2000Ram2500

I think I’ve found out a direction to go for this finally! And the speedometer hasn’t acted up since cleaning out that connector. So. Last week I was sitting there and the quadzilla was running its warmup mode when suddenly, the engine returns to normal idle for a second then goes back. So I looked at my coolant temp on the QZ app and it was still around 95*, when it did it again! This time I was already watching and I saw it display a 0* reading at the same moment that it idled down before idling back up again. So now, I’m staring at wiring diagrams related to the coolant temp sensor. Is there a known problem area for coolant temp sensor ground issues? A bad splice somewhere? Keep in mind this particular problem (referring to how it’ll intermittently act like the TCC lock/unlock but it’s not the same behavior) has been going on since before I did all that work to it last month. I think what’s happening is a very intermittent loss of coolant temp signal is causing the ECM to derate for a second before returning to normal.

I like these suggestions. I'll be having a car day at my friends house tomorrow I'll give this a go and report back what I find out edit 1: fast forward to the next day now 1/1/24 He got sick overnight so im gonna have all day tomorrow to see what I can find. I did drive it over to his house and back. after approx 15 minutes of driving and at about 42mph it was hunting between 3 lock/unlock real bad and then further up the road now 20 minutes of driving at about 55mph it started jerking around a bit, just single jerks or maybe a few at a time but not the typical TC lock/unlock that I had years back. didn't see any anomalies on the gauges and the data log hasn't shown me any strange outliers yet. no codes of course. everyday it becomes more and more tempting to buy my own DRB scanner. ill start with the abs connector tests here first and see what I can find tomorrow. depending what I find I think ill then review the AC voltage test and see if I can't find what my alternator is putting out with a borrowed fluke meter in a couple days edit 2: 1/3/2024 on Monday 1/1 I went out and at least pulled apart the drivers side connector behind the wheel well. It was full of dirt so I sprayed it out 3 times with some electrical cleaner and let dry before putting together. I ran out of time so I didn’t get to test the abs wires but I confirmed my meter does have a beep function so I will get to it asap Today, Wednesday 1/3, the alternator stopped charging, or rather the gauge displayed no charge voltage and said “check gages”. I shut the truck off to check the belt and alternator connector, which were both in place. When checked with a meter I saw 12.9v at the battery terminals so I restarted and saw 14.1 charging at idle. My meter is not a fluke so AC voltage testing isn’t possible until I get a chance to borrow a fluke meter. But for the next 30 minutes of messing with it and a short drive to get food and come back and this new voltage problem didn’t reoccur. edit 3: 1/8/24 my backup car is suffering badly I need to give it attention before I have no cars. 99 Toyota Camry 2.2L with 280k miles on it. original struts are about ready to fall out of the mounts. its all rusted together. ill get back to the truck shortly. bear with me as I attempt to stay on here and reliably take notes of everything I notice as I go along so I can finally figure this out.

