99 Dodge Transmission questions and rumors

My dad owns a 99 Dodge Ram 1500 with very low miles. One of our problems is that the transmission seems to shift up and down very frequently with no load. We live in Kansas, so it's not like we are going up any hills.

My cousin has an almost identical truck that the transmission just went out on. She was told that we should remove a pressure valve that Dodge put in to try and fix problems, but it is actually causing more bad than good.

When we went to a local transmission shop, that everyone here in town holds very highly, they told us about a ball valve in the coolent lines between the transmission and the radiator that we should take out because it has a tendency to clog up and block the coolant lines and overheat the transmission.

I am wondering if anyone here knows anything about either of these three scenerios and what we should or shouldn't do. The truck has only 44,000 miles on it and we really don't want to have any problems develop. Thanks for all the help.

I have a 96 ram 1500. I suffered with transmission problems untill I took it to a transmission shop that is honest (rare). It constantly shifted up and down even when I was on the freeway. The mecanic told me to get the electronics checked out before he would rebuild it. I tolerated it untill one day the check engine light came on. I thought GREAT!! now it will tell me what is wrong. It did. The throttle positioner senser was bad. This is a wirewound resistor that changes resistance in proportion to throttle position. About $15 at AUTO-ZONE and my transmission was fixed. About 20,000 miles later my transmission works perfectly. I will bet lots of transmissions have been rebuilt needlessly.

As far as I'm concerned, Dodge doesn't make an automatic transmission anymore.

I'm curious as to whether or not you could take an old 727 or even a 904 if you had one, and put it on a new magnum engine. A magnum engine is an LA engine still, isn't it? I'm gonna look into this...

Thanks for the replies. We went ahead and took our first step to trying to fix the problem and it seems to have worked so far. We drilled out the ball valve or needle valve and took out the ball and it seems to be doing good. The true test will be in a couple weeks when we use it to help me move. Otherwise I think we will go ahead and go for the new throttle position senser.

I have a 96 ram with a 318 auto. I am on my 3rd transmission now in less that 100 000 miles. This on top of nurmourus electrical problems and transfere case problems. And this has been good compaired with my wifes intrepid. I will never buy a chrystler product again

Would this throttle position sensor also cause rough idle at all stages and rich running at idle
?