I've noticed the last few days my truck has been acting strangely. When I pull up my driveway going slow which is a little steep for a short bit, it seems that although the rpms are increasing it felt like I lost half my power or more. Like a brake is stuck on or something. And I've also noticed a physical small bump or jolts when the truck is coming almost to a stop and one right after it's fully stopped. Hard to say if I'm hearing it, could be just feeling it. Could this be the transmission?

I also think I haven't changed my fuel filter in years and I was thinking maybe even bad fuel since I just fueled up around the same time. I'm also noticing a small surging/lurching driving down the road about 50 mph. I'm wondering fuel pump or injectors or is this a tranny sign too?

Any ideas where to start? Does it trigger a light on the dash when it throws a code?

 

The small bumps while slowing down is the tranny downshifting and is normal. The lurching at 45-50 mph is the Torque Converter locking up and is also normal. If you haven't changed your fuel filter in a while, I would say that was it. Need to change it every 10-15,000 miles. Use what I prefer, a Baldwin PF7977, or a Fleetguard fuel filter. I forgot the Fleetguard (which is factory) number. If you use a substandard filter you risk having injector issues which can run up to or over $2400 to get all six replaced without labor.

 

Ok. Going to change the fuel filter today and see what happens but when I came home yesterday evening if "felt" like I was spinning on wet pavement going up my driveway then locking in on dry pavement. I was going slow and the driveway was absolutely dry. This has never happened before.

 

Replaced the fuel filter with a Fleetguard. The old one was black as coal. Anyhow that didn't fix it. I stopped my truck on the incline of my driveway and It would not move after depressing the pedal. I had to back down to a flat area to go at it again. Is my transmission shot?

 

My transmission fluid looks pretty dark and it did seem to be slightly below the OK range. Above the hole though. I went to Autozone and got some tranny fluid that was supposed to be equivalent to the Mopar +4 and added a bit. It seems to be working better now. Not slipping on the incline.

I guess the next step is to have my transmission completely serviced to get all the old fluid out and have the bands tightened. Hopefully that is all I need.

 

I wouldn't do that. It is too late for it. If you do a fluid exchange you will probably be rebuilding real soon. This is why it get's a bad rap.

 

New torque converter and probably a transmission, ask me how I know. JP

 

Don't know about your tranny.

Anytime I check my tranny fluid I put my noise on it. Same with the oil.

Use the Baldwin filter. I started using that brand a couple years ago and the filtration is much better than the stock filter. All my filters use to look tan in color after 10-12 K miles. Since I changed they are tuning black, which tells me its getting some of the asphalteens out of the fuel. I run a Racor Marine
Fuel filter on the aux tank. Never seen anything in the bowl on the Racor. The 10 micron filter in the racor catches some stuff before its transfered to the side tank.

Baldwin is the way to go.

Dave