Question for all you guys that have replaced your crankshaft position sensor.
Did you have any trouble removing the old sensor?
if so any tips?
Or is it pretty straight forward.
Ken

BTW its a 2001 3500 with the 8.1

Yea mine was a PITFA. I think I ended up going thru the top at back of motor with a gear wrench. Going in was alot easier for some reason. Do a search on here. There might be directions somewhere.

Its located on back of block near bellhousing on drivers side. It comes out towards the drivers fender at an angle.

See if theres a recall on your truck, mine was and let the dealership fix it for free. Alot of our 01's had the recall. Put your vin on this site on the check vin forum and it will tell you when they send your truck info if it qualifies.

Thanks for the info guys.

Yes my 02 was a real pain also. After I got the bolt out, I tied a a piece of high strength string to it. I then wrapped the string around a pry bar and put upward pressure on it as I twisted the sensor. This eventually got it out. The new one is a better design and went right in.

one more little tip. do not run the vehicle for a long while before you attemp the sensor switch, once the big block gets hot it holds the heat for hours and working on the hot engine is no fun at all.

I swapped it out over the weekend at all I can say is this was a serious PITA job to due.
Could not even touch it from the top so I did the entire job from under the truck. It took forever to get the screw out with a box end wrench and mostly by feel, But once I got it out I need to spray the base of the sensor with PB Blaster and let it soak in for an hour to get the old one out.
The new one slipped right in much nicer design.
FYI for anyone else doing this: I needed to remove one of the bellhousing bolts and a heat shield to get enough room for my hand to fit in there.
They are easy to remove and it made a huge differance in gaining access to the sensor, Once done I just re-installed.
Truck runs great!!!!
Thanks to all who replied.

The swap is fairly straight-forward if you stand the front end on jackstands and take off the driver front wheel, as well as plastic fairing to access from the side. Then remove the four driver side body bolts and jack the driver side body off the frame. You can get almost 5 inches before you start worrying about connections. That gives you a lot more room to get to the bolt for the crankshaft position sensor. Also, there is a bracket mounted to the bellhousing that supports the fuel line. Removing one nut loosens that bracket enough so you can get an air socket wrench in there. It's a lot easier than cranking it by hand. To use the air socket on the sensor bolt, you need a socket swivel adapter but it goes pretty smooth. Sensor was $45 at Kragen. Post replies with questions...