Rampageous
Junior Member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2016
- Posts
- 2
- Reaction score
- 0
- Ram Year
- 2002
- Engine
- 5.9L GAS
Hello there everyone --
Warning: The poster has ADHD, read at your own risk.
My wife and I decided that the Cascade and Olympic mountains, the hiking trails in every direction, the green forests and beautiful lakes are just too much; so we are leaving the Pacific Northwest and heading back to Michigan where you can stand firmly on flat lands, and make sense of the world again. We missed the thunder storms!
Anyways. being the thinker that I am it occurred to me that buying a truck to haul everything then selling it in Michigan would be the most cost effective way to go, all I need is a nice enough truck that will do the job that is also cheap. That lead me to auctions. The minor issue that I have never owned a truck and don't know the first thing about them, did not seem to deter me, I definitely was not going to surrender to logic .... decision was already made (ADHD people out there know what I mean )
So I found a 2002 RAM 2500 long bed 4x4 that had 100k miles and was a government car, (what could possibly go wrong). Needless to say I finally won the car for what it would sell for if it was in fair condition, which I thought was not bad.
I went to take my new car and drive it home, after signing a few stuff on the counter, I turned around and went (Holly %&#% that is a BIG A$& CAR), I was in love.
The truck had really bad tires on really bad looking 16" rims, and so I had another brilliant idea, I went on craigslist and bought a set of 18" wheels and tires that someone had taken them off of a 2015 RAM 2500, and they bolted right up and the truck looked a lot better instantly, I can't do a full left turn but who cares
Now that the moving time is getting closer, some serious work needed to be done. I went around and marked all the dings and dents I wanted to fix so i can give the car a fresh coat of paint, once the mechanic work is done, with all these marks my wife calls the truck "freckles" now, which I thought was derogatory and did not suit the monster that this truck represented, still she would not take it back.
Next I changed the oil, spark plugs and cables and other stuff that looked as if they were never maintained, and then I moved on to change the oil and filter for the transmission.
After dropping the transmission pan I looked at the magnet and it had quite a bit of metal shavings but then, there was this little piece of metal which I had a feeling should not have been there, and I was right. It was part of the OD snap-ring... After going through all the depression exercises that I knew of I cleaned the pan, installed the new filter filled it up and then took it to a transmission shop for testing. They said it is indeed part of the OD snap-ring and recommended a rebuild, especially that I will be towing around 10K across country. They quoted me $4700 with the upgrades, and that is when I got another brilliant idea; buy a book and a rebuild kit with the upgrades they were talking about (wait i don't even remember what they were) but still that is the way to go, most expensive rebuild kit i found is around $700 and if i could pull this off, not only would I save a lot of money; I would also be very happy that I learned how to do it. However, if it did not work out, then I lost an extra $700 and time i can't afford with approaching deadline.
So, I thought for this one I probably should turn to the experts in this forum for advice, what should i be aware of, what can be easily done and what transmission rebuild kit would you use.
Thank you for reading and answering, much appreciated.
Warning: The poster has ADHD, read at your own risk.
My wife and I decided that the Cascade and Olympic mountains, the hiking trails in every direction, the green forests and beautiful lakes are just too much; so we are leaving the Pacific Northwest and heading back to Michigan where you can stand firmly on flat lands, and make sense of the world again. We missed the thunder storms!
Anyways. being the thinker that I am it occurred to me that buying a truck to haul everything then selling it in Michigan would be the most cost effective way to go, all I need is a nice enough truck that will do the job that is also cheap. That lead me to auctions. The minor issue that I have never owned a truck and don't know the first thing about them, did not seem to deter me, I definitely was not going to surrender to logic .... decision was already made (ADHD people out there know what I mean )
So I found a 2002 RAM 2500 long bed 4x4 that had 100k miles and was a government car, (what could possibly go wrong). Needless to say I finally won the car for what it would sell for if it was in fair condition, which I thought was not bad.
I went to take my new car and drive it home, after signing a few stuff on the counter, I turned around and went (Holly %&#% that is a BIG A$& CAR), I was in love.
The truck had really bad tires on really bad looking 16" rims, and so I had another brilliant idea, I went on craigslist and bought a set of 18" wheels and tires that someone had taken them off of a 2015 RAM 2500, and they bolted right up and the truck looked a lot better instantly, I can't do a full left turn but who cares
Now that the moving time is getting closer, some serious work needed to be done. I went around and marked all the dings and dents I wanted to fix so i can give the car a fresh coat of paint, once the mechanic work is done, with all these marks my wife calls the truck "freckles" now, which I thought was derogatory and did not suit the monster that this truck represented, still she would not take it back.
Next I changed the oil, spark plugs and cables and other stuff that looked as if they were never maintained, and then I moved on to change the oil and filter for the transmission.
After dropping the transmission pan I looked at the magnet and it had quite a bit of metal shavings but then, there was this little piece of metal which I had a feeling should not have been there, and I was right. It was part of the OD snap-ring... After going through all the depression exercises that I knew of I cleaned the pan, installed the new filter filled it up and then took it to a transmission shop for testing. They said it is indeed part of the OD snap-ring and recommended a rebuild, especially that I will be towing around 10K across country. They quoted me $4700 with the upgrades, and that is when I got another brilliant idea; buy a book and a rebuild kit with the upgrades they were talking about (wait i don't even remember what they were) but still that is the way to go, most expensive rebuild kit i found is around $700 and if i could pull this off, not only would I save a lot of money; I would also be very happy that I learned how to do it. However, if it did not work out, then I lost an extra $700 and time i can't afford with approaching deadline.
So, I thought for this one I probably should turn to the experts in this forum for advice, what should i be aware of, what can be easily done and what transmission rebuild kit would you use.
Thank you for reading and answering, much appreciated.