About a month ago, I changed the transmission fluid and filter on our truck, which has 23700 miles on a rebuilt engine with a 24K warranty (a break for once!). We had a drain plug installed in the pan when that work was done. After I changed the fluid we discovered it had lost some fluid due to the plug not being tightened enough. Tightened it, added fluid, thought all was well.

Yesterday I drove it out to the valley (San Joaquin in CA) to get a load of hay, and when I started up after a fuel stop it wouldn't shift out of first! I checked the fluid level and it was low though not bone dry, so I added the half quart I had with me and tried again. Still wouldn't come out of first (I did have reverse at least!). Checked the level again and it was within the normal limits. A friend (who owns some DTCs, though with manual trannies) came to help, and suggested manually putting it through the sequence: 1st, 2nd then D). That worked.

I didn't get the hay for fear of getting stranded again. It was 105 degrees out there but my guage read about 185 when I had shut it down before the problem arose. Driving home I did notice that it would stick a bit coming out of first into second occasionally. In the back of mind I recalled the mental note I had made about sort of odd shifting patterns now and again over the last month.

Was this just a low fluid problem or is my tranny trying to die again?! I'm going to take it to the shop where the work was done and hope it'll be covered, but I'm afraid they'll blame it on us somehow and refuse to cover it.

 

I'd like to hear the trannny pro's take on this one myself as I just experienced the same symptoms.
Stopped to fuel up a gas can, went to take off, only first gear.
No previous "funny shifts".
Tried manually shifting, No Joy.
Tried shutting it down and firing it back up again, No Joy.
Got home, checked fluid, all's good, still had reverse.
Waited about 10 minutes, fired it back up & now it's working perfectly again.

 

This was actually the only tranny problem I had with my truck. It turned out to be a sticky governor. I brought it to DC and they replaced it under warranty.

 

Glad to know it was under warranty - hopefully the same situation for me. Thanks!

 

No governor in the 47 series trans since 95. That was the RH model. With the RE trans the "governor" was replaced by an electronic transducer which is what probably quit on you.

 

Looked up the ticket for the warranty work... 10/30/03 @ 43,000 miles:

"Customer states that the trans is not shifting out of first...
Had bad Governor and Pressure Solenoid. RR Governor and Pressure Solenoid."

Part numbers:

4617210
56028196-ad
5013457-aa

 

I looked up one of the parts and it looks like J Body was correct about the transducer being replaced.

Part number 56028196-AD is listed in the following thread:

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...ht=56028196-ad