I bought a 96 ram 2500 4x4 about one month ago. The truck had 107k on it when I purchased it and is now approaching 110k. I have mainly babied the truck as far as romping on the gas paddle goes since I have possessed it. The other day I was running late to a job and I passed a couple cars and really got on it for the first time. The truck seemed to do fine while passing and what not. The problem is when I got to a stop sign about ten miles or so after the heavy acceleration I had what seemed like tranny problems when taking off from a stop. The truck didn't want to shift out of first gear. It wound out first for a really long time and when it finally did shift it caught second so hard that it felt like someone rear ended me. It then proceeded to wind out second way to long and also shifted into third very hard. At the next stop sign about 100 yards after the last it wound out first and second way to long again and shifted hard again also. After that I shifted it manually from the column and it shifted correctly. I pulled off at a gas station about 10 minutes after the onset of shifting problems,checked the trans with motor running. Fluid smelled burnt but was full. I shut off the truck let it set for a couple minutes. When I drove away, put it in drive and it shifted fine. Haven't had the same problem since but also haven't romped on the gas since either. Although the trans does seem to shift a little untimely since and just doesn't seem right. This is my first dodge truck and I realize that she requires a special mopar trans fluid. Im not sure that she was serviced with the correct fluid before I obtained ownership. Any ideas, suggestions? I plan on changing the filter and fluid tomorrow when I get paid.

 

Do fluid and filter change, and band adjustment. (procedure is in the service manual.) while you have it open, inspect the governor pressure sensor and solenoid. Sounds like yours are getting gunked up, and not working properly. Also, on hard acceleration, (usually WOT) the pressure sensor can screw up, and not read properly. This annoys the PCM......

You could try unplugging the eight pin connector on the trans, right behind the shift linkage. The trans won't have ANY automatic function, if you don't tell it to shift, it won't shift..... if it works fine that way, just replace the governor pressure sensor and solenoid.

 

What HeyYou said, with an amplification: When you do the fluid change you'd do well to perform a complete fluid replacement rather than just replacing the bit that falls out when the pan comes off. A more or less okay procedure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsdPAadc9fY

But don't do the Dexron III gig to your Chrysler transmission. Just refill with ATF+4 while pumping the old nasty stuff out.