On a family camping adventure last weekend up in the mountains here in Alaska I experienced a couple of novel things with our truck (‘04.5 Dodge 3500 Diesel SRW QC AT 4x4). The first was the sound of a secondary revving noise as we climbed up steep ascents. It occurred at about 2300-2600 rpm’s. It was similar to the sound I’ve heard when an engine idles when hot and the fan motor is engaged (you hear both the sound of the engine and the fan motor). In my case, with higher rpm’s, is this the turbo “spooling up”, the sound of the fan motor increasing speed, an exhaust sound? I was pulling our 5500 lb. travel trailer so I don’t think it’s a transmission problem. Is this normal?

The other thing occurred only once when traveling on a relatively straight level spot. The chime sounded once, and, as I looked at the dash, the gauges momentarily zeroed out and then a second later the gauge needles returned back to normal. The engine didn’t seem to miss. Everything seemed to be okay other than what looked like an electrical glitch. Is this something I should be concerned about?
Thanks for your response from those of you who know more than I!

 

what you heard was the engine cooling fan coming on. no worries mate.

the dash is controlled by its own control module. I believe that holding down the odometer reset button and turning the key to on will give you the codes(if any)for the dash. hopefully someone else will chime in here if I am mistaken on the dash procedure.