MT6bt,
You've had good luck too, i see. Mine is only @ 146K mi. My neighbor across the lane from us was so impressed with ours, he traded his much newer F-250 4x4 for a used '01 Dodge 2500 like ours except with the auto trans. It looks sharp and runs great, especially considering the mileage on the truck/engine. Three-hundred seventy eight thousand miles. Yes, 378K mi. I'm sure there are 12v's out there with even more miles piled up, but you won't see Ford and Chevy diesel truck owners holding up their hands. I bought the CTD because it had the best chance of outliving me. So far, so good.
From a Dodge representative I got this info about people ordering autos vs. ordering manuals. This was back in 2001. He said the ratio was roughly 100:1. One out of a hundred ordered manuals. I was one of those. Right now, Dodge is the only truck mfgr. of the big 3 that you can order a manual trans. Ford and Chevy have dropped out of the manual business. Why? The newest automatics are SO superior to the ones of even a decade ago that they are just waiting for us stick-shift, old-timers to die off, since the new crop of kids can't drive a manual anyway.
I can add this observation re:diesel engines in general. The farther you get away from stock; the more you 'hot-rod' the engine, the more woes you will have with the drive train. The reason i jumped in '01 to a Dodge is because of the drivetrain; front to back;top to bottom. The engine has enough power, but not too much for the rest of the drivetrain. The NV5600, six-speed manual is encased in cast iron. No aluminum/flexy, bearing eating case need apply. The downside is it weighs 360 pounds/dry. A total boat anchor.
NV5600 Ratios: from low to high: 5.63/3.38/2.04/1.39/1.00/0.73/5.63R
NV4500 Ratios: from low to high: 5.61/3.04/1.67/1.00/0.73/5.61R aluminum case. Notice the big hole between 2nd and 3rd. Some woes with the 5th end gear nut coming loose. Somewhere along the line they reverse threaded the shaft and that fixed it. It's still not built to go behind a hot-rodded engine.
The transfer case: it was the first year they put an NV241HD t-case in there. What's the big deal? The NV241, non-HD has the narrow chain for normal off-road use, but the HD model has a very wide chain to mitigate the effects of shock loading while snow plowing. The rear output bearing is the same, so they are rated the same because of that weak point. That's why I ordered the snow-plow prep package. It was like $25 more for the HD t-case. This was the first year they put a true 35 spline, FF, 1.53" axle diam. Dana 80 in there. Previously, only the V10 had the 35 spline shafts.The Dana 80 has a 13,500 pound max load rating. Quite a bit higher than the Dana 70's that came with the 12v. Previously, only the V10 had the 35 spline shafts. My 2500 came with a Camper Package, which included upper secondaries (or overloads) just like the 3500 duallie. In fact is was the first time Dodge did a 2500 with a 3500 suspension making it a defacto SRW one ton. Virtually everything above was the first year they did these upgrades, and that's the reason i jumped for a 2001.5 CTD. What's the .5 you ask? One major change around mid-year was addition of disc brakes, to the rear. The best manual trans that Dodge puts behind the CTD is the German/Mercedes Benz G-56, 6 speed transmission with a stump-puller low gear. The ratios: 6.29/3.48/2.10/1.38/1.00/0.79/5.74R
That's enough,
regards, as always, jefe
). Probably the nicest DRIVING Cummins I ever drove was a 2000 with 24v and NV5600. I've since learned about lift pump issues, 53 blocks and the rarity/cost of parts to rebuild a NV5600. If it hadn't been so filthy and beat on, I probably would have bought it, and may have had to deal with some or all of these issues.