i'm out of town and my brother borrowed my truck. He got stuck in sand and he said that he had to put it in 4 low to get out. Not sure why 4 low was needed but he said that's what he had to do to get out. Since then, the truck does not engage in reverse. He says that it doesn'thear or feel the transmission engage at all. Regardless of what the transfer case is in. If you give throttle when the truck is in reverse, he says that it acts like it's in neutral.

What are the most likely culprits? I can't check anything from here as I'm 1000 Km away but I hope it's nothing too bad as I can't afford much right now. I don't know how he was driving when in 4 low, so I don't know what might have caused it, or if it has anything to do with that.

Could there just be something disconnected, or a linkage that I can get him to check?

I asked him to disconnect the battery for 30 minutes and see if it makes a difference.

 

Disconnecting the battery made no difference. It was a long shot but he isn't very familiar with my truck so I thought to give that a try before trying anything else.

My powertrain warrante is still good, so I'll bring it to my local dealer on Monday and see what they say. It's good until August this year.

 

pierrejoly,

I'm sorry to hear about your shifting concern. Keep us posted on the results at your Dodge dealer if you can!

 

I had to learn the lesson on loaning out vehicles the hard way also. Twice!

Hope that warranty covers it for ya.

 

Update:

The local dodge dealer doesn't have the tools to work on the transmission so they are sending it to a local transmission shop to get it looked at. Their diagnosis says that it's something internal. So, as long as the transmission shop doesn't say that i abused the truck which is what caused the failure it should be covered by the powertrain warranty. I don't think I would have done anything to cause failure, especially reverse.

If anything i would be harder on my first gear or second gear, especially with the snow and ice that we get up here in winter I'm sometimes spinning when it catches traction. But even then, i'm careful when that happens and I'm sure i'm not revving more then about 1500 to 1800 max. And normally i woudl switch to 4WD to get me off the ice then switch back to 2WD once i'm going. I would love to get a limited slip so that it's better taking off in the snow and ice... and gravel and sand and mud...

 

Well, a stuck brother might ram it from D to R to D to R several times while trying to get out of where he shouldn't have been . . . .

 

My brother says that he didn't do that, He said that it wouldn't engage reverse when he swung around to back into the the spot at the dump. It was soft sand where he was so in his inexperience he put it in 4WD and couldn't get out of the sand, so he went in 4 LOW and got out by slowly rocking using just drive because he said that reverse would do nothing. So, according to him he did nothing that would have caused the failure. I hope he's not trying to hide something.

The last 4WD truck that he drove regularly was our father's old 79 blazer. This thing was a beast. 350 4 barrel. full time 4WD and my dad got a posi put in front and rear. The body was rusted and we put the body of a pickup and made a box for it. So he might not have known how to drive a truck with two open diffs in softer sand.



This pic is just after the truck got put back together in early 95. I got to drive it only once before it's transformation but i did alot of driving in it after. It's what i learned to drive in before i got my license. My dad would bring us in the bush to teach us how to control a vehicle before we would learn fine control in the family car after we got our beginners at 16. The crankshaft went in it in the spring of 02 which is when it was finally put to rest.

 

Ha! Only one knows what really happened, and he's not in on this discussion. I was just speculating . . .


My first driving was at my grandparents' farm in a 1960's GMC pick-up with a three-on-the-tree that would occasionally get stuck between gears. You'd have to stop, lift the hood, and give the linkage around the steering column a right-good whack with a hammer.


Nothing like that kind of driving to help you figure out what is going on.


Cheers!

 

2 things, a possible gear has blown for the reverse, or the reverse band needs a simple adjustment, either way they will have to tear into the tranny to see what its going to take to find out what's wrong, if the CEL isn't on then probably its not a simple electrical issue like a solenoid, hopefully you will be lucky and needs a complete flush and filters

 

I would suspect that he "rocked it" D to R and snapped the reverse band.