Like the title says, I have been reading about this but have no idea what it is!

 

killer dowel pin and its really only a problem on 89-99 dodges

it is a dowel pin that is used to line the timing case cover up. It can work lose and cause major problems within a engine

http://www.hotroddiesel.ca/killer_dowel_pin.htm

 

Actually, it is a problem all the way through '02!

The revised cases were slow to hit in every market and I have fixed more than one KDP in every year model through late '02.

Dave

 

i have heard about it being up till 02 but i wasnt sure if that was correct or not. Now that you say that dave should i be worried about my 00 and get one of the kits to fix it?

 

You won't know until you check it unfortunately. I know guys that said they had 300K on it and if it was gonna fail it would have blah, blah, blah. Then I read about how they lost a case due to it.

Check it. It's cheap insurance. A $1 tab, a little locktite, a new seal and some UltraGrey RTV. If you have the newer case, you get a new front seal out of the deal, no harm done and total peace of mind.

Or you might be like the last one that I did and the pin literally fell out in my hand when I pointed to it to show the customer. He had 189K on the clock. It was an '01. You just do not know until you do it!

Dave

 

Sounds like good advice for ALL second gen owners regardless of the year. Myself and a friend need to make an event of this as both of our trucks need to be checked and I keep putting it off.

 

Thanks for the excellent reply! I'll make sure to check this out if I get a 2nd gen.

 

And I usually get a "there is no way that can happen after 2000" post, so I'll try to get a head start this time.



Dave

 

It happened to my 97. I kept putting it off since I thought the KDP only happened to high mileage trucks. Mine had less than 90,000 miles. I was wrong and there went my turbo fund. It's better to spend a little money now than it is to spend a lot of money later on.