As some of you know I just rebuilt my 46re in my 97 dodge b3500. its shifting smooth and applying overdrive well. my only concern is that I can feel a high pulsing chatter in my steering wheel and thru out the vans body. kind of seems like a spark plug went out but I just replaced all of them and it didn't give off that chatter before I rebuilt the trans.. feels like a misfire or something off with the alignment( but never touched any of these components before or after rebuild, which leads me to beleive its a mounting issue with the bars and rubber shoes that support the transmission.)
So the only tricky part to this is, the chatter is subjective to the amount of throttle that I give or take. like if I let off the gas the chatter will go away but if I apply light throttle, the chatter comes back... another question I have is how hot do these 46re get under normal driving conditions? its like 65 out today and i have an empty bed. just some tools. wanted to stick a thermal gun under there to see if I'm overheating and getting proper fluid flow.

Edit: The whole van vibrates when I reach 30-35 mph- and also when I hit 65- 70 mph. these are the 2 speeds which it vibrates at..... now outside of those ranges the van does not vibrate and everything seems to roll smooth. mind you i have installed the transmission mount and see that the rubber shoe thing that sits under the tail housing in between trans and bottom mount, the rubber shoe looks like its worn pretty badly. will this cause a vibration at specific rpms? is the transmission supposed to have any play in it at all? i see that when im under the van i can take the tailhousing and wiggle it slightly. tracing back to that rubber boot on trans mount, it has a little bit of play to it. Anything else that would cause this strange vibration? Trans to motor mounting arm bolts not tight enough? i dont have any check engine lights on either.

 

I had a similar issue with vibration at certain speeds with my '91 DR Van a few years ago. Turned out to be a broken u joint that didn't completely fall apart but caused driveshaft to be misaligned. Might want to check that.

 

Could it possibly be the fact that i just changed 1 roller on the u joint with a new one? the new one didnt allow snap rings inside to snap. so i took a roller bearing off the new one and put it on the old one. so i have 3 rusted rollers and 1 brand new one. would this throw it off too? what about the way we re install them after taking them out. is there any weights to counter balance that?

 

I'm not sure how to answer your question. Someone else on this forum probably can. I just took mine to a mechanic and he replaced the broken u-joint and those symptoms went away. The fact that you altered the u-joint somehow means that you might be on the right track. Hope someone else can address this.

 

I found the issue and it was the u joint plus the fact I didn't line up my drive shaft the way I took it out. only problem now is that my Transmission speed sensor just randomly stopped working...it worked perfectly before removing the driveshaft to replace the u joint but when i put drive shaft back in the correct way the Trans speed sensor isnt working. i aligned the numbers to the bottom and tightened the metal claw holding it in place. What are the chances the sensor or wires are bad? the wires coming out of it are exposed and the casing around them is all cracked and soaked in trans fluid.

 

Could be the sensor itself is bad, and dinkin' with it pushed it over the edge. If fluid is leaking out of it, that is not a good sign.

 

I think I referred to the wrong part, the part I was talking about is the vehicle speed sensor. the one with the 3 wires into the plug connector back of transmission tail housing.

 

Yep. That would be the feller.