97 Dodge 2500 diesel known problems?

KDP!!! Killer Dowel Pin. This is best fixed before it breaks. The prerepair procedure is easy. I didn't see if this was auto or stick? If auto, set a little money aside each month for a rebuild. If manual, do not bog the engine. The engine is a medium duty diesel. The 5 spd transmission will likely lose the 5th gear nut if used at low rpm/heavy weight.

Get the steering stabilizer box. This stops the steering box from flexing the frame. Get the 3k governor spring kit. It will feel like adding 30hp. The stock engine runs out of power near 2600rpms. The GSK kit will pull solid upto the redline. By now the soft rubber fuel lines should have been swapped for new ones. Swap the starter contacts for new 24v units. The starter will go along time. The contacts not as much.

Unless he plans to run extreme power, stay with the mechanical fuel pump. It's easy to repair or replace. Adding power to the 12v is also cheap and easy. It also gets expensive with the extras.

4bearhug wrote:
My son is looking for a older truck for work as has found a 97 Dodge 2500 w/ Cummins diesel that might be in his price range. I thought some of you might have some idea what likely repairs he would have or the owner has already done? This would give him some idea what he might be expecting down the road. Truck has 133k miles. Also if you have any idea of estimated costs of potential repairs, please share that as well.

Thanks for your assistance. I know there are quite a few Ram loyalists on here.

Plastics tend to get very brittle in the interior, so they'll crack or disintegrate without much effort. If it's an automatic, the autos were known to have some issues in stock form. Namely, if you idled for long periods of time with the transmission in "Park", the tranny would burn up because it didn't circulate transmission fluid in park, only in neutral and the other drive gears. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Probably a good idea to ask if it had a new transmission.