Ram Man 02

Well its officially NOT fixed. I drove it to work a couple days so far and it seemed normal at first but after less then 300 miles i can tell its coming back. I guess im going to make a call to Jon and introduce myself

UPDATE: For anyone that is curious or finds this later when searching. My truck is back together appears to be working normal. I have only a few miles on it so time will tell if it holds up. They told me there was a sticking valve in the valve body and the converter lock up clutches were glazed and slightly harder then they should be so the were replaced. they were intentionally being vague just like previously. I asked who's valve body they used and he didn't answer me. I asked about the dynoing process and what they are checking for along with what kind of pressures they see. (I did not mention the testing I did a month ago before removal). he said their dyno only has so much power and if they apply full brake with the converter locked it will stop the dyno before my clutch was slipping so that's why I had issues after it was installed in the truck and why the shaking got worse with load. so that part made sense. as for line pressures he said at idle it could be between 90 to 120psi, which I thought was a large range BS answer and at WOT it could be as high as 250psi. Again very vague answers but that was what I was seeing. I also noticed when putting it back in the truck that someone wrote SONNAX with a permanent marker on the converter and wiped it clean with some kind of spray but I could just barely see it still. So is it possible they are using all sonnax parts for this thing??? Over all I'm not happy but I guess I not mad either since they stepped up with it 1 month out of warranty. Since this is hopefully over with now, The name of the shop is Dynotec in Jordan,MN. I honestly cant recommend anyone doing business with them. Now this whole situation might have been a fluke and I just have bad luck, I'm not sure. But if this gives me problems again I might just cut the converter lock up wire, or i will most likely end up just trading the truck in. *end rant* I want to thank everyone for their help. I truly mean it! This forum has been extremely valuable!!!

cool. atleast I did something right.

I only saw the governor pressure code the 1 time. its never given me that code before in the 17years ive owned the truck. I didn't understand most of that. I don't really understand transmissions at all! I'm barely able to understand what you and pepsi are talking about. I don't even know if I took all the correct readings you were looking for? I know a few things but it barely gets me by. the 200psi reading was only when the truck was floored and banging through the gears. normal driving was around 115-120psi It was starting in 3rd after it threw the governor pressure code. I code only get 2nd gear by manually shifting into 2nd and it wouldn't go into 1st ever. after I shut the truck off and restarted, it went back to normal. I assume this is some kind of limp mode.

I picked up several grease gun hoses and couplings. my local home improvement store only had 0-200psi liquid gauges so thats what i grabbed. I had Dan come over and watch the gauge for me so i had a second set of eyes, plus hes also curious what they did. TESTING RESULTS: -disconnecting the alternator made no difference. -the middle port only read pressure in the forward gears. nothing in reverse which going back and reading i guess it was supposed to do that but it catch me off guard at the time. -put it in drive at idle gives me 100psi. -put the shifter in manual 1st gear and bring rpm up to 1800 gives me 122psi -put the shifter in 2nd gear and bring rpm up to 2700 gives 144psi. -3rd gear with converter unlocked then locking the pressure didnt change in either state. the pressure varied depending on where i had my foot/tv cable. same results in 4th. -4th gear with converter locked at 47mph which is close to 1200rpm i rolled into the throttle pretty hard but not enough to make it downshift, until about 65mph which is close to 1800rpm, the pressure went from 110psi to 140psi. -4th gear just cruising road speed around 1500rpm on flat roads was always between 115-120psi. pressure varied with throttle position. as this point i was just having fun watching the gauge move around. Now to the serious tests: i made 2 passes rolling from about 5mph pinned up to 65mph. shifted into 2nd and 3rd right around 2900 rpm everytime give or take 50. I was watching the tach and speedo while dan watched the gauge. he saw a max psi of just over the 200 mark so were calling it about 205psi. theres no stop on this gauge so the needle is able to go past 200. he said it bounced down to 200 maybe 198 psi a couple times, it must have been during shifts. after turning around the 2nd time when i shifted in D i noticed it didnt feel right. as i took off normally i knew i wasnt in 1st gear. as i got up to speed i felt the converter lock at its normal speed so i knew we were starting in 3rd gear. it went into 4th like normal as well. I knew we went into limp mode because something similar happened to me about 10 years ago when a sensor went out and it was stuck in 3rd gear only. we stopped beating on it and drove over to his house to check codes. BTW i could get 2nd when shifting down but not first which i believe are also part of the limp mode. I never shut the truck off and i gave us P1763 governor pressure sensor too high. p0500 no vss detected. and there was the companion module code which i didnt write down just tells you theres a code in the other computer. the gov press code makes sense because i had it floored. but that is the first time ive ever seen it pop up because i dont drive like that normally. i was reading about someone else with the same vss code after they were doing some burn outs and since i was spinning the tires some that might explain where that came from. we didnt erase the codes just incase we needed them for some reason. i then shut the truck off and when restarted works like normal again so i drove home nicely and parked it. SO, thats my morning....

