For the last month and a half or so, I have been fixing up my newly aquired 95 1500 2WD auto with the 3.9. It needed all of the common fixes plus a few extras.

Plenum update
Transmisson Solinoids
Deleted transmission check valve
Replaced timing chain with double roller
New water pump
all new brakes
lots of new gaskets
cap rotor plugs
new EGR and few sensors

Anyway, I'm code and strange noise free now, so I took her for a 95 mile errand-running shake down cruise yesterday. Everything went good except that I felt like she shifted in and out of OD a little too often. I found that I needed to make use of the OD cancel switch fairly often. The shifting is smooth and accurate, so is this something I should be worried about with a V6? I have allready replaced the solinoids in the transmission, and have a fresh filter, ATF+4, and I removed the check valve from the cooler lines. There is no slack in the TV cable.

 

Depends on the circumstances when it wanted to downshift..... If you were just on flat road, might wanna have a look at the TPS.

 

It seems to do it at the slightest hint of an upwards grade. I realize it is a little v6 trying to pull a full size truck, but it still seems a bit excessive. I certainly don't want to overheat the transmission. I check the TPS and see if it falls within specs. It probably doesn't help that the truck has 265/75/R16 tires on it. I definately plan to downsize them in the future for performance, but the PO put em on and their stll in good shape.

 

I'm thinkin' it's no big deal.. that 3.9 is a dang good little engine and perfect for a 'kota that serves as a commuter/light duty.. it's gotta be workin' it's tail off pushing that full size truck at highway speeds and geared the same as a 5.2 or 5.9..

the power curve on them is about the same area as it's bigger brothers, but a little less torque.. meaning, you gotta keep it in the comfy range to keep it from hunting gears.. that's hard to do when you're not producing the same torque but pushing through the same tranny ratio and rear-end.. if you were producing 20-30# more torque at the same cruising RPM, the tranny would likely not hunt.. it's going to search a lot more than the 5.2 or 5.9.

 

OK, thats kinda what I figured. I still don't have any codes, TPS reference voltage is good, throttle closed voltage is good at .5v, WOT voltage is good at about 3.65v, although there does seem to be a little bit of a dead spot near WOT. I'll probably put some more test miles on her an see if the "problem" gets any worse.