If anyone remembers my old post, I have done a bunch of stuff to it and just did a ton more this last month. Decided to make a new thread because the other one was getting old and enough has changed I think I need to start over. So this began with me fighting what seemed like EMI in a particular spot in town. At the time with the Edge programmer, I could watch the boost signal drop to 0 then back up to the true value and back to 0 again, truck was fluctuating between tuned and not tuned is what it felt like. Then as I left the area the tuner would kick in again and it would pump smoke out and off it would go. No amount of throttle would change its behavior. It was weird. One day my fuel pressure was 0. Found a melted wire for my air dog lift pump relay so I replaced the relay with another weather-resistant relay and taped it up and its been good ever since. So I'll get everyone caught up. Truck now has 208k miles. Transmission fluid is now valvoline ISO32 (napa p# 041) and has been for about a year. Rear diff has synthetic 75w140 plus additive. Well the Edge died so I ripped it out and ran a super chips downloadable tune for a while and I actually believe the edge was responsible for picking up the interference as I haven't had any since I ripped it out, but other gremlins still haunt me. Now, my problems are a really intermittent speedometer and also occasionally the transmission will flare up at about 40 mph and 3rd unlocked/locked. I did rebuild this myself, had to flush a ton of old fluid out and messing up the OD unit caused the OD piston and thrust bearing to bind and come apart which resulted in metal chunks everywhere and I believe to have cleaned hopefully all of that out and thats when I first replaced the sensor as well. Another important piece of the trucks history is that I sunk it in a giant mud pit 3 years ago, which is why the transmission went out and it also filled my rear axle with water which ive also flushed twice. The transfer case and front axle did not get water intrusion. In the past here's what I did to address this. Changed transmission fluid enough times I got sick of buying ATF and got this 5gal iso32 for half the price and added a transmission additive. I have replaced the trans output sensor once and cleaned it later on. I have a feeling I need to replace it or clean it again because sometimes, only sometimes the speedometer fails to work. Or maybe the rear ABS sensor (truck has 2 wheel abs) but I have changed that sensor as well. Sometimes it comes back if I restart the truck. But it also came back on its own about 3 hours into a 6 hour drive last weekend. (edited to add) I have also changed the APPS. I think, I have an Oreilly unit on the truck right now. I don't actually remember. Ive changed it several times over the years between a calibrate it yourself one with the adapter plug and I have or had 2 factory ones I was swapping between back and forth. Recently, the front main seal exploded. The actual dust seal part was missing completely, the seal part looked and felt abrasive, oil was everywhere. So I parked the truck for a bunch of work... Replaced front main seal, found that my killer dowel pin has been staked in already, extended breather hose down to a new catch can, replaced both oil cooler gaskets, replaced A/C suction line, new control arm bushings, shocks, sway bar end links. Cleaned radiator, fan, and shroud, extensively, also cleaned almost everything else. I stopped counting how much degreaser I used. Scraping grease and junk off with a screwdriver/scraper.. If I saw a ground connection I pulled it off and cleaned with brake cleaner. Removed the super chips tune and finally got a quadzilla. Amazing tune right out of the box. I discovered while changing the a/c line that I didn't fully remove the old noise isolator from the truck, it was disconnected from the harness but I left it dangling from the ground end so I finished that off. Of course gave it fresh rotella t4 15w40 oil and a factory oil filter. I have spent a couple weeks searching about different forums and on here trying to come up with clues. So far, I found an old TSB about handheld radio interference; in the factory wiring diagrams I traced the speed signal to the 14 way ABS plug pins 8 and 12; and someone on a post here mentioned the bolted down junction block connector under the dash as a possible point of corrosion. I am actually looking at the 2000 trucks engine wiring map right now and am wondering why the dark blue alternator wire needs to go to the transmission relay or is that even a problem. I am going to inspect the transmission solenoid connector for any oil saturation or damage in general.. and I also have this sneaking suspicion that I may have a rear axle problem brewing but I haven't been under the back of the truck yet. As for codes, the only codes ive seen in the last year was for the output speed sensor and the grid heater. I thought maybe the governor/transducer combo but those always give a code is what I thought unless im wrong about that. another wild thought.. years ago I thought the TC lockup switch was a good idea for me, is it possible I messed up and as a result the TCC driver in the PCM is intermittent? unrelated.. I was also curious is there is a reason to have a "26v" in chalk under the oil cooler. I thought that was weird, im not aware of the truck having a junkyard engine so its gotta be factory for something

