Hello there all. New member here, along with a recently purchased 2001 Dodge Durango. 5.9. 46RE. 4WD. Anyway, this is a long post so my apologies. I have read multiple posts/threads on here and I am at my last option.. a post onto the forums. So this truck has 213K. Original engine and trans. I bought it for $1100. The guy who I bought it from is a mechanic by trade and apparently owned his own shop at one point. He did allot of work into it. New radiator. Fuel pump. Rotor/cap, plugs, wires and allot of other little stuff. So originally the problem he had was the transmission slipping all the time. So me, being positive wanted to see if we can fix this. He never got to it because he’s never had the time lately. So we drop the pan, and he said the front band was extremely loose and just needed to be tightened. So new fluid and filter, it doesn’t slip anymore. He never really drove this dodge much and it was only ran a couple miles each day. This fixed the slipping problem.

So so I bought it the day after this. Next morning had a bad leak from the gasket of the trans pan. Turned out he put on the wrong sized gasket. So I bought a Mopar one at the dealer for $60. This fixed the leak. so I use this truck daily for my job. First day of use, having long shifts from 1-2 mostly. I wouldn’t push it last 3000 rpms but feathering the throttle made it shift. Turned out the tv cable was broke somewhere. Bought a new one and this fixed this problem I thought.

So the CEL came on same day while when I got off the highway. Code was P1740. Did my research. Figured I have a bad solenoid or converter. I had autozone clear the code when I found this out, it hasn’t been back in 5 days. Here is the weird problem.

In the morning, truck shifts perfectly. OD works, can’t complain. After about 2 hours worth of driving in stop and go traffic. 1-2 and 2-3 don’t want to shift normal. I’m talking about 3000 rpms to shift if not more. Doing 45 in 2nd at 3200. Not too good. However, when I’m on the highway, I’m good. No CEL yet either. Fluid is good, added Lucas with it, no change. Tv cable adjusting no change. It’s odd because this only happens when the truck has been driven a bit.

So every shop I call says it needs a rebuild. I have an appointment with AAMCO for a “free diag” to see what’s going on. My boss thinks it’s not the tourqe converter but a solenoid. He said when they go bad, they heat up, causing problems. He said if the tourqe converter is shot, it wouldn’t be shifting perfectly in the morning. So, does anyone have an idea or opinion or think my boss is right? Never really worked with transmission so I’m at a loss here.

Dont have the funds to do a rebuild at this time of year either(work is slow). Again, Iv read just about every forum out there.

yeah I know it needs a rebuild or just a new trans in general. I just need to squeeze 5K more miles out of this. lol.

dude. I’m gonna try that when I’m half way into running my route. Never thought of that. Thank you dude.

so I finally had a chance to try this out. Do I keep the truck running while doing this? Because I disconnected it and the truck wouldn’t even try to start. No click or nothing. And it was 8 pin. It was a 6 pin connector but only a total of 5 wires. I took a picture.

so should I unplug it when it’s running? Lol. CEL came back on today, same one as before, P1740. I’m wondering if the check valve is plugged. Just tight on cash and would like to fix this before Tuesday...

Now I know when it acts weird. Sometimes to get into second gear without getting the rpms too high, I put it in 2 and it takes about a couple seconds for it to get to it. Then I put it back in drive and it shifts to 3rd once I hit about 3200 rpms.

Got a new code just found out. P0712, P0713. P0740.