1997 1500 Trans acting funny

[slaughter158]

What should I look at if my trans doesnt shift when I have it floored. If I let off the gas it will shift, but if I don't, it won't.

[BleedDodge]

It won't at all, or it's just overly delayed?

[slaughter158]

It doesn't at all. I have left it long enough for the temp gauge to start moving before my eyes. I let off and it ill switch. I don't have any other problems with the trans.

[LTJGWorth]

My truck did something similiar. It wouldn't shift into reverse until i gave it a lot of gas. I mean a lot! Then, after it finally engaged, it wouldn't shift out of the 2nd gear until I either floored the gas, or let it warm up. After it warmed up, it shifted fine. I would tell you how I fixed it, but the problem is, it fixed it self. It just stopped doing it one day and shifted fine and has ever since. Maybe you'll get just as lucky, or you need to have your tranny's valves rebuilt, or you need a new torque converter, or you need to have your entire tranny rebuilt. Possibly a fluid change. Anything could be at fault.

[slaughter158]

The problems you had LTJGWorth don't sound anything like mine. Thanks for the input.

[BleedDodge]

From a technical point of view, I'd say yes there is something wrong that could be attributed to a number of things. Following common sense, I'd say that you shouldn't be driving the truck so hard that it has to shift when the motor is running wide open. If it won't shift, just step out of it a little bit. I can understand that you wanna be moving when you merge onto the interstate, but these trucks have power enough that you shouldn't have to do that, and if you drive it harder than that, you're probably being unreasonable. You could take it somewhere and have it diagnosed to be sure of what it causing this, otherwise you'll just end up replacing parts and messing with things that aren't at fault, until you find what the problem actually was. Sometimes when I find out what a problem was caused by, all the other things I've tinkered with weren't helping me to solve the problem anyway, and then I end up repairing more components. Best of luck.

[slaughter158]

Yeah, I know what your talking about bleeddodge. I've done that kind of troubleshooting before. I don't put my foot in it much at all. I just noticed it when I was on a trip. I was trying to pass a few cars and had it to floor as I was doing it. I shouldn't have to let off for it to shift. I just hate when there is any little problem with my vehicles.

[BleedDodge]

I hear that.

An idea that I had come up with for this before was a comparison between these trucks and GM trucks. If you go to pass with a GM truck, it's going to likely drop 2 gears, pick up one, and then shortly after pick up the other, so probably while you're passing you'll be back in overdrive. On the other hand, if you're in a Dodge, and I've noticed this with Fords too, that if you go to pass, it will drop it into 3rd and it will stay there until you let your foot out of it. I think that this is the computer's fault because it decides to keep it in 3rd for you until it thinks you're done passing, for pulling power, which I kind of like. Dodge admitted with their new trucks in 2002 that they put in this "passing gear" which was a gear that was ratioed between 3 and overdrive, meant for pulling power to pass at around 60 mph or something.

It makes sense to me, since Dodge motors make most of their power at lower revs, and GM's make most of their power at higher revs. The GM has to drop the 2 gears to take advantage of power, while a Dodge shouldn't have to. I'm probably far off though, but I do know that a Dodge sounds like it's going to fly apart when you rev it, but almost any GM product can rev. Doesn't necessarily mean the GM makes any power, lol.

[slaughter158]

hmmm..the next time I need to give it all its got, I check what gear I'm in when this happens.

[BleedDodge]

From my experience with my grandfather's truck, a '95 2wd 318 auto extended cab, every time I go to pass, the torque converter just unlocks until I'm done, and then it locks back up and I keep going. I don't think it ever even put it into 3rd gear before, and this was driving pretty quick too. It's wierd. That's about all I know.

[corjliza]

I had a similar problem with my 200o Dodge Ram a/t, it wouldn't shift into the next gear sometimes until I let off the gas, it ended up being a speed output sensor, it had pieces of metal attached to the magnetic end but I just switched it out, only cost $12 and easy to replace yourself. I also got the sensor from Napa, mainly beacuse the mopar sensor is used on all dodge models and goes out on all the vehicles not just Ram Pickups.