I just bought a 4wd 1998 Ram 2500 12 valve quad cab. This is my first diesel, and I picked it up for WAY under blue book because the previous owner told me that it has 5 speed transmission problems that come and go. Anyway, it seemed to be driving fine when I picked it up, so I thought I'd try to get it home... I didn't make it. I had started up a hill when it started revving freely as if it were in neutral. I quickly found that all gears were this way, and it was smoking a little bit. It smelled like clutch, however I've never heard of a clutch being fine one moment and then not work at all the next. It was so bad that when I was stopped on the hill if I didn't have the brake on it would roll, whether it was in gear or not. I also moved the transfer case shift through all gears to no avail. I think the culprit may be something inside the transfer case, but I'll have it towed to a tranny shop tomorrow and see what they think.

In the mean time, anybody have any other ideas?

 

Uhhh...it is the clutch.

What else can disconnect the gearbox in 1 second flat?

 

But out of nowhere with no prior slippage? I've never heard of a clutch going out on the spot like this.

I'd imagine that destroying the right part in the transfer case would cause this... as I said, I'll have it checked out tomorrow and I'll post my findings.

 

No , destroying a part in the transfer case would result in movement whenever requested, or no movement at all, it would not result in partial loss of power transmission intermittently.

With torque these trucks have , and the weight of them , a slight incline could cause a clutch to slip , especially in the higher gears.

 

In this post you described the problem. The tale tale sign is that you didn't have trouble until you started up a hill.


Aa posted above, a clutch will heat up VERY fast when it's slipping. It probably wasen't slipping bad until you applied some power to it going up the hill. You might want to check into an upgraded clutch since you're going to have it apart anyway.

 

Could also be the coupler between the transmision and the transfer case. I had this happen to me at a stop light. came up to the light fine, went to go and nothing. Splines were stripped on one end of the coupler. $95 from quad4x4.com.

 

Well, it's even worse than I had feared. Apparently the rear transmission seal was bad, so all of the fluid leaked into the transfer case, and messed up some parts in the tranny, as well as braking the input shaft. They're quoting me $2300 to fix. Searching a JY registry I've found some good NV4500s for under $1000, so I think that is the way to go. Anybody have any better ideas?

 

Make sure you get an NV4500HD , the regular NV will easily be chewed up by the cummins.

 

Well it turns out that I'm just going to get it rebuilt for the $2300 price tag. I spoke with my dad today and he volunteered to pay for it for Christmas. I am a VERY thankful man!