Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Engine Surge ?

[C.MILLER]

For about a year now I have had trouble with the engine surging when putting the truck into drive. I thought that this might be normal @ first, but recently the problem has gotten worse. Now on ocassion (when going from park or reverse into drive) it will kill the engine. I've watched the tachometer and it actually goes down about a hundred RPM's when putting the shifter into drive. I've checked the level of the trany fluid, had the truck scanned for fault codes, cleaned battery terminals. I have noticed that with the 3800 lb camper on, it will not do surge at all. Can't figure it out though. Any ideas?? Is this normal?? Thanks in advance.



Chris

 

[ihegdal]

Chris,



Do you know if any DTC's are being set?



Ian

 

[C.MILLER]

Ian,

I'm not sure what DTC's are. If its anything to do with fault codes, I did have the truck scanned at the dealer and nothing came up. Thanks.

 

[JR2]

This stalling when going into gear problem has been around for a while. I had it when I put my 275 injectors and the DTT transmission parts in. I got a reflash from the dealer (18-015-00A) and it helped untill I put the DD3's in. Now it only happens in the winter with the winter grade fuel. I also learned to be a bit more careful when changing gears. Now when I go from Park to R or D I stop in neutral for a couple of seconds to let the engine unwind a bit. Seems to help about 95% of the time.



I think this is one of the prices we pay for having very hopped up trucks.



John

 

[kaffine krazed]

DTC means diagnostic trouble code.



Have you checked fuel pressure?



Does it just drop in rpm when put in gear and then come back up to normal speed? Or does it continuosly surge like it doesn't know where to idle? Does holding down the gas pedal keep it from doing it?

 

[C.MILLER]

Kaffine Krazed,



Yes, the tachometer only drops when put into drive or reverse, but imediately returns to normal. The fuel pressure is 14 psi after the filter, so that should be fine. I don't know, but maybe JR2 is right in that this might just come with the territory of having a fairly souped up truck. I sure didn't expect to see the rpm's drop, with the way the engine surges when being put into reverse/drive.

 

[canblue]

Surge with and without OD on

I have just started to have surge problems in the RPM range of 1200-1800 with 110,000 Klm. At first it was just at the 60 kph mark if I was just crusing. Now it happens with moderate acceleration, as in going up an incline. So I turned off the OD. With the OD off I noticed it this morning on the way to work at 40 kph. I have also noted that there appears to be more questions of late about this problem. My dealer informed me that this is normal. For about 109,000 this problem never appeared.



In one of the threads, I think I read that there maybe a problem with seals "leaking" causing the erratic shifting. Is this the case I have read a lot of material and many of the "corrective" fixes relate to electrical -- ranging from cleaning the battery terminals to replacing sensors and these are all over the board. With the wealth of experience and knowledge in DC and on the board one would think that a fix could be found. I am just one more unhappy puppy riding a bouncing bronco ( no pun indended) looking for a solution. Oo. Oo. Oo.

 

[ihegdal]

My truck started having a surging, at 1800-2000 rpm, problem last fall ( about 30k mi ) . It was tentatively diagnosied as being caused by the injection pump timing changing. The surging slowly became more noticable as the months passed. In early March I also started to experience short intermittent power loss incidents (lasting from 1-2 seconds to 2-3 minutes).

I eventually changed out the injection pump and both problems cleared up. During the low power periods the ECM would store a P0216 code.