dripley

When my truck,6 speed, was new it did the same thing. Not that it refused to go into gear but was much easier to get into gear by catching a high gear then putting it into 1st or reverse. That went away with time and miles. i just installed a new South Bend single disk clutch and it is back to doing it again. It does seem to be getting better not sure yet. Another issue I have is that I shortened my slave cylinder rod about 1/4" when my old throw bearing was failing. This might be stopping my clutch from disengaging 100%. This could cause the gear train to rotate making it difficult to get it into gear. The pilot bearing could be doing the same thing by spinning the input shaft while the clutch is depressed.

I blew the end off of mine mine pulling a 6% grade with the 5th wheel in tow on Sunday. I found one at either Advance or Auto Zone, dont remember now. It was around $180 IIRC. It has been on around 100k now. The one in the picture had about 250k on it. Changed it out on the side of I 40. Took longer to get there than it did to change it. Quite easy to do.

Well I had to learn a lot things about my 24V. I drove it for 8 years almost trouble free. One VP under warranty at 75k then pretty much nothing util the lift pump at 150k and then the ECM at 217k. Pretty much survived on ignorance until that happened. I ended up here and started learning. I would not be objectionable to owning a CR, and would count on folks like W&F to help me set it up so as to avoid those problems. Still, a used truck is a used truck and you just dont know what you might have. Some new ones are like that. It is all relative, but i do have to admit injector prices do scare me into thinking other things could be as pricey, thats more from my ignorance than anything I know.

I experienced some similar issues that I heard described as bucking. In the throttle and it would cut out and come right back on at where ever the throttle was. It was very quick and made the truck "buck". Had this issue along with the dead pedal issues. My dead pedal issues only seemed to cure itself with restarts however. I even tried restarting the engine while moving if traffic allowed. sometimes it worked. Other times I had to sit for a minute or two. I was a little slow on this response.

I dont believe mine ever did it cold. It would do when ever it wanted to, towing or not, high or low rpm, it would just go to idle. I had to pull off the road and restart it one or more times and it would work just fine until the next episode. Took it to a shop and the only thing they found was very low fuel pressure, 5 at idle and almost none existent at WOT. I put a booster pump on near the tank and it cured my problem. Does not sound like your problem however, with the pressure you have.

you beat to that one. I like the out of the box thinking. But my electronically disinclined brain cant add anything to the topic.

That would be one to call DAP about. I know what you have stated above will void the warranty on a new one, not sure about the core.

That might be the problem, but if we can get everyone on board then everybody's eyes and memory, no good!!

My eyes and my memory, no good!!

I dont want to knock the blue chip pumps because I have one. Bought it about 5.5 years ago for near $1700. At the time it was the only pump that I found that came with new electronics on it and that was a the main reason I bought it. I have 143K miles on it with no issues and it has been on a 2 stroke diet 90% of its life. That being said it has not had any longer service life than many others here for me to say it was worth the extra. Blue Chip is a good company and has given me good service thru the years I have owned.

In my experience, yes. Cruising down the road and the engine just falls off to idle.No matter what you do with the throttle the engine just idles. I think it gets mixed up with a dead spot in the oe TPS where you loose throttle response in a certain range due to wear on the TPS. I am sure some body will correct me if I am wrong on that.

What fuel pressure are you running? Idle and WOT.

Who is the local shop? There are not many places that can rebuild them.

I am lucky that my truck has not seen a lot of salt in its lifetime.

I am guilty here. Let to many things pile up and it is going to be fun to catch up. Hard to keep up sometimes when you are constantly traveling. Unless you take it somewhere. I am not into that. The small stuff gets pricey when you go that route.

The relay is in the PDC, under the hood, on the drivers fender well. I believe you are right on the relay but as I am not the electrical genius here I will defer to them.

I agree with Mike on the fuel pressure. Most of us here get our fuel pressure readings after all the filters. Mine is tapped in between the the filter canister and the VP. I see 19 at idle and 16 at wot. The carter pump is never going to see this kind of pressure. There is a lot of good reading here about all of that. http://articles.mopar1973man.com/2nd-generation-24v-dodge-cummins/25-fuel-system

#2 You cannot just replace the computer on the VP. At least that is what I have been told. Even if i was lied to with the age of the pump I would want the all redone.

Just to add a few things that might put your mind more at ease. My drive line is all oe, have never had to touch it. I dont 4 wheel much at all. just when I need to on the job or occasionally off road. On the fuel side, I changed my stock injectors out at 250k, not because the failed mechanically, but one of the orings failed and started pumping fuel in the crankcase.I used that for an excuse to put in some RV275's. Nice little power bump and gained a little fuel mileage. I big fuel issue is the oe lift pump. If you still have that plan on replacing it. The VP needs better fuel pressure than it can provide. A fuel pressure gauge is another thing you would want so you can keep an eye on things. VP's aint cheap. 2 stroke oil in the fuel will help also. I too have to do all of my work in the driveway. Sometimes I have help and sometimes I dont. That does kind of limit what you can tackle some times if you have to have the truck back on the road Mondays like me. The dash is not as big a deal as you think. I did mine with the same worries you have and was surprised as to how easy it was. It is a good time to do a heater core and evaporator replacement beings you have to pull the dash to do those repairs. Mike's write up on the heater core is what I used to do it. I did mine in about 2.5 days at my leisure.

I did the sector adjustment on mine after rebuilding my front end and it helped. I only turned the nut 1/8 or 1/4 turn. It does not take a lot.

Good to hear.

It does sound pretty good. Something to think about When my front end wears out. For now just getting the new track bar was like new steering to me. The only time I had bump steer was when the truck was new and that seemed to lessen with age. A little over a year ago i had my first instance of death wobble. Now that was an eye opener. It stayed with until I replaced the track bar. So far so good. I could move the ball stud in the old one with my finger tip. The only resistance was from the rubber seal. The bushing in the other end was coming apart also.

Pull the trouble codes and post them. Then you can get a better idea of where to start. Just throwing parts at it will get expensive quickly. Some more info on the truck would be beneficial also. Such as any upgrades from stock, gauges, fuel system, and such.

It does boil down to what you want in a truck. The list you have appears long but most of it is not difficult to diy and save a lot money. If you pay someone to do it all it would get quite expensive. Most of the body parts you list are available thru LMC truck and you can find some on Craig's list and such. The mechanical parts are available at any number of places. My truck has 356k miles and I still have all the confidence that it is going to get me to my destination. You can by a newer truck but you never know what you might have to put in it to keep it going. It is still a used truck. On top of that I am going to beat Mike back from the moon.

I had similar issues when my ECM went, but my truck was undriveable. It also surged alot while idling. The really weird thing was while checking DTC's I had a list a mile long but none pertaining to the ECM. So post back what you find and dont be surprised if the list is long.