Question for a tranny specialist - 47RE

Would someone in the know on transmission rebuilding please help me..............

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY -

I have a 2000 Dodge quad cab with the 5.9 Cummins in it and just had the transmission rebuilt in it, at a shop with 17 years of experience. It was supposed to have a new single disk billet converter and a new or rebuilt ($400) valve body. It's also supposed to have a manual flow valve (?) in it and that special snap ring that everyone installs. Beyond that, do NOT ask me what's in it, because I simply do not know.

The truck is bone stock with an Edge Comp programmer. The programmer is OFF in all of the following actions.

It's been to the guy's shop twice now and here's what it's doing............

The new trans now has right at 250 mile on it - 114 miles of that under a small load and the rest with no trailer at all. NO miles over 60 mph!!

Taking it easy through the gears it's shifting into 2nd at about 32 mph. It shifts ok through 2nd, but when it goes into 3rd and 4th gear, loaded or unloaded, it revs way up and finally goes into gear.

When it's under a light load with my 4000 pound tilt bed and a 3500 pound scissor lift and on cruise control....... when it hits a small hill in overdrive it revs way up, kills the cruise control and requires you to hit the "resume" button again!

Also, loaded or unloaded, the truck surges down the road - kind of like a wire is loose or something.

I just got off the phone with another transmission guy near me who said it sounds like it's "neutral flairing", and that if this is the case he would expect the builder to pull the trans all apart to look at the bands and clutches as they can be damaged REALLY quick.

Quite frankly I am REALLY hot about this. I laid out over $2500 to have this trans done right and nothing is right about it, and I don't want to drive it or he's gonna tell a judge that I'm the one who messed it up by driving it.

The guy told me before I went and got it for the 2nd time that he thought it might need a TPS sensor, but the truck has no check engine light and it already has a fairly recent TPS in it. So if there is there's no code showing why does it need a TPS?

Right now there's only 250 miles on the rebuild job.

I don't want a $2500 piece of crap that's going to blow up on me in 20,000 miles, I want what I paid for!!!

Question: What needs to be done to this trans and what would YOU tell the guy who rebuilt it?



My sincere thanks for your experienced help on this.

Almost sounds like the kickdown lever off the throttle cable is mis-adjusted. If its off, it will hit the manual kickdown valve on the valve body and try to force it into the next gear down and delay upshifting. 32mph in first sounds way high to me, especially in a 47re. Hell, i've got a lighter duty 46re (gear ratios should be the same) that in first maxes out at about 40mph with the engine at redline 5400rpm. You must have some large tires to get to 32mph with a diesel that rev limits near 3400rpm.

I'm not a super expert, but we did cover a bit of automatic transmissions in my heavy duty drivetrains class when I was going to school. Neutral revving as he calls it, can be caused by a couple things. Cheap/improperly installed or adjusted bands, poor fluid pressure, bad or damaged solenoids, or improper fluid level/type.

Short of looking at it myself, all you can do is take it back to the shop who did the work and make them fix it. As for them blaming you, don't let them push you around. Unless they gave you very specific instructions on how to drive, there is nothing wrong with using it for what it was designed. That would be like replacing the door on your house but being told not to use it for a few weeks. I've rebuilt a few automatic transmission valve bodies, they are complicated beasts. Most shops dont touch the internals of the valve body themselves, they just send it out. As for the rest of it, you could easily make a mistake while rebuilding that can cause the issues you describe. Actually, yours is doing almost what mine is. Mine is caused by a band that has no friction material left, its bare metal.

In your case, its probably just an adjustment issue.

2500 for it to be "done right" is cheap af. Factory rebuilds tend to be that.

I would start with kickdown cable adjustment and go from there. Fluid pressures pay a big part of when the trans shifts as well

dudeman2009 said:

Almost sounds like the kickdown lever off the throttle cable is mis-adjusted. If its off, it will hit the manual kickdown valve on the valve body and try to force it into the next gear down and delay upshifting. 32mph in first sounds way high to me, especially in a 47re. Hell, i've got a lighter duty 46re (gear ratios should be the same) that in first maxes out at about 40mph with the engine at redline 5400rpm. You must have some large tires to get to 32mph with a diesel that rev limits near 3400rpm.

I'm not a super expert, but we did cover a bit of automatic transmissions in my heavy duty drivetrains class when I was going to school. Neutral revving as he calls it, can be caused by a couple things. Cheap/improperly installed or adjusted bands, poor fluid pressure, bad or damaged solenoids, or improper fluid level/type.

Short of looking at it myself, all you can do is take it back to the shop who did the work and make them fix it. As for them blaming you, don't let them push you around. Unless they gave you very specific instructions on how to drive, there is nothing wrong with using it for what it was designed. That would be like replacing the door on your house but being told not to use it for a few weeks. I've rebuilt a few automatic transmission valve bodies, they are complicated beasts. Most shops dont touch the internals of the valve body themselves, they just send it out. As for the rest of it, you could easily make a mistake while rebuilding that can cause the issues you describe. Actually, yours is doing almost what mine is. Mine is caused by a band that has no friction material left, its bare metal.

In your case, its probably just an adjustment issue.

Click to expand...

The truck will rpm to about 4 grand and has 3.54 gears with 32.5" Coopers on it - which are 285/75/16.

Thanks for your tip. "My" tranny guy is on vacation this week, which is going to give me the opportunity to take the truck to a local dealer on Monday to see what their trans guy says, after he drives it. I have my hopes up that you're right and the $ damage will be low. If it is I'll just take their bill to the guy who rebuilt it!