thats how i found this place through goerend and thats what i wanted installed but recent events and lack of my questions answered leads me to believe thats not what i received

please rant away! ive been trying my best to leave my opinion out of this thread. trust me, im not happy about the situation and i have yet to mention the name of the shop, any peoples names or anyone else ive spoke with about them, As long as theyre going to try again to fix this i will keep my mouth shut. i will say they are very much a box store type and only build transmissions no R&R. I will check the alternator as you described. i will also go beat on it a little and see where the shift points are and report back. In my youtube searching ive seen the plug you are refering to, so i was aware of it. I will look into getting a long hydraulic hose made or ill just buy multiple grease gun hoses with couplings to get the gauge into the cab. i will get many readings in different gears when i get a gauge figured out and report back. Thank you for the help!

Im still following this thread and i appreciate everyones input. i havent updated anything because i havent had anything new/positive to add. My motivation level has been poor the last couple weeks. I dont have a heated garage to work in and even now as im typing its 4* outside. I have tried a few peoples ideas with no success. brought it into a driveline shop. they balanced the drive shafts with no change. they were convinced its in the transmission but without paying for further diagnostics they dont know. I decided to drive the truck back to the original transmission shop this morning with my friend Dan who has been helping me scan/test. he mostly works on GM stuff but he has rebuilt a couple automatics so between that and what ive been reading i feel like we have a decent grasp of what is going on. We must have been there for 1.5 hrs. Talked to the sales guy again. he was digging through paperwork trying to figure out what was replaced last month and what could still be going on. I threw several ideas mentioned here at him. Some he knew wasnt it and others didnt answer. we drove around for a while. He adjusted the TV cable up so my shifts are excessively delayed (in my opinion) and i dont like and will be putting back to stock later. we finally came back to their building. He went into the owners office for what felt like 10mins. When he came out said " transmission is going to have to come back out and we will go through it again" I asked what he thought it was and didnt really answer me. On the way home Dan and i were talking about when i can get it into his heated shop and thursday 12-13 we will be pulling it out again. I should have it back sometime the following week. Im on vacation starting 12-20 so sometime christmas weekend i should have it back on the road and hopefully working. 3RD times the charm!!!! I did not do that alternator test but i will try to do that this weekend. i have nothing to loose I have no clue whos VB or converter they are using. It is a triple disc, and it does have a billet input shaft. I asked about line pressure this morning and all he would say is that its higher then stock. I dont know where WOT is set right now because things were changed this morning and even prior i couldnt tell you because i rarely run it past 2500rpm. I had the TV cable set according to my Haynes manual which is different then what he showed me this morning. i dont like the way it shifts now and will be putting it back to stock at a later date. I believe what i am feeling is the same slip/chatter you are talking about. The fact that they want to go through the trans again tells me that there is something wrong with the valve body. I planned to ask what the issue was after they look it over.

