I have a 2003 with a speedo that is floping like a fish out of water. Also the tranny at times will not come out of first gear untill you play with the transfer case lever by shifting to low range and out. This also involves shuting off the engine and restarting a couple of times. Transmission speedo sensor is not the problem I have already eliminated that. Tranny is also full of fluid and will shift just fine the problem with tranny is periodic and not there all the time. I am wondering if anyone else has had this problem and what it might be. I was thinking it could be the PCM. Any ideas? Thanks Al

 

This kinda sounds like the 2nd gen ground problem. Clean the grounds running from the batteries to the fenders (not the battery terminals) and the grounds from the ECM to the fenders. Scrap the paint off down to bare metal under the grounding screws.

It's a free fix if it works.

 

The eratic speedo is a TSb on it. Seems that a few people were having problems with them. This may also clear up your Tranny issue.

 

okay what is a tsb? Also the grounds and battery cables are clean

 

Is not the speedo run off the rear diff abs sensor?? My 6spd it is.

 

TSB is a technical service bulletin. I am not sure what number it is. It is for erratic tach and/or speedo. May casue other symptoms with the truck.
If your truck is still under warrenty then I would go to your dealer ship and ask them about this. Other wise it is expensive to have fixed as they replace the whole gauge cluster.

 

Does it jump around even when you're completely stopped? Mine did. After 3 trips to the dealer, they determined that there were two faulty wires in the harness causing the problem. They spliced in two runs of generic black wire and left the harness flopping around on the driver side battery and I was on my way. Been about a year and 27k miles now and still working fine.

 

Yup speedo will jump from zero to 100 while in park. Does it periodically not all the time. Sometimes when leaving from a stop truck won't shift out of first gear till I stop and turn the key off and restart again. Kinda pisses people off behind me. Speedo also jumps around while going down the road.

 

Okay here is an update. Took the truck to the ******* and they seem to think its the instrument cluster. But I have a friend also working on this and he and his people in the know say its something underneath cause the signal is also read where the scanner plugs in under the dash. Signal comes there first according to them. Thunder dawg can you give me anymore info on the wires that are run in your truck. Rammtuff the sensor you are talking about is also on mine but they are still checking on that. ******* says 1100.00 for instrument cluster Hope they find this problem as it's not fun at all Al

 

I uploaded four pictures to my gallery and dug out the paperwork from the dealer. Brentwood Dodge eventually called star and disconnected the vehicle speed sensor from pcm c2 (pin 27 - 18 ga. white/orange wire). They found the problem in the wiring harness and replaced at least two wires - the pcm-vss wire, and a ground wire (black/purple). I haven't found what the black/pink wire (in the photo) does yet in the FSM. I'll try to find it later.

*edit* It appears that the black/pink wire is a ground for the ABS (pin 13 of CONTROLLER ANTILOCK BRAKE C1 - BLACK 14 WAY). Black/purple is also a ground (pin 6 of CONTROLLER ANTILOCK BRAKE C1 - BLACK 14 WAY). Which makes sense to me because they also changed out the ABS control module while trying to fix the problem. I'm guessing that my problem was the white/orange VSS wire and the others were just collateral damage from the process of fixing.

I hope you get this sorted soon. Mine (5 speed) was just an annoyance because it would kick off the cruise control and add miles to the odometer while parked in my driveway. I would have been way beyond annoyed if I had to stop and restart the truck to get out of gear!

 

Hey Thunderdawg,

Does your truck have the PCM on the firewall on the passenger side, or on the driver side of the engine?

Bob

 

Bob,

It's on the driver side of the engine.

Dale

 

Dale
Who is Star?
Al

 

Al,

Star is the Chrysler technical assistance hotline.

Dale