Ok, here's what's happening. When I go to shift the truck back into park, as soon as I move the shifter out of drive the truck dies. No hesitation, no stumble, just goes off like you turned it off. It happened a couple of times last July and I brought it in to the dealer but they couldn't find anything wrong. Also last July there was an instance when I went to turn the brights on and I pulled the switch and all the lights went out. I clicked the dims on and all the lights came back on. I haven't had a problem with either of them since then, but today I was going into town, forgot to grab the post office keys and shifted her back to park and it died. It did it three times this morning, but never happened again the rest of the day. I have heard of problems with the switch for the brights, but not sure if the two are related. Thanks for the help.

 

You have a short in your steering column wiring. Maybe try getting an new/used harness from a wrecker from the wheel column harness to the main connector.

 

there are 2 solenoids on the valve body of that 47RE...

governor pressure solenoid, and a transducer....

There is a test using the DRB to command these two little gismos

The service manual has you testing them, by, you guessed it...
shifting into park, and see if truck stallss....

Very Very common problem...for 46 and 47RE trans.....

 

Thanks for the replies.

2500Whiteram, my truck hasn't been showing any of the symptoms that I've read about when you have a problem with the pressure solenoid and tranducer. My truck shifts down into 1st gear and doesn't go into the limp mode that the other posts have stated. I am going to give the guys at
ATS transmissions a call and see what they have to say. If it is the pressure solenoid or transducer, would it be a constant problem or something that would be very intermittent?

Mamm7215, I was kinda thinking that way myself. Thought it was probably in the steering column somewhere. Any idea about how hard it would be to replace the harness?

Thanks again for the help.

 

I had that same problem and it turned out to be the main power feed for the ignition switch had broken off from the movement of the column but was stiff enough to stay in place with the column down and in drive. Pull off the lower column cover and you'll see the switch, start pulling on wires and see if it causes the truck to quit. I repaired the wire and it's worked great ever since.

Good luck

 

CookieMonster,
Thanks for helping to point me in the right direction. I figured it was somewhere
in the steering column, but wasn't quite sure where to start looking.

 

Glad I could help. When you're taking off that lower column cover, it uses torx head screws but a hex key (allen wrench) will also work, the holes are kinda' small for a multi bit screwdriver so I used a long "T" handle hex key to pull them out.

 

Replacing the harness shouldn't be too bad if you're mechanically inclined, it's the getting one that could be interesting. If you could get one from a wrecker, it should be fairly easy to reverse engineer into your existing system, probably just a plug in set of wires to the main controller junction under/behind the steering wheel dash area.

 

Well I got around to taking off the steering column shrouds today (were on Spring Break) and I tried wiggling all the wiring and checked the connections and it all looks good. I couldn't see any frayed wires but I did get it to shut down a couple of times and it happened when shifting from reverse into park. You can start it up without having to turn the key back to the off position. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

I wouldn't bother trying to replace any major wiring harnesses at random. That harness that runs up the column is the dash harness, and would likely take you several days to change, and cost over a thousand dollars new. Better to find the actual problem then decide the best way to repair it. For your condition, you are going about it the best way- do the "wiggle test" then move on. If you've done a complete inspection on the column wiring I think you can rule it out and move on. It may help at this point to study a wiring diagram and see what needs to have power at key on to make the truck run, and make sure all these circuits indeed have power after the truck stalls. Give the tilt steering some excercise and make sure this isn't contributing to the problem.