I just purchased my first Dodge, it's a '94 Ram 2500, and at highway speeds (55+) the whole truck shudders periodically for 2-5 seconds. The shudder is as if something is trying to slow the truck down -- its abrupt, and a little unnerving (this is my first car). A local mechanic advised me to replace worn front-end ball joints, but the problem still isn't corrected. Others are telling me that i've got a suspension or alignment problem, but I'd like to locate the problem before I continue replacing parts.
Any ideas?

 

hmm sounds very familiar to what is happening to my 01 at 40 mph..

and sorry to say i still haven't figured out what it is.

either suspension or something in the drive line. yeah not fun.

i'm praying it's just an unbalanced tire cause i know one of them lost the weights.

you might want to check for that.

 

I sort of have the same problem (maybe). At highway speeds occasionally if i just barely let go of the gas it gets shuddering like the tranny is slipping or I got a miss in the engine. Now my truck does get low on ATF every once and a while and I have to put a quart or 2 in. Now I've heard that it may be a faulty TPS? Hope this is what you are experiencing.

 

Tell yea what. Next time you are gonna be doing whatever speed it makes that shudder at hit the overdrive off button and I bet that will fix it. More than likely the shutter you are feeling is the torq converter. The torq converters in these trucks are junk and the faulty tps sensors just make it that much worse. If turning the od off works then replace your tps sensor and if that still doesn't fix the problem I would get ready to spring for a new torq converter.

 

turning it off didn't help me. so i'm leaning for the torque convertor, but i should know if it's the tires today.

damn it gotta switch back to craptacular summer tires.

 

If turning it off didn't help then it is somewhere else in the truck not the torq converter or the tps. Check your wheel bearings they can also cause that sutter feeling

 

Find the post called "DEATH WOBBLE" helped me,I had a bad pipman arm, could be an idler arm also.IMO[&:]

 

Well, I had an alignment done this morning by Firestone. The mechanic took it for a quick spin and immediately told me that the highway shudder I feel is the transmittion. He did the alignment (which elimenates that from being the problem) and told me that I can continue to drive the truck, that it just won't be fully reliable until I get the trans. replaced.

My neighbor told me I might find some advice on mixing oil with the transmittion fluid to prolong the transmittions life, is that possible?

Thanks for the advice!

-james

 

No.

I assume all of the u-joints were properly checked out, in neutral? Also possible to have a bad u-joint without seeing movement, just look for a rusty powder around the u-joint compared with the rest of them.

 

It is probably just your TC as was said before. The TC will still lockup in third gear if you have not had the TSB flash that deals with this. You can test it by disconnecting the wire that controls the TC lockup. If you disconnect that wire and the shudder goes away, then it is definately your TC. This shows which wire it is:
http://www.tstproducts.com/Torque%20...ck switch'