Under The Hood - Engine Compartment - 4.7 Liter Magnum V-8 / 2000 Dakota

This page will cover information and images pertaining to my experiences and possibly yours concerning the engine compartment and maintenance you could perform to keep your Dodge Dakota Quad cab pickup in good shape.

For now I will be posting pictures of what I've found under my hood and the reasons why I went to take a look.

Hopefully, it will be at least a beginners reference manual, and a reminder when time passes of how neat & clean the engine compartment use to be.

In a few weeks you'll be able to click on sections of the image above to get a better view and information pertaining to individual components.

For now, there are a few images below to give you and idea of this pages mode of information.

If you haven't realized it by now, notice that in the above image that all the fluids that you'll have to periodically check and access have yellow caps or pull handles.

One of the first things you'll notice when you pop the hood of your Dodge Dakota is this embossed ram head, different, ain't it?

The second item you'll notice above and attached to the hood is the front grill assembly. At first look it appears to look at bit cheesy, it's plastic chrome and tubular structure similar in construction to that of economy grade lawn furniture. The only positives that come to mind are it makes the hood lighter and easier to open, aids in keeping manufacturing cost down (or is that profits up, I get confused sometimes) and if you every crunch the hood or the grill cracks, you'd think it would be inexpensive to replace.

Besides checking the oil weekly, my 1st needed trip under the hood was
to check the washer fluid level after the idiot light came on the console.
In the 1-1/2 months that I've owned this truck, I believe I've used the
wiper/wash a total of 3 times with a probable total cycle time of 9 sec..
Where did all the wiper fluid go?
Anyway, I was again about to experience another " Dodge, Different! " phenomena.

Having ignored the owners manual up to this time, I thought opening the hood and finding that white opaque square shaped container against the firewall would be a snap. Well it took 3 snaps to be exact. As you can see from the above photo the washer fluid tank/reservoir is actually part of a sectional fan shroud. It would appear that the tank was mounted in this proximity to the radiator to prevent freezing and keep the fluid warmer to aid in cleaning the windshield more effectively. Different!

Well that's it for this installment, more engine compartment info to come.

Check the front page for the last update date. I usually update once a week.

By the way, my name is Nick, you can email me by clicking this => Mail