Caution: Repairing Engines With Broken Valve Seats

I have a 2008 dodge hemi 3500 truck and I just had cylinder 1 drop a valve seat. I pulled the intake and head off. Next stop machine shop. My truck has only 60k. I payed 45g for my work truck. I’m a vet and I’m pissed

2005 magnum rt sucked valve Nummer 7 pistion cracked in half at 156000 that was a bad day. I put over size seats and guides. valve should never hit piston i broke a valve spring on new stroker motor at 8000, valve stayed and i was so relieved

i recently rebuilt the 3.7 in my in-law’s 2002 Liberty. a nephew overheated the engine and the head gasket let go. as a result, the passenger side head was “JUST” out. as i recall, it was just .004 beyond the acceptable limit when checked with a straight edge for warpage. i sent the head with cam and caps to a reputable shop to have the head rebuilt with all new valves. i reassembled the rebuilt engine (after same shop bored cylinders and sourced rebuild “kit” with new piston set) and the thing ran like a champ. my in-laws later informed me that the engine was making a ticking noise, from the right side. the right intermediate pipe with the cat on it was problematic, so i initially thought it could be the exhaust… but with only 100 miles on it, i had to invest in a borescope. i found that the rear cylinder had metal in it. from the valve seat coming apart. Ofcourse, the shop wants no part of it, and both myself AND THE SHOP knew before hand that the engine had been overheated… and also that we both knew/know about the valve seat issues on this engine model. So. Now, I once again have someone else’s vehicle parked in my yard waiting to get one or two new heads. I’m just hoping the cylinder wall hasn’t been jacked up by metal flopping around in there.

Alternately you can message me via facebook or at gnawty1@hotmail.com

2002 jeep liberty dropped # 2 valve seat and ruined engine prematurely.

Parked my 05 Grand Cherokee with 3.7. Ran flawless when parked. Fired it back up next morning for work and started clanking like a piece of junk. Mechanic assessed dropped valve seat. Valve blew a hole in my valve cover. 111,000 miles on it. The 1998 jeep we gave my son with the 5.2 has 245,000 miles on it and still going. My wife and I want our old jeep back.

I have a 4.7 Dodge, these engines are over-engineered for our day to day practical needs. The overhead cam trash looks like an attempt at engineering an indy engine for the street. What a total cracker jack prize, complete piece of junk, I feel like running straight to a trade in when I get this engine freshened up, mine left me with a $600.00 tow bill 170 miles from home. the 4.7 is un-necessarily over-engineered with the chain driven overhead cams for more moving parts to fail, but hey it’s their engine not mine. Powdered iron valve seats destine to deliver destruction and the first engine ever capable of destroying a valve cover when a floating rocker arm is kicked thru it’s side. I’m not a engineer but I could engineer a valve seat that would not fall out, ever see the u-joints that were held in place with injected plastic? use the same principle only with injected steel epoxy or aluminum and the seats are in the head to stay. This nation was founded under Common, natural law, never changing moral principals. Those days are gone, all for the o-mighty dollar, now here we are with Designed Obsolescence… When you buy a vehicle you’re purchasing a Carefully engineered Ticking Time Bomb right down to the life of rubber seals, Auto engineers have Destructive labs, they know exactly what their putting on the streets when a vehicle is sold. They have computer monitors all over the engine yet no bi-metal switch to sense abnormally high engine temperatures and kill 4 cylinders when over heating occurs. Sold my old truck with the 5.2, 318 @ 240,000 miles and two years later with 270,000 it’s still going strong. Wish Dodge would have kept the 318, now I’m told the 4.7 has been dropped. It’s without doubt… not for the same reason as the 5.2. I stated previously… Engineers have highly advanced destructive laboratory’s and they know exactly what their selling and about when and what will fail at a given mileage Drop a seat M/F’er!!!

have a 06 3500 and a 04 2500 both 5.7 hemi motors with almost 135xxx on each. valve train is wiped out on 04 and 3 collapsed lifters. heads are fine tho. no problems as of yet. but gonna send the suckers in for new seats and springs just so I don’t get burned later. anybody else in my position……spend the money now, it will save you a bunch later. too many horror stories. really do like the motor tho. just has a horseshit top end.

