Reverse on my 98 dodge 5.9l 360 is getting really weak. Other gears such as drive, overdrive, neutral ETC work fine. I have to persuade the thing to backup especially on a incline and it slips if I punch on it. I was told to leave the pan and filter alone this will not solve my problem. I was told to be careful using reverse or it will probably blow up and I'll be screwed. I have a spare transmission but I do not want or pull the cab off and replace it until summer.

Can a band adjustment or fluid change rid this? I will not do a flush because I know its a dirty tranny and I don't want to blow it up cleaning it.

Fluids are good and yes I checked them. They are slighly brown and smell slightly burnt after I got stuck at tried rocking it. It's got 166K miles so I know this is normal.

Will this thing leave me high and dry?

 

Changing the fluid and filter is not gonna hurt it. Band adjustment wont hurt it either. Dont sound good though man...

 

Shouldn't need to pull the cab off...we don't have ford powerjokes here...

 

The rear band is probably shot. might try fluid change ang rear band adjustment.

Dave

 

Ordered a new back window, (mine shattered after a semi rocked me) 10 quarts of ATF-4, and transmission filter and gasket. Today we installed the back window and dad had enough for the night, so I took it upon myself to pull the pan and clean the homemade gasket they had.. The whole thing had RTV silicone sealing it and I cringed when I saw it swelling up.. ( it's not very hard to let it set up before installing it!!) I drained the tranny and pulled the filter to let it sit overnight. After running a magnet through the fluid I found small shavings and the pan magnet had some small metallic sludge but none of the shavings were bigger than a poppyseed... The filter looked pretty crusty and the fluid was slightly brown but wasn't super brown or anything.. I also noticed if I put it into reverse and let it sit for a few seconds it engages and when I move back it engages fully and it's good as new.

Tomorrow dad and I will adjust the bands to the 72inches of torque prescribed by the manual and go from there. I decided my next truck will be a manual. Hah

 

I had completely lost reverse while backup up a steep hill with a heavy load of wood in the bed, eventually (some months later) did a band adjustment and reverse is still going strong....

 

Update:

Today dad looked at the tranny and said the oil was used but not terribly burnt, and my reverse issue was indeed a loose band. We replaced the fluid and tightened the band and it's a whole new pickup. No slippage, no hunting, it's so nice to have my baby back

Thanks guys!

 

Youll get some time out of it but dont expect it to last a long long time if you had shavings in there. Glad to hear its working tho!