Have a 1996 Dakota club cab 4x4 v-8 auto. 102K miles Recently when driving on hiway if I depress accelerator on a slight incline the engine seems to loss power as it tries to downshift. Getting frustrated as I have had transmission rebuilt, and same situation occurs. Additionally replaced rear brakes as wheel cylinder blew out. Any suggestions of what it might be would be very helpful as the transmission guy says it must be catalytic converter or map sensor. Another tech says torque converter. Any ideas?

 

Have you scanned it for codes? How did you determine the transmission needed to be rebuilt? Sounds like you don't have very competent mechanics if they are all just guessing. What maintenance have you done? Plugs? Air Filter?

 

Change plugs and air filter regularly

 

Hook a vacuum gauge to the engine. Especially if the truck is only driven short distances over the years. If it dropos when you give it throttle, you may have a partly plugged exhaust. It could be the catalytic converter, it could be the muffler has rusted inside and collapsed or you might have a little apartment house for mice in the tail pipe. (With a little mouse in uniform at the opening, you know, a door mouse. ) In any of these cases, the solution is simple once you find it. With the low miles and age, I'll bet it's either the muffler or converter. You've never cooked the moisture out of the exhaust.

 

I had this problem in my 94 3.9 auto. rebuilding trans fixed some of it with a new TV cable. I adjusted the TV cable some, redid the bushings in the linkage under the drivers feet. I still have to turn the OD off to climb a hill w/o losing a lot of momentum if I start up it at less than 60mph. Recently the OD seemed to have a problem that turned out to be the fuse. (#16 5amp) I changed all my fuses assuming they were all old and it drives better and seems to be getting better mileage too.
I also put in an new exhaust from the manifold back.

 

do a complete tuneup (cap rotor wires plugs and filters) and see what taht does.... so many "transmission" issues wind up being misfires.

 

It's a 1996, it's OBDII.

I'd use something like a ELM327 generic OBDII/BlueTooth adapter, and Torque (free or paid; paid was $5 last I bought it!) and datalog several items, like the TPS settings, the MAP sensor, etc.

And see if the ECU will tell you what it thinks is wrong.

RwP

 

I would like to thank everyone for the input. It was the catalytic converter