So my truck now likes to give a big ol' kick when downshifting. Not a good throw your head back kick, but an oh **** I've ****ed something up kick. I definitely messed it up while mudding a few days back, I wasn't the least bit gentle on it. Could doing a full trans fluid flush help anything or am I going to be looking at a rebuild?

 

First things first, do the flush and cross your fingers. See where you're at after that. If you really don't want to do it yourself, I just got a flyer in the mail from my Dodge dealership advertising to do it (fluid, filters, and band adjustment if necessary) for $129.95. May be a little more for our trannies since we have two filters, but not a bad price for a $tealership.

Be glad you don't have a Continuously Variable Tranny in these trucks like my wife's Jeep does. Just read last night that the CVT+4 fluid for those is about $40 a quart.

 

I know that stuff is fun and it's using a truck like a truck is supposed to be used, blah, blah blah, but that's why I don't that kind of stuff with my truck. 80k and she still looks, drives and smells like a new truck. You might also have mud caked all around the trans. Get up under there and have a look.

 

I'll have to get under sometime to check that. I cleaned it up pretty good even hit the engine bay for the first time in forever but I wasn't able to get up under it. I'll be in at the dealership on Monday to try to schedule a flush hopefully it will help something. I have a 2000 mile roadtrip in a week, my 4 year sentence in the Marine Corps has expired lol so I really don't want to drive cross country with it acting up like this.

 

I cleaned up the underbody pretty good today, it was caked. I went ahead and flushed my radiator too for my drive ahead. I'll probably be in a the dealer tomorrow morning, but that I'd add to this first. Aside from the hard downshifts, the only other symptom seems to be when I first shift it into drive. It hesitates for about 3 seconds and sounds kinda clunky. Shifting into reverse seems fine, just drive. So bad downshifts + hesitant into drive. Any ideas other than fluid?

 

Well the dealer did the change, found a little bit of metal shavings but nothing major. Problem still exists ...so, while I'm going down this road, has anyone done an auto to standard swap?

 

Did you have them diagnose it? Or no?

Auto to Standard can be done, as far as I understand its not that big of and issue either... look up EV, he actually did a swap from an auto V8 gas to a standard diesel

 

I took it to a trans shop today and he said the clutches are probably just wore down, but apparently it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be. Idk, I definitely don't like it and it shouldn't be happening. I'm going to have to put it on the backburner for now tho since I'm driving home in a few days. If it gets any worse tho Idk if I'll be able to sell it or trade it in.

 

I shot a message to EV about the swap hopefully he gets back to me about it. If it's something that's do-able then I think my interest in my Dak will be renewed lol

 

There's a guy on another forum who did a 4.7 auto to 5.7 manual on his Ram. He had a few issues with the computer and still has trans related codes popping up but apparently it runs good.


Good idea would be to get a PCM from a manual truck, and the full wiring harness, if you wanted it to be perfect factory style. The punch out for the stick is already in the floor too if I remember right.