long overdue update guys thank you to everyone so far so, as far as parts I've replaced this year since the last posts.. edge programmer actually died so I removed it entirely. I just can't leave it alone so I downloaded my antique 2004 edition superchips tune into it and its fine it runs great. got new tires, replaced steering box, replaced steering linkage (same 2010 complete assembly from the dealership), new steering dampener. replaced the output speed sensor on the overdrive housing. at the amount of fluid I've began to need for this truck I bought a 5 gal pail of valvoline hydraulic fluid (ill update with the specifics) with a can of BG transmission additive mixed in, it was $130/5gal at my local Napa compared to $10+ per quart of atf+4 since nobody carries it in gallons anymore I cannot find it here in a gallon. also added the power driven diesel cooler line kit which brought my heat exchanger back into the picture so I have properly regulated transmission fluid temp. still using an extra cooler mounted in front of everything. one of the mechanics was kind enough to let me borrow his fluke meter for a few minutes today. I've been dealing with the lock/unlock syndrome again. its not behaving like the true symptoms though. its not the insanely rapid jerks, this is slower and way more dramatic which has me wondering about the alternator and the APPS. I also have the GM style VB solenoid upgrade and I'm not sure of the symptoms those display when they go bad. these symptoms are not exclusive to the current condition of the truck but that has been happening with the edge, without the edge and with the superchips. I did not have a chance to find the information about the millivolts AC and where to check for readings or what the specific numbers were so I did my best to get the most logical stuff quickly I didn't have much time but I should at another time if I can hopefully gain some more education here I did all testing with the positive lead touching the alternator charge wire, where it meets the passenger side battery (I've modded my wiring already) with the ground lead at the passenger battery, I was reading 19mV AC with some fluctuation up to 34 with the ground lead at the alternator case, I was ready 33-34mV AC with some fluctuation up to 80 so as not to ignore the subject matter of the whole thread in the first place, I am still getting that interference at the same spot in town, again its with the edge, without the edge, and with the superchips. that whole situation is still beyond me. I will say the edge definitely amplified the effects so I barely notice it with the edge ripped out but its still occurring. maybe alternator combined with some weird residual from the power lines in that specific spot?

Air dog appears to be pumping. Relay definitely was toasted. Connector was cracked from the heat. Just got a new connector and relay spliced in with good connections. Battery connections are all clean and right. I’m using the military grade terminals that Napa sells and the copper lugs that you have to pound tight with that wedge tool and a hammer. No visible corrosion on any of the wires outside of some oxidation on the galvanized pieces. tested it with a jumper wire and it is pumping. So I just finished heat shrinking and taping the wires for the new relay and connector. Guess we’ll see how this goes

What did you say about the fuel pump lead becoming an antenna? I’m about to do some electrical work today. Late last week I noticed my fuel pressure gauge was at zero but it’s been a nightmare to keep it working reliably so I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed yesterday when I wanted to drive the truck to work that I didn’t actually hear the fuel pump cycle on, and and a bump of the key did not run the pump for 20 seconds only clicked the relay a couple times. So I checked underneath made sure my pump was still connected and then popped the hood and looked at my relay and saw a slightly melted wire and the relay connector was falling apart and a pin wasn’t even in its slot anymore. what’s even more of a mystery is it showed absolutely no signs of not having a lift pump. When the previous one failed it barely ran. I was running the truck like normal as if everything was fine. Do these pumps siphon? Would a larger fuel line allow it to siphon enough to not die or run terribly? I’m hopefully about to find out more edit for clarification: I have another car so I wasn’t driving the truck all week with no pump just one trip across town

in an interesting turn of events I just had a customer saying to avoid the very place I bought my injectors from saying he had a bad set of 1st gen injectors. At a certain point I did suspect that one or multiple might not be popping 100%.. I mean they were $189 for all 6 with no cores.. I knew what I was getting into… his knowledge base is supposedly based on him buying and selling and maintaining dozens and dozens of ram trucks all I have is his word I don’t personally know the guy but he may be on to something i did just roll over 200k and as far as I know this is the original vp44.. I know I’ve never changed it. i won’t have a chance to actually do any real work on this until New Years weekend with other things going on between now and then.. I’ll report back with what I discover

