To adjust or leave working alone?

[Robeffy]

Hi,
My 1995 1500 Ram 318 automatic was bought a few years ago, with 145000 km, about 90,000 miles.
The first owner's son overheated the tranny, and then it started to shift bad, a slipping shift, from 2nd to 3rd gear. Mileage is about 190,000 km now, around 120,000 miles.
I bought it, and discovered that if you ran it up to 3000 rpm, and backed off the gas, it would shift fine.
So, I changed the trans oil filter, twice, and drained out the fluid a few extra times, and every time I changed the filter and replaced oil, it shifted better, and better, and now it barely ever slips at all.

So, I plan on changing the trans filter again, adding more new fluid.

Do I leave the bands alone or try to adjust them, while the pan is off?

Do I check the trans oil pressure? I assume there is an adjustment of some type, and I wonder if a 25 year old tranny needs to be adjusted?

I pull a 4500 lb RV trailer now and then, a snowmobile trailer a few times.

I have a huge 11000 or 12000 btu oil cooler plumbed in, and a temp gauge, and it never gets hot anymore.

My guess is that some "gunk" was in the valve body and has slowly been working its way int the filter.

I also added a Mr Gasket oil drain plug to the trans pan, to make it easier to drain and replace fluid. If you get one, buy some extra copper washers, the one's in the kit just split while I was installing the plug.

Summary... dont touch the bands of pressure, leave it alone, or try to snug up the band, and play with the pressure?

 

[Robeffy]

Sort of surprised no takers on these questions!

 

[Bill Blackmon]

My best advice is to change the fluid and filter again and leave everything else alone. Each time you change the fluid and filter you are flushing out contaminants any metal that may be in the trans that could be causing the high pressure. Hope this helps. Let us know what you find.

 

[Robeffy]

Hey, that is good advice.

Update as follows:
I drained the oil using my Mr Gasket oil drain plug kit that I installed last year, ( it is great btw ), and dropped the pan. Replaced the gasket, no signs of metal in the sludge in the pan.

I re-installed the pan, and installled 4 liters of the new ATF +4 fluid, which IS backwards compatible, according to the mfr's website. The ATF +4 has more friction modifiers, it has the distinctive ( awful ) smell.

A definite improvement when the tranny is warm, but still not perfect.

I finally found a recommendation to adjust the transmission bands, every 24,000 miles... so decided to do it.

After confirming the 2-3 shift band is the front band ( nearest the torque converter ) I knew I had to buy a 8 point 5/16" socket, so I bought a 1/4" drive one. There is not much room in there for access. These 8 point sockets are nearly impossible to find living up here, if you think you need one, order it in advance. Later years of 2nd gen have a Torx drive, which I have a set of..

Anyways, it is a 46RH tranny, as far as I can tell, the 96 is a 46RE.. so it did the torque to 72 in-lbs and back off 2 7/8 turns, and

IT SEEMS TO BE SHIFTING PERFECTLY NOW, EVEN WHEN COLD..

 

[Nick_rp]

Dont know much about trannys but i know a bit about oil and lubricants.

Id say the old oil brokedown to a level that it became thinner and thus stopped transferring heat very well, which, in turn, causes overheating at a faster rate, varnish buildup and cooks and hardens gaskets and seals. Like i said, dont know much about trannys but i think thinner viscosity in the transmission contributes to slipping so the drain and fills finally flushed enough old stuff to stay in gear? Someone else mentioned doing a few more drains and i agree

Hardened seals/gaskets could be an issue down the road, i believe those will cook off before the slippage actually occurs so might be worth checking out