastic Go/NoGo test for checking for leaking plugs. At the dealer, with a cold engine, started and FLOORED for x amount of minutes to heat the block quickly.
I believe if it failed, a whole new engine was prescribed by Cummins rather than try to fix the problems in vehicle.. (bad machining from factory)
Hopefully it is still covered. Good luck.

K.

 

Having been down this road myself:

Niether Dodge or Cummins have any special tools/procedures to deal with these plugs. They just remove whatever's necessary to get to it, up to and including the engine (the head in my case since my leaking plug was in the back of the head). Would've been at the Dodge dealer for over a week and Cummins wanted a whole day's labor to do the job.

If his plug completely blew out he's lucky. Removing my leaking plug was 90% or the job.

 

Would it be out of the question to take out the cab mounting bolts and jack the cab up a bit to try to get more room? Just a thought...

 

Oops, I just realized that I pretty much duplicated HiD's post But, I was schmoozing around on advance auto parts web site and they have the rubber expansion plugs. They aren't more than a couple of dollars.

 

I had the same problem. Mine blew out in the middle of the drag strip. I tried one of the expandable plug and it worked for a bit but stranded me on the way to the shop where I could use a lift. The problem is the cylinder casting is right behind where the freeze plug is so it cant be pushed in far enough to get a good bite. I had to remove my tranny to get to the plug and put it in properly. I cleaned it good with alcohol and used bearing retainer to make it a permanent fix. There are 4 other plugs so I didn't worry about gluing in the one.

 

With an older rig,i would cut a hole through the firewall with a hole saw to get access,then use a rubber plug to fill the hole,but would hate to do it with a new rig.