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And this right here is your heater grid bolt or nut that rots off and drops into your engine. Well, we’re back at my good friend Ryan’s shop with his very nice looking 2023 Ram 2500 with the 6.7 L Cumins baby. and uh we get the joy of working out of this very nice looking Snap-On toolbox. He’s a fellow diesel mechanic and as you guys know, if you want to be a good mechanic, you got to get a Snap-on box.
We were lucky enough for Banks to send me one of their Monster Ram air intakes. This puppy right here, nice looking piece of equipment, and we will be installing that onto this truck today. We’ll dive a little bit deeper into the potential benefits of having something like this on your truck. But first, I do want to talk about what the actual grid heater bolt issue is and whether or not you guys should be worried. This issue stems from a bolt or a nut on the backside of the heater grid.
And that nut can deteriorate and fall off, fall into your intake and then fall into your engine, usually taking out the number six cylinder.
So, it can be a little bit problematic. So, we’re looking at 1 2 3 4 5 six. So, as you can see, all the damage on the top of this piston. Um, there’s actually embedded metal in this piston.
You can see how the magnet attaches to it. Um, wow. So, that bolt, um, we did not find the whole bolt. Um, some of it was was mashed into the piston. Um, the other pieces actually went into the turbo and we took a bore scope and looked in there and it actually it tore up the the turbine wheel on the turbo as well.
Now, a heater grid, what it does is it essentially heats the air coming into the engine and helps this engine start in colder weather, colder climates. I personally actually like a heater grid over glow plugs. I think it’s a better solution, but there is some debate on that. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, the brand new 2025 Cummins, they have actually switched to a glow plug setup. So, this issue no longer pertains to them and moving forward it will not as well, which is a good thing.
But the 2007 all the way up to 2024 6.7 L Cumins engines could potentially have a grid heater bolt fall off and ruin an engine. Now, Banks claims the reason why this issue isn’t as well or as reported as it should be is because a lot of these engine failures happen after warranty and are not reported.
So, in climates where I live in Canada, most likely this heater grid is probably used daily four to five months of the year and that could increase the likelihood of this heater grid bolt deteriorating off and falling into your engine. However, Banks claims that it’s not really dependent on climate or cold weather.
In fact, there have been a number of reports of southern US trucks that have had this issue and realistically should not have used their heater grid at all any time of the year.
Banks claims that this issue stems from a metallurgy problem. So, your heater grid is located right here on the intake. And we will rip this all apart and we’ll we’ll give you some better visuals as we install that Banks Mos Ram air intake. But if you want to know or potentially know if your heater grid bolt is starting to fail, there are a couple things you can do.
So right here, that is the solenoid that goes to your um heater grid there. And the bolt is actually on the back side of this solenoid. So what you can do is you can just sort of wiggle it now. So you guys can hopefully see that that is not moving.
It’s nice and solid, and that’s what you want.
You have the factory intake elbow removed, and we can get a good look at the post. Go ahead and give it another wiggle test. Let’s get Oh my. This is horrible. Bolt looks like it’s intact, but Oh.
Oh. Oh. If that solenoid was loose, most likely means that you got problems and there is deterioration on that bolt. And I would highly recommend digging into this intake and figuring out how bad it is before that bolt drops off. Another key thing is if you have heater grid circuit codes, it’s a very good telltale sign that there is some deterioration with this heater grid bolt and it’s only a matter of time.
So those are two things that you certainly can look at, but it’s not a certainty if you don’t have any of those symptoms that your heater grid bolt is not going to be an issue. We’ll get on the tools. We’ll dig in here and hopefully give you guys some some better visuals.
I got my uh my safety sandals with me today. A real mechanic that I am or am not.
Guess we’ll find out. All this love that comes and go. Well, we got our intake elbow off. This right here, this is your heater grid. So, these little fins will get really hot and they’ll help heat the intake air before it goes into your engine.
Now, I do want to point out cuz I’ve beenounding this on modern diesels is uh look at all this carbon in here, all this soot.
And that’s because of your EGR and it just puts carbon all back through your engine, through your intake obviously. And that’s why our heater grid looks like a big charcoal mess up here. So, we will be taking this out. And the actual stud that breaks, you guys can see it better now, is that right there.
