My 1996 Dodge Ram 2500 4x4 has started to act up a bit lately.
First time it did it was when I was driving on a ferry and I had a short steep climb, it suddenly didn't want to kick over into the higher gear, until I let my foot off the gas, then it caught and worked. It did this to me once a week after I would get in my truck and start driving. It usually does it when I try to get up above 60kmh, and this is usually when I'm trying to get onto a highway. Once it catches, it works fine the rest of the day with no problems. It's worse and has a harder time kicking over now that it's getting colder.

It makes a sort of clunking coughing noise when it encounters this problem, and the vehicle acceleration is sporadic. It's weird because it doesn't over rev or just not go into the gear, it definitely acts a bit weird.

My check engine light is on. I was going to try the ON>OFF>ON>OFF>ON trick to see if that will give me an error code, but I'm not certain that's the proper way for my truck.

Any input or advice would be great!

 

Sounds like you're transmission is going out how many miles are on the truck? Mine did that for a while and then one day I cranked it and couldn't back out of the parking lot. Had to drive up on the curb, put it in neutral and use the momentum from rolling off the curb to go backwards haha... Anyways, I would go ahead and take it to get looked at. I'm no mechanic, but when I finally took mine in, he told me I could have saved about 1.5 grand if I had seen him a month sooner.

EDIT: Go somewhere like Cottman's (not sure where you're from) who will diagnose it for free.

 

do a search for govenor pressure sensor and govenor pressure soleniod.....their failure is common and thats what can happen when they go.....$200 fix and about an hour and a half to do with no experience....(I did mine because it quit shifting out of first entirely after doing what yours did for a day).

and the best idea would be to listen to your truck the light is telling you theres a code and the code will likely tell you whats wrong. Go to an auto parts store and ask them to throw a reader on it.

 

Is there a way to manually read my check engine light? I've heard I can connect up to some sensor and then read the amount of times my check engine lights flashes.