xxwildbillxx

DESPERATELY IN NEED OF SOME HELP/TROUBLE-SHOOTING ADVICE...

My 03 Ram 2500 5.9 Cumins 4x4 Auto will not move in Drive, 1st, 2nd or Reverse...UNLESS...I press the accelerator 1/2 way to the floor (or more) and even with this much throttle input, the truck will ONLY move at a crawl/a snail's pace.

HERE's WHAT LEAD TO THE PROBLEM --> Was about 25 mi from home when I smelled a strong odor of tranny fluid in the cab. Stopped at closest gas station and could see steady drips of trans fluid rolling off the trans cooler lines but couldn't tell where the leak was coming from since the general area (75% of the cooler lines) were coated with ATF. Seeing how it was dark, 2 o'clock in the morning and 10 deg F ... I bought 5qts of Shell mulit-vehicle ATF (they didn't have ATF+4) topped the trans off with 2qts and headed for home. Unfortunately had to stop again after about 10 miles and add the other 3qts of the Shell multi-vehicle trans since the trans began shifting slightly erratic due to running low. After topping off the trans a 2nd time, figured it best to head to another Walmart along my route home and bought/added 3 more qts. I actually/unfortunately had to stop a 3rd time (at another Walmart/1st Walmart only had 3qts of ATF+4 in stock) and added 3 more quarts of ATF+4 and then drove the remaining 12 miles home. After all that, the truck sat for a week until I had the time and did eventually find a 1/16 inch rust hole on one of the trans cooler pipes coming out the heat exchanger on the engine block. The d@mn hole was actually hiding right up against the outside edge of the compression flare nut where water and salt had accumulated and corroded a hole into the pipe... ):{

Fast forward to today... just finished installing new trans cooler lines, dropped the trans pan, cleaned the pan/magnet, adjusted both bands, installed a new filter and UNFORTUNATELY (after doing ALL this) the truck no longer moves in Drive, 1st, 2nd or Reverse...UNLESS...I press the accelerator 1/2 way to the floor (or more) but when doing so the truck will only crawl/move at a snail's pace...

So... did I destroy my 48RE or is there a slight chance I might be able to install a new "slip-in" Forward band (or maybe a new governor pressure regulator/solenoid) and be back in business(???) So wish I would have called a tow that night ):{

That said... could definitely use all the help/advice I can get!! Also, if anyone thinks this belongs in a different section of the DTR forums... please let me know!!

(Thanks!)

2003slt

Did your transmission warning light come on at any time signifying a hot granny? How was the unit operating prior to your fluid leak being discovered? Do you believe your granny was slipping prior to finding the leak. You may have cooked the band(s) or possibly the solenoid(s) mentioned. Your hindsight comment seems to point to pushing your luck to far. Many miles (km) on unit? Might be time for a rebuild. Hope this helps.

AlpineRAM

Since you seem to have more than 150k miles on the trans, and also have run it out of fluid several times during going home- my suggestion is to pull it and rebuild it.

If you need much throttle and high revs even to get it creeping forwards or backwards it's bad.
If it loads the engine and simply has no power- torque converter stator clutch defective
If it does not load the engine- the trans slips, and you cook your fresh oil, and put a lot of friction material into it.

Anything less than a rebuild is a band-aid at best, and will come to bite you quite soon.

xxwildbillxx

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2003slt

Did your transmission warning light come on at any time signifying a hot granny? How was the unit operating prior to your fluid leak being discovered? Do you believe your granny was slipping prior to finding the leak. You may have cooked the band(s) or possibly the solenoid(s) mentioned. Your hindsight comment seems to point to pushing your luck to far. Many miles (km) on unit? Might be time for a rebuild. Hope this helps.

Truck has 168K mi and I last serviced the trans about 6yrs ago. Trans over-temp light did come on a mile or so from home, which I suspect would've activated sooner had it not been for the 10F temp outside and keeping the trans from running too low. Aside from a slight pause/delay waiting for Reverse to engage (only when outside temps hit single digits) the trans has always performed well, aside from replacing the governor pressure regulator/solenoid about 10yrs ago due to the "shuttle shift" which is common with the early OEM GPR's. For what it's worth, I did get a pic of the inside bottom of the trans pan (shown below) when I pulled the pan to change the filter, adjust bands and refill the atf. Actually intend to cut open the filter as well to have a look inside but haven't figured an easy way to tear into it just yet. The pan magnet (imo) actually did not look all that bad/any worse than other trans magnets I've seen from other transmissions and would say it was slightly less coated than when I serviced the trans 6yrs ago. On a side note... while the "metallic fines" seen in the pan might look relatively bad, a majority of the metallic silt actually fell off the magnet when the magnet skipped across the pan in my failed attempt to remove the magnet on the 1st couple tries.

Appreciate all the comments and of course any additional thoughts re what I might try and throw at the trans to "possibly" get the truck moving enough to get it to a shop...

xxwildbillxx

xxwildbillxx

AlpineRAM

I know that I do repeat myself- but:

A trans temp light means that you overheated the seals inside the trans.
The amount of dirt you (or others) have cleaned out of the pan during the life of the trans is missing friction material.
So, in my opinion, the best way is to pull the transmission, get a factory service manual and a rebuild kit. This should take no more than two weekends and 300 $ . Then you have a transmission that's as good as new.
Anything else is a band aid at best. Be realistic- these transmissions are not great in stock form, they were unreliable and prone to go bad before a 100k miles even with stock power output with fluid in them all the time. You are above stock power, above 100k miles and know that the trans has run empty several times.

Speedy1wrc

Either with a scanner or using the key on/off sequence check for codes. If you have a P0700 then you have an internal problem. More importantly it'll he in limp mode. Unfortunately the P0700 won't tell you much more than there is a problem.