I have a 2001 Ram 2500 quad short box with a Cummins T/D.Automatic 4 speed tranny.3.55 Gears. Have recently purchased a 36 ft fifth wheel trailer that weighs in at about 10200 lbs dry. There seems to be a wide variation in tow capacity and GCWR depending on transmissions and gear ratios. Do I risk frying my transmission if I dont upgrade to 4.11 gears ? I already have the heavy duty cooling package and aux transmission cooler.

 

what size tires? and yes id get them anyways, i run stock 265/75/16's with 4.10 gears

as for the tranny, the cummins are monsters, they can take abuse.

but ive heard that a jam nut on the overdrive unit is prone to come loose and get caught in the gears/ killing the tranny. It needs to be welded in place

 

keep an eye on the temp, if you dont have a gauge id get one, the torq converters in the auto's arnt really that good, but they can take an abuse, but the line pressure is too low and thats why they fail, depends on how your driving too, ive seen stock trans last 200,000 miles while towing and light exceleration mostly highway and ive seen them last 10,000 while towing around the same weight while towing mostly through hills and city, one of my good friends had a 3500 with 500,000 miles his dad towed a grain wagon almost everyday with it, he got it and it lasted a week pulling the same wagon, he let his temps get around 350 degrees though thats what killed it

 

This isn't applicable to the auto, it's only on the NV4500 5-speed. Also, even when welded, over time the weld will break and the nut will loosen again.
Gord.

 

^The autos have a problem as well, i watched them do it in a 48RE on tv

 

I had never heard about the nut being a problem on the autos, is it the same design issue as the standards?
Gord

 

You got no problems. I am surprised at the 3.55's though. I have almost the same truck with the V10 and came stock with 4.10's.

 

He has a 47RE. Im pretty sure you are confused the NV4500. If you are talking about a recent Power Block "Trucks" they did an NV4500. I can't think of any nut in the 46RH I rebuilt and the 48RE is just a beefed up version of the same tranny. I also looked on line a bit for the nut problem and I didn't find anything. Can you post a link of what you are talking about? I am curious now.

 

If you look here http://dodgeram.info/2001/towing-charts.html , the tow/load rating for the 2 wheel drive cummins quad/shortbox shows a maximium tow weight of 9850 lbs with the auto transmission and 3.55 gears. With the 4.11's it goes up to 11850 lbs and substantially more with the manual transmissions. My dry trailer weight is approx. 10 200 lbs. I'm assuming that at most I'm going to add about 1000 lbs max to that for clothes , food , camping gear etc. My payload weight should be ok as its rated at 2820 lbs and the pinweight on my trailer is 1685 lbs. But i'm still concerned with the gross combined weight rating as its listed at only 16000 lbs for the 3.55's but goes up to 18000 lbs for the 4.11's. The tables are somewhat confusing because when you look at the table above it , it indicates maximimum trailer weight and gross combined weight rating as 13850 and 20000. I'm not sure which table I should be using.

 

Don`t worry about towing that with the 3.55s. I would suggest a Trans-Go shift kit though, but I make that suggestion to ALL Dodge truck owners. Airbags would be nice too, you might be surprised as to how much your truck will sag with 1700# on the pin.

Also, don`t make the switch to 4.10s... I`ve had 3.55s(stock) 4.10s and now 3.73s in my 94 CTD. The 3.55s will work fine, but they didn`t seem to get the load started as fast as I liked, the 4.10s got things moving while loaded but made the truck no fun to drive empty as it would run out of rpm (defuel) between shifts... The 3.73s are the best of both worlds, good towing manners and my truck doesn`t defuel between shifts now.

Also, I`ve been in my fair share of 46/47RH/RE transmissions and call me crazy, but I`ve never seen any nuts inside of them...