Heys Guys,
I'm looking for a few expert opinions, so I figured this was the place to be. Nothing personal to all of you, but I'm kinda the Chevy guy in my family. My dad refuses to buy anything but Dodge, and has had this one since 97. It's a 1500 Sport, 2wd regular cab. He's got about 130,000 miles on it. Starting yesterday on his way home from work, he noticed a really rough vibration and a loud knocking sound. I popped the hood when I got there and found that it only makes the noise when in gear, and it sounds like it is coming from under the truck. It is smooth in park and nuetral, but as soon as it goes to drive or reverse it starts to shake and knock. He's been thinking about trading for a new one, but if he has to replace the transmission he's probably going to have to keep the one he's got. Neither of us are great mechanics, so I thought maybe you guys could give us some advice before he takes it to a shop. Thanks!
Matt

 

drop the tranny pan and see if there is metal or paper flakes floating around. it could be your Torque Converter has blown out with 130k miles on it, or your tranny is slipping. if you haven't had the transmission serviced recently (last 30k miles or so) i'd take it to the stealership or a transmisson shop you know of and trust and have them take a look at it. the other thing it could be is the drive shaft got damaged or is unbalanced. i'd be tempted to say it was somewhere in the TC or transmission. if it's your first transmission thank your heaven that you haven't had this problem before as that is usually the first thing to go.