I have a 99 4x4 318 44re Dakota. Recently while driving home on the highway I noticed that the truck wouldn't pop into overdrive and I didnt really think much of it. Around 15 minutes later of driving without od the truck shot down into 3rd gear. Thankfully I was just in front of where I was supposed to turn off and I came to a stop at an intersection. When the light turned green and I started driving I could tell that something was up because first gear felt weak and inconsistent. After this occurred I got a CEL so I came to a stop and scanned it. The truck came back with P0740 and P0753. The 753 code concerns the governor pressure solenoid over pressure. This surprised me because about two weeks ago I replaced the solenoid and the transducer and the truck was shifting like new. The other code deals with the torque converter. I got a tug home from a friend because at this point the dak only has reverse which makes a terrible grinding noise now and feels underpowered. Very rarely the vehicle will shift into gear but even at that it wont shift up and the power I get from the gear is inconsistent. Sometimes it will feel like its hooking up then other times it wont. At this point I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas if this could be some electrical or solenoid issue. I cleared the codes once to see if anything changed and the solenoid code dissapeared but the torque converter code stayed. I'm ready to get the trans rebuilt but if anyone has any ideas on another cause for this I'd like to know.

 

nope, it's time for a rebuild. Probably had a clutch pack go boom. Ask me how I know (thrice a victim of boom under the floor)

 

Yeah it's looking like it's about that time. Did your failures all occur on the same trans, because it would be optimal if I only had to go through this once. (I know that's asking a lot from a dodge trans lol)

 

yes, but the first was repaired by a shoddy shop which caused #2. First time was a drum explosion, they used a cheap torque convertor and the TCC came apart and flooded the trans with clutch material. It's still in the truck until next week, so i'm not sure exactly what failed this time, but I have a feeling it's in the 2nd gear planetary, as 1st is still good.

 

Got a bit of an update. I dropped the pan and unplugged the solenoid and transfucer, put them back in, and threw a new filter on it. I also put a new intake manifold on it for unrelated reasons. After all of this I started it up and it had no check engine light. It went into first and shifted great right up until 3rd gear it will not go into third at all. This makes perfect sense now because it was stuck in limp mode previously, but with no third gear it wouldn't go. Replacing the solenoid and unplugging the battery reset the truck and it was not in limp mode. What I'm wondering at this point is if my problem could be the accumulator. I looked back to an old thread http://www.dakota-durango.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94802#/topics/94802?page=2&_k=cvt0kq and someone seemed to have my problem and fixed it by replacing the accumulator. If anyone has had a similar problem and has some input I would greatly appreciate it.