I have an 06 dodge Daytona with the 5.7 hemi only 90 thousand miles on it, was running fine wife shut off car and came back out later and would not start a friend came out to see if he could help finally got it started and made a noise like metal on metal found out I have dropped seat valve. I like the car but last year I just put three new computers in it that was bad now this shi## looks like a money pit

Mine was a 2002 dodge ram 1500 vin N 4.7 at 142,049 miles filled up at a gas station and bam everyone hit the ground and whole back of intake blew off with a fireball. Valve seat on #4 dropped into many pieces damaging head and cylinder wall plus piston demolished. Was gonna put engine back together without taking off other head, glad i took other head off. It sucked 3 pieces through the intak over to the other side embedding them into #3 piston. I got it all rebuilt and glad the intake blew up because if i would have resued it it would have been chaos due to the hot pieces of valve seat 2 more embedded themselfs into the intake like glue melted but if i hit a bump just right bam there goes 3600 engine again! Do not resue intake with this catastrophic failure you dont know what is in that intake! Got 1900 miles on it now with fingers crossed and rebuilt heads no problems. I have many pics if i could post to help someone wish i could upload for you to see. Thanks Vance!

I have a 2006 Dodge Charger Hemi RT. 80,400 miles. Treat her like a princess. Oil changes every 3,000 miles, only used middle grade gas, never ran low on oil, never ran hot, never dogged her out. Love the car. Never any big issues other than oil changes, new tires, fluid changes, a few recalls, air bags, etc. I was running errands and stopped to get water, came back out and tried to crank my car and it would not crank and made clanking noises. Towed it to Dodge, they said engine knock. Wanted a 2nd opinion since they have bad rep in my town. Local mechanic said cylinder value needed to be replaced. After reading numerous Dodge forums it looks as though this happens alot. And a car that is well taken car of, garage kept and treated better than gold should not be blowing a cylinder head at 80,400 miles by sitting in a parking lot and being cranked. It’s ridiculous. Something should be done about this. This is not fair to the loyal Dodge owners. WE should be reimbursed either with new motor, or reimbursed with money we have spent to try and fix this huge problem that Dodge is saying sorry, nothing they can do. It’s faulty parts or put together incorrectly. I was planning on keeping this car another 30,000 plus miles or so then buy a new Dodge. But NOT NOW. NOT after this huge let down. We also have 3 Dodge Ram 1500 Trucks with Hemi engines, I hope and pray this same thing doesn’t happen to them. By the way, they told me at the Dodge Service Dept., that my engine would cost 9,180.00. When the car was running well, it was only worth 7,500 or so. I love my car. And this happens and not my fault. Makes me ill. So unfair, it sucks. As well as I have taken care of it, it should have lasted me for years. It still looks great, just the engine is totally blown, while parked when tried to crank it. So WRONG. Should have been a paid recall by Dodge Dealerships. Should have honored it. Or REFUND for all the thousands of Dodge owners who have put out good money to replace or rebuild engine.

heat soak seems to be the issue with the dropped valve seats. by driving your car and then just stopping the motor the heat in the exhaust gets really hot and can cause this. let your engine idle for 30-60 secs for your quick stops, let the heat transfer via the cooling systems. also, i run premium gas in my hemi to avoid any pre detonation problems which can damage heads and generate more heat. a knock sensor only adjusts it after the knocking aka pre detonation happens and the damage is done. read up on it if you don’t believe me. i’m at 68500 on my r/t magnum and no problems so far. i run mobile 1 full synthetic oil and get the coolant changed every 3 years regardless of the mileage. i don’t like a/c so i rarely have mine on and that adds to engine heat as well. i decarbonized the engine at 50k. i always idle my engine prior to shutting it off to help avoid heat soaking the engine.

the PROBLEM IS the heads are aluminum the seats are steel, expansion rate is different, Iron heads are best and more durable like the Jeep 4.0 never had this problem, I have one a 96 Cherokee 422k still running fine passing emissions, leaks a little oil from a rear seal but I’m cool with that. Have a 5.9 RAM 160k doing good because it has IRON heads.

06 hemi charger,dead cyl.smoke,nice car,gonna drop a 360, in,fix it rite,lol