My grandson was in his 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 5.7 4x4 automatic and tranny went out of gear and made grinding noise when he tried to shift. He turned off road and rolled to a stop. He smelled an odor like burnt oil or gas.

Transmission reads full when cold and won't shift into park or any gear. Makes bad grinding noise. I've read that chain in transfer case may have broken. I'll have it towed to shop next week if I can't discover easy fix .

After he bought the truck last year, the tranny smoked and had burnt smell. He added around three or four quarts of fluid (non synthetic probably). Seemed okay . He didnt change fluid but hasn't driven more than 1-2k miles in it since. Wonder if we should even try changing fluid before getting it into our local shop? I can't imagine it would help much the way the grinding sounds.

TIA for any suggestions.

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A broken chain would only prevent four wheel drive from working, wouldn't affect two wheel drive at all.

 

What codes are you getting? Do you know what the transmission level reads when warm?
With truck off, key on and brake on, can you move the shifter through the gears?
Have someone look at the shift lever on the transmission while you are cycling through the gears.

 

My $20 scanner stopped after using 3,years or I might have discovered only driveshaft needed. However tranny had 290k miles !
The used I bought had 129k but found the fluid clean like recent change ! So...after 2 months all ok !

 

Thanks for good response !