I was probably like a lot of you when we first started hearing about grid heater bolt failures on the 6.7 Cummins. I assumed that it was just another overblown issue that affected a few trucks and was inflated by a bunch of nerds on internet forums and companies looking to make money. I was wrong, but I was also lucky.
I was going through my 220,000 mile 2014 6.7 and decided to perform the “jiggle test” to see if I had bolt problems. I was shocked when my grid heater connector didn’t feel like it was attached to anything. Needless to say, I pulled the intake horn off and not only was the bolt that everyone says will fail nearly melted through, but the other side that people all say doesn’t fail had nearly backed itself out.
At this point, I’m a believer that the grid heater bolt problem is real, but rather than spend a bunch of money on a new aftermarket air horn, I figured I’d save a few bucks and try the BD Diesel Killer Grid Heater kit. It looked well made and it was hard to argue with the price. I installed it according to the instructions and took the time to clean all the crud off of the heater itself, buttoned up the engine and went on my way.
Fast forward 18 months and 48,000 miles and I thought that while I had the truck down for maintenance, I’d check the grid heater again, given how close I’d come to disaster previously.
I had good news and bad news once I got it open. The good news is that the “common failure point,” (the bolt that holds the vertical part of the bus bar to the plate), was rock solid. The bad news is the nut had backed off the screw on the bottom and bad started melting. Apparently the nylon insert in the nut melted, allowing the nut to back off two or three threads. It was ugly. Now, I know BD has since revised the kit (third revision?) eliminating the nut and screwing right into the bus bar. But I’m done with this design.
This is the big problem with the BD Diesel kit. It is like a band-aid fix for a problem that can kill your engine and that’s not good enough – especially for the $200 they charge for their kit. The only solution that I’m willing to accept to this problem now is removing the grid heater entirely. This is what Ram did on the 2025 6.7, so they must know something.
This time, I bit the bullet and bought a Banks Monster Ram. I opted for the black one so it’s low key. This system ditches the grid heater entirely without sacrificing cold start ability. It’s not the cheapest (it’s $748 now on Banks’ site, but it was more when I bought mine), but the quality of the casting and machine work looks great.
I was a little nervous about the Monster Ram after listening to people on forums (I know, I know) talking about having some issues with the Banks-supplied fuel line, but the one that shipped with my kit looked OE quality and I’ve had no issues with it in the 24,000 miles since swapping over.
The moral of the story? When it comes to a potential failure that could kill the engine in the truck you depend on, fix it right the first time, even if it costs a little more because it’s still going to be cheaper than having to do that job twice like I did.