The 3.7 is junk.

We haven't had any issues with our 4 Rams with the 3.7 as far as burned valves go but 2 of them need head gaskets on the driver side (stumbles a bit and burns coolant in the mornings) and one of them has had a replacement motor.

Did you use the wedges to hold the timing chains when you pulled the cam off? If not you will need to pull the front cover to reset the tensioners.

Also, don't try and separate the tone wheel from the camshaft. IIRC that is a no-no.

The head bolts should be replaced when you pull the heads. Have the head checked for cracks. Also, use a leakdown tester on the drivers bank to make sure you don't have a leaky headgasket there. It will pressurize the cooling system.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Lol. A self proclaimed avid winter hater, living in Minnesota. I love it. I guess a winter or two in MN would be enough to make anyone hate it!

Thanks for the input. We're pulling the head tonight and we will see what we find. I'm not a big fan of anything with an aluminum head on it. They just seem to be too sensitive to getting warm.

We haven't taken the cam sprocket off the chain yet so we haven't slipped the timing, but I am sure we will have to do something to keep it from slipping on the intermediate gear. I'd rather not have to pull the harmonic balancer and timing cover if we can avoid it. Do you have a picture or something of what these wedges look like? Or a source where they can be bought?

And yes, I have heard not to separate the tone wheel from the camsaft sprocket too. I have a copy of the service manual for the engine, and it did specifically say not to take the tone wheel off the sprocket.

Also, the service manual says that the main head bolts can be reused as long as they're straight, but the 4 smaller (M8) bolts are to be replaced. Driver side seems good to go, but the passenger side is a different story.

I am surprised that the 3.7 was offered as an option in the Ram. Seems like it would really be undersized for that application. But at any rate, thanks for the input. I really do appreciate it.

 

Oh and another thing, if a pintle cap on the injector breaks you can order injectors from RockAuto for a reasonable price. Those are a 2002 and 2003 only injector for the 3.7 and are spendy everywhere else.

 

That's good to know. Thanks. I use Rock Auto a lot.

 

yeah the good old 1500 rams with the 3.7 haha. way underpowered. but yeah you need to pull the head, last one i saw had dropped a seat, sent the head out it was reworked with a new valve and a seat and leak tested and it was good to go, im a chrysler tech. get that thing off

 

Well, we didn't find anything like what I was hoping for tonight. I think the pictures speak for themselves.







Head is shot. So is the #2 piston. Cylinder is scored lightly where the piston is beat up. Not sure what the plan is going to be from here out. It looks like it dropped the valve seat and the bozo driving it just kept right on truckin'. There is no trace whatsoever of any portion of the valve seat. Anybody have a spare 3.7 they're giving away? LOL.

 

Put a HEMI in it

 

ouch rough stuff Nate! Man... how does something like that happen?!
and people dont know what to do when something is wrong or if something is wrong...
There was a friend of mine who had bad knocking and smoke coming from her car and she just thought it was 'something lose in the engine bay'

 

At this point I'm about ready to put a molitov cocktail in it!

Apparently in another striking feat of engineering prowess, these Chrysler 3.7 (and the 4.7L V-8 it is based upon) have a history of valvetrain troubles. I mean look at how little material there is in that all aluminum head between the valve seats. What did they think would happen if this thing got hot? My guess is that some moron overheated this engine and it lost the valve seat, then started hammering and the ID-10-tango kept on driving until this was the result.

I guess your friend was right in a way, there WAS something "loose" under the hood. Only way to fix that kind of stuff is to fix "the nut behind the steering wheel".

The thing that really bites about this whole thing is that my dad was sneaking around buying and working on this Jeep and was intending to give it as a Christmas present to my mom. Needless to say, that didn't pan out. I feel really bad for him because at this point he doesn't have the money to buy a new engine for it (JY engines are $1500-$2k). I guess he took a gamble and lost big. I'm not sure what he will decide to do at this point. I'm trying to keep an upbeat attitude about it, but either way we go, it looks like this is going to be a pretty expensive and drawn out project I'm afraid.

 

Alright so let me ask the obvious question. If we replace the head, piston, rings, etc and hone the cylinder but don't have it bored out, what are the chances that the thing will survive another 50k miles?

 

I would think it would go 50k.

You should be able to get a motor for under 1k.

 

That was my thought too but everything I have seen so far is north of $1500. For the age and mileage of the vehicle, I am tempted to just put a new head on it, a new piston and rings and put it back together to see what happens.

Lol, if we failed again and had to replace the motor, at least it sounds like there is a good market for the heads!

 

Are you looking at only the 2002 motors?

We replaced the motor in one of the 2002 Rams with a motor out of a 2006. You have to change the reluctor ring on the crankshaft and the one on the camshaft but other than that it works fine.

The head on my Ram had a catastrophic failure. Another guy was driving it and one of the rockers fell off and got lodged between things it shouldn't have and ripped the cam out of the cam mounts. lol

 

Yeah we were looking at just the 2002 motors since we had been told they were model year specific and didn't know what the difference was. That's good to know as well. Thanks for the info.

Seriously, what the heck? What the heck happens that makes the rockers fall off the valve springs? I hope some engineer at Chrysler lost his job over this junk. What a piece of crap design.

 

DIY - Off topic here, but just wanted to see if you got the PM I sent you a couple days ago? You had mentioned having trouble sending/receiving PM's here before.

Thanks.