Copied from my original post which de-railed with a power steering issue.

I bought my 1998 Ram 1500 5.2L 4x4 short cab long bed pickup from my great grandfathers estate when he died. the truck has 61,000 miles on and as far as i can tell doesn't burn oil or transmission fluid. I've put about 5000 miles on myself so far.. but there is a one GLARING problem. if you hop in the truck start it and drop it into reverse it stalls out.. or if it manages to stay running it sounds like a diesel trying to idle and the power steering doesn't work the brakes have no vacuum assist its horrible. now the cold issue is infrequent but as soon as the truck is warms up you have to shift to neutral before going to D or R or it will just stall out unless i'm on the gas. Once in drive it has no issues other than and completely random on the outside temperature it slips unless i let it set in neutral for a minute or two. the colder the day the more likely it is to slip. the stalling to me seems like the T/C is locking at idle and stalling the truck out. i had a ford ranger that the T/C committed suicide on and the ram feels just like that when it stalls.


The truck has immaculate service records and at 60,000 it got a full tune up plugs wires coil. has more new parts than a new car.. gas tank, fuel pump sending unit..

Anyways any direction on a diagnostic path would be awesome. there are so many transmission issue threads on here that i am unsure where to start.

Updates : Hard acceleration during movement has the trans downshifting to far and sticking till i let off the gas and punch it again.

Had The Trans Fluid Checked by my mech. he said it was clean but to make me happy he changed it and the filter and installed a drain plug for me.

Vacuum doesn't seem to be the issue i've tested as many time as i can it only ever did the wild vent once and never again. 4x4 engages fine and the vents stay where i set them.

i am still leaning towards the Torque converter but how can i check that without just replacing it?
Would a video if the truck running hard in reverse help i can also log all kinds of data with my Bluetooth OBDII reader.

 

You are probably correct that the t/c is the culprit here. Unfortunately, there isn't a good way to test. Given your description of the symptoms though, sounds spot on to me.

The dodge transmission (96 and up.) are notorious for holding gears at WOT. Governor pressure sensor gets oversaturated, and starts feeding wrong information to the PCM. Easy fix is to replace governor pressure sensor/solenoid with the heavy duty Borg Warner parts. They are available on ebay for under a hundred bucks for the set.

It the t/c is going belly up, you need to fix that before it grenades, and scatters debris through the rest of the trans..... necessitating a complete rebuild.

 

if it grenades i'll put the cummings 5 speed in it and be done with it i'll call about the Governor see if i canget a hold of Borg parts first though

 

i had a silly idea to see if it was the T/C since there is a way to make it lock electronically is there a way to temporarily disable it? or will it always engage mechanically?

 

Purely electrical. Circuit is always powered, PCM controls it by grounding the Orange wire w/black trace. Break that circuit, and TCC will be disabled.

 

Maybe this will help, https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...r-lock-up.html ?



And just so you know, you are not going to easily throw an NV4500 behind a 318. It wont even bolt up, IIRC.

 

Here's a link to the upgrade BW part:

http://stores.hi-potek.com/-strse-16...ure/Detail.bok

 

Here's another one 95 cents cheaper, LOL. http://www.doghousediesel.com/catalog/i307.html

 

so if i disable this and my truck doesn't do that weird dieseling anymore my TC is more than likely to be bad?

 

If the TCC is staying engaged, or, even partially so.... it will act like a manual trans that you don't push in the clutch coming to a stop. If it isn't quite all the way engaged, the engine will labor, but, still run, and you will have to apply more pressure on the brake to actually sit in one spot.

Breaking the circuit may, or may not make a difference...... If it does it all the time anyway, it will still do it. If it only starts doing it after driving for a bit, then that test will be valid.