I didnt think to try isolating batteries as theyre only a year old. the system seams to have normal voltages but its a good point and would take me very little time to check that. Truck currently has 168k. the whole rear end (dana 80 upgrade)was swapped in at 149k so it had fresh amsoil then and the drive shaft was balanced and got new Ujoints at that time. transmission was originally rebuilt at 155k, the transfer case was out so it got new ATF+4 and the front drive shaft got new Ujoints and was balanced since it was just laying there and i figured why not. The front axle got Spyntec lock outs added in 2012 and it had somewhere in the 130K's. both Ujoints were replaced and i doubt they even have as many miles as the rear end "locked in". front axle fluid was not changed at that time because it wasnt that old and had synthetic so i wasnt worried about it being broke down. last time i stuck my finger in there it still looked and smelled like new. Ill most likely change it next time the rear end needs a change. I guess i dont consider any of that to be over due for maintenance but then again im here asking questions because i dont have the answers either. I was going to have both drive shafts rebalanced this week just to make sure because multiple people have mentioned it. I think i follow what your getting at. Basically this is what the truck does every time i drop under 45mph and the PCM tells the converter to unlock but this way im in control and eliminating the PCM from the situation? is there any way the VSS could be the could be feeding bad info to the pcm or is this part of the toggle switch test?

Shop "B" did just that and i knew that going into it as they said all they are willing to do was test drive it and report back. the owner said hes been burned before by trying to fix other peoples custom transmissions and will no longer touch them. theyve done other work for me before and i respect that he was up front with me on that. hes the one who suggested looking into other areas of the drivetrain which gave me something to try as im running out of ideas. Since i dont fully understand how automatics works could you clarify a little more? the shift kit/valve body modifications are supposed to increase line pressure over stock. shouldnt that mean that there would be more then enough line pressure for a good lock up? or is that relative to the style of converter, meaning more line pressure on a stock single disc would be more then enough but since i have a triple disc i need even more line pressure yet? IDK what kind of pressures stock should be or what im at now so thats probably of no help to you. As for the wire going to the PCM, am i supposed to cut that wire and install the toggle switch in series so that in the closed position the computer controls everything normally? Then when i open it im breaking the circuit that controls lock up. You mentioned something about the OD solenoid as well. will this toggle switch also cause the truck to shift into 3rd gear? Can i cheat by over adjusting the TV cable so it thinks i have higher throttle position and by default increase line pressure or doesnt it work that way and only delay the shift points? also i read something about the relay in the power distribution box that somehow controls lock up. Is this the same circuit im messing with or those people just wanting manual control of the lock up function yup, that would be mine. pictures always hide sins. the salt is rapidly taking its toll on the truck. Thank you for the kind words. Ive been through Golden once. very beautiful area. If i ever move out of MN its going to be in the denver area. -one other thing i just thought of was that before i got the transmission back the shop put every transmission on their dyno to check it over and i assume check out line pressures. IDK what is involved in this dyno run but i would like to think that if it had low line pressure they would have caught it then? but maybe not. im just throwing darts and hoping for the best at this point... I think im going to have to suck it up and call them monday and see what they have to say. maybe they would send a tech out to help me if i drove to to their shop?

I took the truck to a different transmission shop and picked it up this morning. they don't think the vibration is the fault of the transmission. they think its somewhere else in the drivetrain and the lock up is just making it show up? even though I had both drive shafts rebuilt with in the last 20k miles I'm going to have them looked at again just to eliminate that possibility as my first coarse of action. assuming that doesn't fix the issue, my next question is: I swapped a dana 80 into the truck about 20k ago. it came from a 2wd truck. had to have the driveshaft shortened because of the larger housing and they used spicer joints and balanced the shaft. Has anyone ever had issues like this that was narrowed down to the dana 80? Could the 2wd axle have the spring perches welded on at a different angle that's causing the U joints to bind? Thanks for everyones help.

