Light rod knock in a Durango 5.9... is it terminal?

Blackhatguy said
If you end up trying to change the rod bearings, this is how I did mine in my Dakota. Jack up the front of the truck, Slide the bolt out of the motor mounts, put the transmission in neutral, take out the spark plugs, drain the oil, remove the fan shroud, put an engine lift in place and pick up the engine until the transmission hits the firewall. Then you will have enough room to pull the pan. With the spark plugs pulled you can turn the engine over by holding the balancer and turning by hand. If you get them changed to before it burns through the zinc, the journals will still be fine.

Thanks for the tip, I will keep that in mind if she wants me to change the bearings but now she has to worry about paying for a transmission rebuild. @1994redram I don't feel like dropping the pan to check the transmission at this point, when I told her about the transmission she said the car had a new one put in at only 35k miles so this one has 135k miles on it which is quite a lot for a 46RE based on their reputation for not lasting long. I really don't feel like spending an hour plus pulling the skid plates and trans pan (and then reinstalling) just to confirm that it's shot.

@SIX225 It's definitely not pinging, the sound is RPM dependent and is loudest when the engine has no load on it, basically the opposite of pinging; I had chronic pinging issues (too much cylinder pressure) which led to the eventual destruction of the previous 360 I had in my Duster so I'm VERY familiar with what it sounds and feels like.