Sorry, I got cut off in the middle of my last post. Anyway, when the oil gauge fluctuates it's because the sludge is blocking the oil drainback holes in the engine so the oil pump pumps enough oil out of the oil pan to uncover the oil pump pickup and get air instead of oil the pump stops pumping oil and the pressure drops. Meanwhile the oil that has been pumped to the top of the engine cannot drain back down to the oil pan / pump fast enough to keep the oil pan full and the oil pump pickup covered due to the sludge blocking the drainback holes. If you want improvement there are a number of things you can do to help prevent this from happening again. The engine block and cylinder heads will have some casting flashing around the oil drainback holes, this can be removed with a small grinder opening up the drainback holes and giving the oil a larger hole to drain thru, thus making it harder to clog with sludge. You can also paint the inside of the engine in the oil galley under the intake manifold and the cylinder heads under the valve cover with a teflon based high temp. paint or electric motor armature paint. This will give all the surfaces the oil must drain off of a smoother / slick surface that aids in oil drainback and is harder for sludge to stick to or form on. If a deep sump oil pan / pickup tube is available for your vehicle this will help too. This gives your engine a larger oil reserve and prevents the oil pan from emptying as quickly and gives the oil more time to drain back, therefore eliminating the oil pump from running low and the oil gauge from fluctuating / dropping to 0. A company called Moroso that makes racing parts makes a product called an "accusump" this is a cylinder that mounts remotely under the hood of your vehicle and stores oil. It is available in four models, 1 1/2 quart, and 3 quart, in both gravity feed and pressurized. This product stores oil when your engine is started / running and upon losing oil pressure it feeds the stored oil into the engine preventing major damage. This will allow you time to get to the side of the road or shut the engine down while still being properly oiled saving you from major damage. These are very affordable and well worth it. There are also electric switches that are easily connected to the oiling system and the ignition system, it shuts off the engine in the event oil pressure drops below about 5-7 psi. The last thing I would recommend is to use good quality synthetic oil and use an additive such as Lucas oil or Dura-Lube. You can also pull one of the valve covers off every 50,000 miles or so and this will give a good indication of what the sludge situation is in the rest of the engine, as this is the hottest part of the engine and sludge will generally form there first. By the way the same problems exist with the 5.9 /360 as they are all designed the same.

I NEVER take any of my vehicles to a dealer. Most of the time the mechanics these days don't know what there doing, they simply replace items till they get it right if that ever happens. Even when they do know what is wrong they simply replace the failed part with an exact replacement. Often this is enough to get by, but sometimes such as with the oiling problems of the dodge 5.2/5.9 when there is a known engineering problem they are not going to have a solution. I used to be a mechanic at a GM dealer for many years as well as doing my own work on the side , I am also into drag racing . While working for the dealer I had to use their parts, and do it their way, on my own I can use the best parts as well as any little tricks I may know.

I recently had the 5.2 engine in my dodge ram fail. As many have reported it started with the oil press. gauge fluctuating wildly, sometimes dropping to 0 and tapping loudly. If I would pull over and shut then engine off for a minute or so then restart it, it would run fine again for a little while then begin to act up again. I parked it and when I was away on a trip I told my sig. other not to drive it unless she had to. Well she drove, it blew and the fun began. It destroyed two rods, two pistons and put three holes in the block. When I disassembled it I found massive amounts of sludge everywhere, I have never seen this much sludge in any engine or machinery. There was about 1/2 inch or more caked on everything. I obtained an engine in rebuildable condition from a wrecked truck. I then ordered the parts to rebuild it and took the engine parts to a machine shop to have them prepared for a rebuild. If you want better results from the new engine you have to identify the weakness of the original, and understand what caused the problems that led to the failure. When the pressure gauge begins to fluctuate/drop it is because of the sludge blocking the oil drainback holes in the engine block.

Well first let me say i have never owned a dodge in the past and bought this one used in 2007 with a little over 120k miles. Was shown the maintenance reports and all checked out on the Carfax report ( thought i did my homework ). I changed the oil every 3k-3500 miles on a regular basis after I took ownership of the truck, knowing I had to take care of a $9000 vehicle. Around 4 months ago I was taking my girlfriend to the hospital for surgery when the oil pressure light came on and the oil gauge went all the way down to 0. I pulled over and popped the hood. I checked the oil level and it looked good on the dip stick, didn't look real bad in color and didn't feel gritty. Started the truck again and the oil pressure was around 1/2 way up but fluctuating . Limped the truck back home and parked it and took her to the hospital in the second vehicle.

After I returned home I called a friend of mine that is a mechanic. He came over and towed the truck to his place to give it a once over. After about a week later he called me and informed me that I needed to come over to take a look at what he had found. When I went over to his place he had torn the motor down and what I saw was about 3/4-1 inch of sludge on the entire inside of the motor. I was appalled. We replaced the heads,oil pump,screen,timing chain,and all gaskets all to a tune of around $2000 ( being a real good friend didn't charge any labor ). After reading all the posts here I wish I had never done it because my truck has a lot more miles than most here and now I'm out 9k for the truck and another 2k in parts/labor only to see that most have had to replace a motor after all they have done to fix the issues. There has to be something that can be done about this " known " issue. If they do not do anything to rectify this, I will run this one into the ground and then never buy another Mopar product again!!!