I finally, after looking at a lot of (mostly not so nice) rams, I bought one yesterday. It's a 2001 Extended cab, short bed. It's patriot blue.

It needs a little work. Rear fender well on the passenger side is pretty rough. I'll need to either putty it up real good or put a new panel in. Probably the latter.

Needs an alignment. It was throwing an O2 sensor code, and cylinder 2 misfire (?). I put it that O2 sensor, seems to be running a bit better. Will need tires soonish. It may need the tie rod assembly in the front end - long story. Needs an exhaust hanger or two, it moves around a lot. And lastly, it will need a bedliner, it's getting a bit rough back there.

Drives good and is inspected until 12/10. The only thing I don't like about how it drives is that it doesnt seem to have as much power as my old one, especially when going up hills. When you're going up a hill, say in 4th gear at 2200RPM, it will downshift like its not getting enough power, into 3rd at 2800 RPM. Sometimes it will go even further down into 2nd at ~3800RPM. I don't understand why it has less get-up-and-go than my 95.

As far as getting a little more power, what could I do to help? I thought about maybe getting a new cat shortly down the road, since maybe the old one is bad (although, I have no symptoms, and no codes were thrown for it). Or maybe a chip?

I'll add pictures tomorrow.

 

I would just go through it and replace all the routine stuff, tune up , all fluids, test the cat with a temp gun, clean IAC ,TB, tempature sensor, Check TPS , might even have trans shop scan the trans ??? You know the usualy stuff , just dont want that spendy trans taking a dump already.

 

Death flash

 

Yeah, I'm slowly trying to check everything over. Haven't ever checked some of that before even on my old truck, I'll have to pull out the Haynes/DIYs.

The tranny seems to shift fine other than the climbing hills thing that I described. it seems to be worse when it's on cruise control than when you manually are using the throttle.

To check the cat - would I just check the temp. before the cat and then right after the cat? What should it be?

EDIT: Oh ****, I never even thought of the death flash!! lol after all of the reading I do on here, I guess I took too long of a break . So a chip would get rid of that I guess. How do I check for the DF again?

 

No pics?

 

I've got the DF and i dont use cruise control anymore since i first got the truck and had and surging problems, and replaced it with the TPS,fixed it, just seems like my truck doesnt like cruise control to well , or im gun shy, lol but it does act up slightly when i use the CC so i never use it anymore, and it seems fine, and i think the cat temp should be about close/ a little less to the same temp coming out( im not 100% sure of this), if its cold coming out it's clogged up right? And check for sticker under hood or on pcm on firewall for software update sticker.

 

I bet its a combo of bad plenum/deathflash, and the cats starting to get clogged....


Congrats on the new truck....wanting to see pics....

 

Back when I had a cyl 2 misfire, it was a combo of a worn out distributor cap and rotor and a cat that had burnt up. Also make sure your spark plug wires are routed without touch metal objects etc... Clear the computer as well after you do said repairs, drive 100 miles and wait until a CEL.

 

Here's some pics I took on the way home today.



I checked briefly under the hood (by the PCM) for a software sticker, but don't see anything. I would think the dealer could look it up on the computer?

Also, would the TPS be worth a try to replace? How much are they?

 

death flash for sure !! plenum cat tune up