Dodge Ram 1500 4X4 Major Problems?

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ladyfirefighterfd13

New member
We have a 1997 Dodge Ram 1500 4X4 with a 360 engine. The Water Pump went out on it and we had it change and he put the wrong bolt in it and broke the timing chain gear. We changed the timing chain and it crunk one time and now it spits and sputters. So we checked the compression and all of the cylinders were showing 120 pounds of pressure except for the 2nd cylinder which had 0 pressure. What is wrong it? Some says that it has warped the valves and one says that it is out of time?? What do you guys think??
 
if it has absolutely no compression you've more than likly got a bent valve that isn't steating properly.which requires pulling the head off and checking the valves. i'm going to assume it's a pushrod motor if it's in a 97 so pulling the head off shouldn't be as complicated as it would be on an overhead cam motor but it's still a pain. however if you did bend a valve you might be looking at some piston damage which is a major headache. but being off time shouldn't cause a complete loss of compression in a cylinder.
 
That clunk was a piston running into a valve which doesn't close anymore and that's why there's no compression in that cylinder. I don't buy that a bolt broke the timing chain gear. All the bolts go through their holes and none of them over the timing gear. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It may be just bad luck that the engine jumped timing which was a combination of high mileage and bad luck. I would expect higher compression than 120 psi.

When you set valve timing you put the crank on top dead center for cylinder number one. The crank also comes up top dead center for another cylinder since the cam rotates at half the crankshaft speed, therefore it is possible to have the valve timing 180 degrees off, set the distributor to what looks right, but have the engine eat itself when you try to start it.
 
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