I've got a 96 Ram 3500 Turbo diesel that I use to pull my gooseneck horse trailer. All together, truck trailer and horses amonts to just about 15K pounds. The thing is this, on flat terrain, especially going thru stop lights, if I accelerate from a full stop with the OD OFF, the engine gets to probably 2500 RPM or a little bit over and very very slowly picks up speed. It takes a while to get it to 45 or 50 mph. Now, if I leave the OD ON, surprisingly, the truck gets up to speed much quicker, with the RPMs not getting even closer to the 2500 mark. The question is...do I keep it ON?....will my transmission suffer? or do I turn the OD off and go to snail pace?
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You've got other problems going on here that you need to track down... No idea what they are, but they're definately not good. Sounds like your trans or torque converter is allowing major slippage when the OD switch is off.
DEFINATELY leave the switch in the ON position until you get up to speed. Otherwise you're likely to cook the trans cause something is allowing slippage that shouldn't be. Once you get to speed, shift the OD off if you feel it's neccessary. Good luck.
Sounds very much like a valve body problem. Pretty common on higher mileage units. They run about 900.00, not real cheap. If I had to guess I'd say it's downshifting into 1st gear and you are launching in 2nd. Try counting shifts all the way to freeway speeds and see if you get 2 or 3 shifts.
If I'm climbing a really steep hill I turn my OD off because it seems to help me maintain the speed instead of losing it and really hearing and feeling the tranny shift hard just to keep up... especially in cruise which I turn off also when climbing very steep hills.
You've got other problems going on here that you need to track down...
I agree.A turbo diesel should have no problem going annywhere.Maybe you are just loosing boost somewhere and it seems like its the trans.I would invest in a boost guage.They are cheap and easy to install.
Overdrive ON or OFF?