So, if that is loose, you probably have a problem. Another thing I want to point out now that we have our our uh intake elbow off the truck is look how much restriction is in this in comparison to the banks. The banks is wide open. Let’s get these side by side. like the actual outside I’m going to call it diameter here is the same obviously but you can see internally there’s there’s just not as much air flow.
Additionally, Banks points out that their intake allows air to flow into the intake much more gently where this stock you can see we basically have like a 90° right before she goes in through the uh the heater grid there.
So, this Banks Monster Ram air intake will obviously eliminate the heater grid bolt issue, but it’s also going to give you a ton more air flow. I think they say about 88% more air flow. It’s going to help with throttle response, firstly, a little bit more power delivery, as well as potentially some fuel economy savings just with simply adding more air flow. Now, if you do end up putting a tune on your 6.7 L Cumins, this is where this maximum air flow gets really taken advantage of and you’re not going to be limited or restricted by the stock air intake because, well, an internal combustion engine is sort of just like a big air pump. The more air you can shove into it and shove out of it, the more power you’re going to make. Kind of like the best of both worlds.
You get to eliminate the heater grid issue and you get to open up that engine and potentially make some more power. Anyways, let’s continue disassembly.
Next up is this wiring harness and we got to take off some fuel lines. I think we can keep that fuel rail in there. I am genuinely interested to see if we have any corrosion whatsoever on this uh this drip bolt. All this love that comes and goes hide and seek with guns in the streets. We used to wrestled the old heater grid out of there and I’ll have to clean up inside there.
But uh yeah, let me show you what is happening. Okay. So, this right here is the heater grid. So, this is the backside. So, this is what we were seeing on top of the engine.
That’s where I was saying there’s all kinds of EGR crap on there. So, this is the backside. This right here, that is your heater grid bolt. To me, that’s that’s not looking too bad, but there is a little bit of corrosion. You can start to see there.
Now that I’m actually really looking at this, um it looks like it’s just soot on there. It doesn’t look like there’s much corrosion at all. I believe this engine has about I think 70,000 km or so. So, she’s not new. But, um yeah, this bolt looks pretty solid.
I was secretly hoping this thing was about to fall off, but uh it looks it looks pretty decent. And so, that solenoid we shook at the beginning of the video is literally hooked right onto that. And so current comes flows through here and it heats up these fins and that’s what your heater grid is and it helps the engine to start in the winter. Um but yeah, so we will not be putting this heater grid back on and instead Banks has supplied us with this.
And once again, you can see we’re going to have so much more air flow coming into our engine.
Um this wasn’t doesn’t look too too restrictive, but you could imagine as soot builds up on here, it will slowly close it off. And I have seen on the commercial side of things, the commercial ISB or the 67 Cummins, these fins, they can get so much soot in here and it almost looks like it’s clogging off the intake, which will dramatically reduce performance. You can even see on here like it’s just so much more wide open. Now, I was chatting with Banks and they did mention that there is a possible secondary bolt that could also fall into your intake and this clip shows it perfectly.
And this one here, you can see it’s perfectly solid.
Nothing is loose. It’s all intact. But then you come down to this end and this bolt is ready to fall out. And you look on the other on the inside, you can see it’s all melted. And you can see there’s actually showing threads.
So, it’s this thing was not very long away from falling into his motor and taking out his engine.
Well, with a little movie magic, we got her all nice and installed, and it’s time to fire this old girl up. Now, since we did drain the fuel rail, it might take a little bit. She might chug over a little, but uh she should fire pretty good, and maybe we’ll even take it for a little voyage. Oh yeah, there is a little bit better throttle response.
I think she works pretty good, boys. Give her a little punch here. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Well, there you go.
Out with the old, in with the new. She runs. We don’t have any leaks. So, seems like I did a good job at least. Hopefully that helps you guys understand the grid heater bolt issue with the 6.
7 L Cumins from 2007 to 2024. And if you are looking for a very nice upgrade that can help to mitigate this problem and give you guys some better performance, look no further than the Banks Monster Ram air intake.
