Engine/Transmission (1994 - 1998) Oil Change Woes

[6shotz]

I was changing my oil on Thursday and usually I can unscrew the filter by hand but Thursday it was being a real booger, so I walk into the garage and grab an old oil filter wrench and rushing to get the job done I accidentally grounded the back of the alternator. thought nothing of it till the next morning as I'm backing out of the driveway the GEN light is on. Anyway I had the Alternator bench tested and its fine. Had to change the 120 AMP fuse under the hood and the GEN light is still on. I have power coming to the heavy gauge wire on the back of the alernator and the smaller 2 studs that are next to each other have nothing. Batteries are not charging but its not because of a bad alternator or blown fuse. Also transmission starts in third, will not go into lockup or O. D. If I manually shift it down to first it starts in second. So I only have 2 gears out of 4. Is it possible from that 1 split second of carelessness I sent a power spike to the PCM (computor) and caused it to fry? Anyone who has any advise or suggestions much appriciated. Oh by the way the dealer put a tester to it and it came back with a trans relay code and no power coming out of the alt. Is this going to be the worlds most expensive oil change ? :{



Steve

 

[bmoeller]

I have accidentally done the same thing before. The alt. fuse blew and installed a new one, no prob. I would check the other fuses and the relays in the PDC (power dist. center) to see if something else went also.

 

[rrl989]

Hey Steve,



No advise, just saying Hello. Been a while since the KDP fix. Just stay away from Riverhead DC or it may end up as a $3000 repair!



What Dealer are you using?



Good Luck,



Ron

 

[Hammer]

Much cheaper to buy a set of strap wrenches at Sears to do the job than change the alternator..... LOL



BTW... Don't feel left out I did it also on my old 95 truck years ago... Andy

 

[Howard Durand]

Do you have a service manual?



I believe the small studs you mention are the generator field terminals.

One of them should have voltage on it when the ignition is turned on. It is fed through contacts in the ASD relay which is only closed when the switch is on.

If there is still no voltage, then check the wires to see if they were damaged in any way.

Since the short was apparently between the battery and the engine, make sure all ground wires between the engine and chassis are still good.



An external short like that should not have done any damage to the PCM.

 

[JohnE]

Starts in 3rd? That is a sign of limp mode. You need to clear out the <b>PCM</b> <strike>ECM</strike> codes. The alternator will not put out unless the <b>PCM</b> <strike>ECM</strike> commands, too. I think the two symptoms are related.



Buddy of mine blew the PDC fuse in his 98 truck by touching the filter case to the alternator. He got many miles up the road before the batteries went flat. A very expensive towing charge he reported.



<small>

edit: Changed ECM to PCM before someone (illflem) catches me. </small>

 

[6shotz]

I ordered a new computor it should be here tomarrow. I have no power at all to the two posts on the alt. I even tried to disconnect the neg. side of both batteries, and let it sit for 45 min. to see if the computor needed to reset. I opened up the bad unit in question and not that I know what I'm looking for but everything looked OK. Ron, whats up? No I'm not dealing w/ Riverhead they are banned from my truck. I try to take care of most small stuff myself and if its more than I feel like doing I take the day off and go to Janetty Racing in Ct. After I change it out I'll post if that was the problem or if I threw away 400$ :{



Steve

 

[Howard Durand]

I'm wondering if the PCM can be re-flashed by a competent Dodge service facility.

Anyone know?

 

[Extreme1]

I thought I read that someone removed the voltage regulator control from the PCM and ran an old stand alone type of regulator. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper but you'd loose the cool feature of controling the battery voltage based on the ambient air temp like the PCM does.