I never would have thought to translate radio electronics into vehicle but it’s still just electronics at its basic sense so it’s not that different. I play guitar and wanted to learn how to build a pedal for my electric so I bought some bulk packs of resistors and capacitors and diodes etc etc. and learned a bit. De-soldered a bunch of dead electronics I had laying around and a couple pieces of scrap from work. I happen to have about 1000 capacitors but lack a 0.01 my smallest is 0.1. The point being I’m at least slightly familiar with the concept of modifying a signal with capacitors to ground and opposing diodes in parallel.. I’ll dig into it some more and see what I don’t happen to find. So far I’ve managed to distinguish two separate issues. This one and then what I’ll outline below. it shouldn’t go without mention that I did the w-t mod I’m sure I said that if it wasn’t obvious in the title. And several years ago I changed out the alternator diode with one that mopar1973man was selling for the torque converter issue. I threw that BD ground isolation in the trash immediately. Well I’m getting torque converter glitches again and not just in that area of town I’m having the other issue this is definitely two independent problems. But the lock/unlock is nothing like they were in the past. It’ll do it at 35mph, sometimes. And at 35 it normally does float in and around lockup but only sometimes will it jump in and out. And then again in overdrive about 52 to 55 it’ll do the same thing, sometimes. Give it some light throttle to maintain speed, not accelerating, and that’s when it’ll act up, again it’s only sometimes but more often when the trucks warmer than cooler but it does do both. Its non-rhythmically and slower whereas years prior it was very fast and had a bit more predictability to it. Had me curious if maybe I’m having a diode issue again. I have a better multimeter now than I did then but still not a fluke. this is a lot of food for thought I’ll say. I definitely have my work cut out for me now. Lots to inspect.

It’s been a while. Been carefully observing how the truck is behaving and all that. My friend borrowed it many times. Towed a skid steer. Enough driving to continue on with the diagnosis. I’ve been taking note is what gears, lockup yes or no, speed, whether I was stopped at the red light or not and how long I sat there if I did, and so on. Through all of this I’ve left the edge connected. Now just so we’re all on the same page this truck sat for a year. I forgot how it drove and behaved. I needed to remind myself what was normal and what wasn’t. Now I’m ready to go a little further. Like I said I’ve been paying attention. And so far I haven’t been able to pinpoint any consistency outside of the fact that it would actually not happen on weekends and only during the week. Well just yesterday I was doing an evening drive across town and I could feel the truck slow down in that spot but this time I actually caught the boost psi flickering between 0 and 3 at a throttle position where I know I should have been seeing 3-5 psi and no flickering back and forth. It wasn’t even displaying 1 or 2 just back and forth 0 and 3. But you guessed it as soon as I got away from that area the readout started displaying normally. Finally! Something I can go off of. Now I feel better about pulling the edge out and inspecting the harness for problems. w-t I knew you’d known your stuff but good lord man.. the sad part is I actually understand the majority of that without google lol. Good stuff man

I’m definitely going to pursue the edge as a suspect because I’ve had issues with it in the past and although I may have the wires connected securely like you’ve mentioned it’s more exposed right off the bat. Not to mention the number of issues people have with the edge in general at least based on how many posts and threads I’ve seen related to it. last I remember and it’s been a little while but I’m pretty sure I saw that you have to actually disconnect the edge from everywhere you can’t just unplug it from the obd or anything simple.

@W-T I’ve made some changes to my assumptions over the last couple years. At first I thought it was the torque converter glitching I think I was at speed approximately 50. But quickly I changed to thinking it was a warmup issue because at the time I was heading out passing it but coming back another way due to the stops I had to make on those days. Eventually after living here long enough the first time I got the full dose of the error and I came to pass that spot with a well warmed up truck. I was trying to accelerate to keep up with traffic. Truck was into 2nd by this point and I was pushing the throttle but no go. It was maintaining speed and the throttle could be let off but it wouldn’t “go”. I am no stranger to dead pedal my dad had an 02 with a manual trans and we’d go so far as to key off while rolling down the road to reset the throttle. This wasn’t dead pedal I realized. And suddenly the truck whipped back to life and I unintentionally smoked out the people behind me. Out of all 75k miles I’ve put on it I’m about 99% sure that I’ve never experienced this anywhere else. edit: any speed I’ve traveled between 0 and 55. There’s 2 lights here and it’s common to catch both red or while they’re changing and be sluggish to accelerate out of there but be fine at the previous light and the next light and all the other lights in town. Ill make it a point to mess with disconnecting the edge and maybe doing a couple passes sometime this week. It’s not a huge issue to me just a really weird one. I wasn’t even gonna write a thread but it’s persisted since 2020. Got me curious as to why

