Problems with 48re?

[Hawkeye 04]

My partner has a 04 3500 w/a 48re w 15,000 miles and was pulling 7,400 lbs. the other day. He was pulling it up a really steep hill and was forced to slow to a near stop because of a sharp corner and when he went to take off, he got about 100 ft and his truck wouldn't go anymore! He had it in 2wd and had the pedal to the floor! It absolutely wouldn't go anymore!! I had just pulled the same hill pulling 10,000lbs and didn't have any problems. I went back and got the other trailer and pulled the hill in 3rd gear w/no problem! My question is: Why didn't his truck pull the trailer up that hill at WOT? He does baby his truck quite a bit and I advised him after the incident to do some WOT take offs every once in a while to encourage TC "hook-up". Is there any advantage to that or won't that help the matter? What should he watch for and have checked out? Thanks... ...

 

[OT-OF-HERE!!]

Definitely he must have a trans problem. What you describe is certainly not the norm. I had the 305hp '04 and am now awaiting the 325. I pulled three times the load you described up a 45 degree hill that was a couple miles long out of OD in TOW mode at 75 mph and it didn't drop off cruise. I fell back 2mph! The truck frankly didn't sound as if it even strained. It just hummed. I couldn't believe it as I had a bombed Powerstroke in a prior mentally desturbed existance and it wouldn't have pulled that hill which I've done many times with that same Powerstroke with much less load,... in the same Yawn, Yawn fashion that the CTD did it. Your buddies truck has a definite problem. My truck by the way was stock except for AFE and Silverline dual 4" from the Turbo.

 

[Hawkeye 04]

By the way, when I said really steep, I meant REALLY steep! It was in a sub division here in the Smokey Mountains.

 

[Bill Stockard]

Did he manually shift it into 1st gear? The transmission may have been in 2nd gear since the truck was still rolling. I have had better results by manually shifting the transmission down on steep slopes with a heavy load.



Bill

 

[Hawkeye 04]

He said he did.

 

[rbattelle]

Sounds to me like the transmission fluid drained out of the torque converter due to the steep hill!

 

[crabjoe]

With 15K miles, could it have just been that the fuel filter needed replacing? I remember a few months back where some guy had 12K miles on his truck and he had trouble getting over 55 mph with a loaded trailer. When he got home and swapped out the fuel filter, all was good again.