I had to run some errands this morning so i took the truck. got everything warmed up and batteries fully charged. when i got back to the house i left the truck running and grabbed my Ideal DVOM which is less then 5 years old so it has more features then i know what to do with. I did just like mike shows in his video. When i turn it on the meter is dancing around picking up stray voltage but if i touch the 2 leads together it goes to 0. so i hooked the leads up and it took about 5 seconds for the meter to settle out and came up with 0.002V ac. Thinking that theres no way i did that right coming up with such a small number i repeated myself a handful of times coming up with the same results after about 5 seconds. I shut the truck off and checked resistance from the alternator case to the negative terminal of the passenger battery and got less then 1 ohm. also checked the ground strap on the PCM to battery and also less then 1 ohm so my grounds appear to be in good shape. Im going to try resetting the APPS even though there doesnt appear to be anything wrong and go for a test drive next. -APPS reset didnt change anything

I dont honestly know how to answer that. i think i picked that term up from someone else and i keep using it, so... the best way i can describe it is between 45 and 50mph when the converter is locked the truck shakes like it has snow or mud packed into the wheels. as soon as i drop under 45mph the converter will unlock but stay in OD and the truck is smooth. Most of the roads around me are 55mph so im typically driving 60mph. normally above 50mph i dont feel the shake but if i let off the throttle just enough to let the converter unlock (say im approaching a car going slower) and then apply throttle to maintain my new speed, as the converter relocks for less then 1 second i can feel the shudder. i can also duplicate that over and over if i let off just enough to allow unlock and then ease back into the throttle. Now if i have the truck in 4X4 all the above scenarios get slightly worse. If im in 2wd and pulling a trailer they are worse yet again. in 4x4 with a trailer its boarder line violent. My usual coarse of action if it starts shaking is to pop it into 3rd gear and let it rev until im going say 55 or more and then it can go back into OD. or ive noticed it will "power through" the shaking if it builds some boost and accelerates up to say my 60mph cruising speed. I also want to say that this spring when i needed 4x4 even going 55 which is normally smooth in 2wd the shaking was still there. i would then slow down a little and use 3rd gear. I know the original transmission was doing that for several winters and i might be misremembering but i want to say that as the shaking gets worse so does the speed range. other random thoughts here: -the tires are fairly new and dont shake at fast speeds so i dont think thats an issue. -I have lock out front hubs so the front axle is just along for the ride and i dont see any issues there. -the rear end was swapped for a "rebuilt" dana 80 about 20k miles ago. i dont know how many miles were on the rebuild but everything was tight and i could still see the machining marks on the ring gear which told me it was a fairly fresh rebuild. The drive shaft was shortened at the same time to compensate for the larger housing and had new joints installed and was balanced. -Some other things ive considered is maybe the Banks tuner is doing something wierd? -Do i have an injector not working quiet right and when the converter locks at such a low rpm it amplifies the engine issue?

I noticed the giant splice when I moved the ground wire out of the harness. ill try cutting it open this weekend and see whats inside! ill give dynamic a couple days and if he doesn't chime in by Monday ill try calling. I also want to give a big thank you to everyone! This has been far more productive in just a couple days then the cummins forum ever is. I should have joined here years ago! My battery cables are original and still in fairly decent shape but ill look into those when I get a chance. Plus with the copper shield on them they should be making a good connection but I'm sure looks can be decieving.

codes were pulled less then a week ago and there were none at the time. i was hoping there was something so i had a direction to go. apps is stock. should i look into one of those timbo units? i just discovered them while researching this problem and they seam to have good reviews. i havent had a chance to recheck the alternator voltage. i work night so it makes it difficult until this weekend. i too had thought that the worn stator could have been caused what ever this mystery issue is. i really dont want to keep pulling the transmission for the fun of it. i do not know what the w-t ground mod is and i will check the alternator again this weekend. i also do not know who dynamic is but with 2 recomendations i like them already. still trying to find my way around the forum...