Now that you mention it I’ve seen quite a few additional grounds in newer vehicles. I used to think they were just putting them in visible or convenient places but now you have me wondering if they’re targeting specific components

I haven’t gone too far into it so much as I’ve been paying close attention and trying to get more aware with what could be going on and it’s just kinda left me at a dead end with no real clue where to turn. I’ll pop the hood and make sure all my important connections are as good as they can be. And then I’ll disconnect the edge and do some testing. To be fair there’s a couple poor or not ideal aspects of the edge harness that have had me looking into buying a new harness or a quadzilla.. but haven’t had the budget or time to really pursue it any further than remind myself of the price. But even so, I’d expect issues more frequently if it’s a harness issue. Then again it could be some sort of weird interference that’s just exactly right to affect whatever oversight I’ve made and it’s some crazy coincidence. edit: I’m by no means an electrical or wiring professional but I try to maintain a pretty high standard for what i use or how I connect them. All my battery terminals are the “military” ones that Napa sells. 3/8” bolt for your connections and you’ll never have any issues with them I love them. Batteries are Walmart deep cycle and i was hesitant but it’s all I could afford at the time. They seem to do great though don’t have any complaints about them. I solder whenever I can and when I can’t I’m using quality connectors and the weatherproof heat shrink always. I keep my wires tidy and protected the best I can. Clean grounds when I’m there. Try anyways I’m not perfect It’s just speculation though really. I have no firm ground to stand on for anything other than how it’s behaving when it does occur.

As best I can describe it, if anyone has been driving a car when the catalytic converter melts down or plugs up the engine gets generally sluggish and struggles under its own weight. Throttle works but no not really because its just bogging it further in a sense. Or how about those of us with Edge tuners who take off driving before it loads and you get that sudden burst of power when it does start working. That sudden contrast between no tune and tune. However in my case only 200 yards prior i was running the tune and it just suddenly fell on its face then as i said its a sudden burst of power when it clears up. I hope that description makes sense because its what my entire issue is but i'll explain it specifically here and just refer to it as "symptoms" to save some typing I have to pass by a particular factory very frequently. Its the main road through town and my route to work or stores unless i take the back way or long way. As i approach this segment of road that these "symptoms" occur for, (haven't measured it exactly but maybe a few hundred yards or so), my edge tuner is typically at level 4 with the boost compensation backed off or level 5 if im in a mood, regardless of load you can feel that level. Suddenly i get those "symptoms". Throttle works. No lights or anything out of the ordinary. I make it that short distance up the road and depending on where my foot is even in level 4 with the boost comp backed off it'll usually dump a little smoke and then back to normal as if nothing happened. I bought this truck in 2016 when i lived in california. maintained it in arizona. still have it in florida. i've literally crossed the country and can solemnly swear this is the only place this has ever happened to the truck. the factory iteslf isnt necessarily close to the road. the nearest power transfer station is about 3/4 of a mile away. no cell towers that im aware of. there is the helicopter field but my house is much closer to the field than this segment of road is. the only other businesses in proximity is a handful of restaurants and stores and i think a parts house and a oil change place and a carwash. I did the W-T mod years ago and even changed the diode if im not mistaken. I've taken care to make sure my batteries are all kept in good shape. APPS is weeks old. There was even a year period of time when the truck was down and it was acting up then too. Happens on both sides of the road but not every single time just 50/50 probably. I thought APPS but its done it with at least 3 different sensors from 3 different companies (OE, Pensacola Fuel Injection, Oreillys Standard ignition currently). Im not exactly expecting results so much as im sharing in hopes someone has some sort of clue because i absolutely do not have any idea what would cause something like this outside of some sort of interference violations i mean this is just weird to me. Im not saying im jumping for a lawyer at all its just one of the weirdest things ive encountered and ive seen some pretty wild complaints having been in dodge dealerships for so long

I edited mine also.