Hi, I'm new to this forum but I'm hoping for a little help. I've got a 95 dodge ram 1500 5.9 V8 auto. 244000 miles with 62,000 on engine and I just had the tranmission rebuilt yesterday. But...
I'm not sure about this transmission. Should it clunk when I shift it to
reverse? I asked the guy when I picked it up about that and he said it was
fine and that it was just the shift ki but he wasn't the person who worked on it. Also, it seems like it
doesn't shift smoothly every time. What does the shift kit do? Did I not have one before?

Also, it didn't start this morning when I left to go to work. I fiddled
around with the negative battery cable and got it to start but it died
immediately the first two times. Then started when I gave it some gas and I
went to work. Drove fine to work. Started up after work. I got about
half way out to the barn about 8 miles doing about 50 mph and when I slowed
to stop at stop sign it tried to die...tach was bouncing from 200rpm to 0rpm
and back. I gave it some gas and it didn't stall then I shifted it into
park and the engine was a little rough for a minute then stabilized though
when I tried to rev the engine a bit at about 1000 rpm in park it hesitated. Then I
continued on my way and it ran fine the rest of the way out to the barn and
all the way back. Soooo....uh, what the hell? It did stall a few times
this winter when it was about 15-18 below zero and I was told to add Heat to
the gas because the lines were freezing. I guess that worked for that really cold
spell. Or maybe I just wasn't having the problem because it's intermittent. It was about 10-15 degrees above today and I did not put Heat in
the last tank of gas and I'm at the 3/4 full mark. Could that have had
something to do with my stalling problem? Seems like that's not cold enough
to be a problem but maybe it is.

I've seen threads for people with similar problems and the answers are varied...egr, throttle body, torque converter etc.

What do you guys think?

Thanks.

 

The "clunk" when you shift into reverse is probably a bad u-joint on your driveshaft.

The stalling/idle problem is probably the IAC (mounted on the back of the throttle body). Either clean up both or clean up the TB and replace the IAC. Good "how-to" post on cleaning here: https://dodgeforum.com/m_697481/tm.htm

 

They replaced the ujoint at the same time they rebuilt the transmission. Bad job? They guy said it was because of the shift kit...why would it do that?

Thanks for the stalling info! I'll check it out once the weather gets above 17 degrees. Gotta love North Dakota.

 

Which u-joint did he replace? There's two (front and rear). The shift kit should firm up the shifts but that does not equate to a "clunk" when you put it in reverse. In all my years ... the only time I've heard that noise (as described that way) is from a loose driveshaft (caused by worn u-joints) when the tranny's direction is reversed. Does it do it again when you go from R to D? Back to R from D?

 

Front ujoint I believe but I'm going to have to check.

It does not clunk when you shift from R to D or D to R only from Park to Reverse.

 

Yep, front ujoint.

 

If the EGR valve was not changed when the engine was rebuilt,
it should also be a suspect in the stalling.
What happens is that the 'pintle' valve and seat inside the EGR valve is corroded away by the exhaust gas and eventually lets gas leak by all the time....this can cause the engine to stall out at idle.