First let me say Hello to everyone. My name is Jeremiah. I own an 02 that i bought new. currently has 168k. I still love the truck but it has me very frustrated lately and I need some advice. This is going to get long winded but im going to do my best to describe whats going on. It has a Banks big hoss tuner thats 70hp and some 65hp injectors. fairly mild set up and im very happy with how it performs. several years ago I had torque converter problems. it shuttered in lock up, and you could power through the clutch while it was locked. the more you loaded the engine ( such as in 4x4, or pulling a trailer) the worse the shaking got. i limped it along until it got to a point where i couldnt even use 4x4 in OD because it shook the truck so bad. This shaking could be described like snow or mud packed into the wheels. as soon as i dropped under 45mph and the converter unlocked it went away. I assumed it was the stock junk converter. finally decided to get the trans rebuilt 3 years ago at 155k and called Goerend but they told me they dont do customer work anymore and would have to go through one of their dealers. so i found the closes one to me and had them do the work. we'll call them "shop A" and all they do is automatic rebuilds and I did all the R&R. they installed a Triple disk converter, shift kit, billet input, ect. dont remember all the little details off the top of my head but i wanted overkill so i never had to pull it again. fast forward to earlier this year and probably 10k miles later i started having shuttering problems again but it was my only vehicle at the time and couldnt do anything about it so i drove it 2 months like that until i got a new work car. Then i only drove it when needed because it started having delayed engagement problems and the converter would drain back if it sat for more then a week. so i finally did something about it in September. I drove it to "Shop A" so they could drive it and see the problems. they agree that something is wrong and it still under warranty so they will fix it. So i tear the trans out and drop it off. They told me they found play in the Stator and that was causing all my problems. cut the converter open and everything looked good in there.I asked how the clutches looked and they were like new so they also got reused. They delivered it to me when it was finished and also flushed the lines and coolers since they found some shavings in the pan. I put it back in and with in 10 miles of driving nicely i could feel that the converter shutter was still there. drove it to work a couple days nicely just to confirm it and its still there. I had a friend look at it and we went for a test drive with his snap on scanner hooked up. I get no codes so as far as the scanner can tell it thinks everything is normal. I also hooked up to a trailer he has that weight maybe 4-5k lbs total and the shaking gets worse. This is something the truck should easily be able to handle but we both agree that something isnt right because the more i load the engine the worse it gets. he just does mechanic work on the weekends and didnt know what i should do next. Ive done a ton of googling and reading various threads, and In searching my issues online i ran across people moving the engine ground wire out of the harness by the alternator which didnt help me. I checked for AC voltage with my DVOM and got .02v but that was at the battery posts but i realized i need to go back and recheck it at the alternator stud instead. I sanded the block ground, the jumper wire going to the PCM, and the body ground by the passenger battery cable. Ive cleaned the battery cables and even grabbed a can of this copper shield stuff from work which is designed specifically for electric connections to prevent corrosion and promote conductivity. i used it on all the above sanded wires and battery connections with no changes. I havent let the transmission shop know of my troubles yet because i trust that they are putting out a good product or at least trying to so i assume its on the truck side??? so now i dont know where to go next. I probably should call them at the least and see what they say and ive also been tempted to take it to this mechanic shop by my house and see if they can diagnose the problem. I posted the picture of the truck because im sure there are others like me that enjoy seeing other peoples trucks. Thank you for the help. I cant wait to see what the responses are!

i have the syntec lock outs on my 02. have roughly 30k on them with zero issues. theyre expensive for sure. i didnt really notice any mpg gains afterwards and that was one of the reasons why i went with them. the other reason was the U joints and wheels bearings were all shot so i was replacing all those parts any way, figured i might as well add the kit? i dont regret it because im sure its saving wear and tear on the u joints during the summer months but its going to take a long time to recoup the costs that way