Hey, I have a 98 1500 3.9 liter v6 5 speed manual with 50 k miles. The other day I was leaving for work and as I went to shift from second to third my rpms skyrocketed, thinking that I accidently put it in first instead of third I pulled it back into neutral. Instead of my rpms dropping, they hit redline numbers. I've literally never heard my truck louder. I turned the truck off, parked and restarted it with the same issue, when I threw it into first gear the truck takes off without any gas needed. I was able to go through all my gears and limp home. Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be? There is no issue with shifting. Also, I had gotten my oil changed the night before and the guy working there said that the last time I got my air filter changed that the housing wasn't mounted properly. If anyone has any ideas as to what the problem is, I'd really appreciate it.

 

First thing I'd look at would be to check whether or not the throttle linkage is dragging on the air cleaner housing.

 

Open the hood and inspect the throttle cable and linkage.

 

I checked the throttle cable and it looks like its bound up and slack. Is this something that needs to be replaced? or can I disassemble it and respool it?

 

see if the cable is binding, or something else is. Replace whatever is binding.

 

Replace the throttle cable. It can not be fixed. And since it's stretched, you can't fix that regardless.