Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Smarty at high altitude

[DLBurns]

I took my truck and fiver over Carson Pass and into Lake Tahoe over the past Memorial Day weekend. When I reached the lake of course we were in the stop light to stop light traffic of the Stateline strip when I developed a problem. The truck would start in third gear at times and I would kill mosquitos for blocks at a time!! My truck has NEVER smoked like that. Could not build any boost at all!! I manually downshifted into 1st gear and it seemed like it was still in third, no boost and sloooow to spool the turbo. When I got to the campground and un hooked the fiver I went back into town and the truck seemed to run fine! No third gear starts.

On the return trip home I had the same problem, more third gear starts at the lights on the strip. They were doing road work on Hwy 88 and I had to stop for a flagman, when I went to take off I blacked out the mountain and ran that guy off into the ditch to get away from the cloud of #2 diesel

I am looking for anyone else who has had a problem similar to this... I am not sure it is the Smarty as I have never had a problem with it other than the turbo huffing at higher settings than #3.

Just lookin for some help or ideas.

Thanks

Dave

 

[Bob Wagner]

call bil at dtt, the third gear starts are transmission issues and have nothing to do with smarty.



Bill has a fix for you,





Thanks





and if you shut the truck down and restart the truck , the 3rd gear starts are gone. FYI

 

[DLBurns]

call bil at dtt, the third gear starts are transmission issues and have nothing to do with smarty.



Bill has a fix for you,





Thanks





and if you shut the truck down and restart the truck , the 3rd gear starts are gone. FYI

Bob,

I don't have a DTT transmission, what kind of fix does Bill offer?



I am not sure I understand what you mean by your last sentence??





Dave

 

[DLBurns]

I guess I am not going to get an answer!

Anyone else out there experience these problems?

I am not looking to blame anything, just would like a clue as to why it just started doing this.

 

[CumminsAholic]

My truck did the same thing when I went to Cooke City last spring. It wouldn't stay in 2nd gear, and I was going too fast for 3rd, talk about smoke. It started in 1st gear, just wouldn't stay in 2nd when I wanted it to. I don't have a smarty. I had just changed the ecm though. I dunno if that's why it did it or not. Also when we went to leave my truck did NOT want to start. It was flooding out, there was a huge black spot in the snow, on the trailer, etc from the soot when it was cranking over. Once it started it was fine... wierd. Maybe it had to relearn the elevation, maybe it's because of the big injectors, I dunno. It still had the 3rd gear problem on the way back though.
Corey

 

[smitty3500]

You have a failing transmission and need to rebuild or purchase a new better unit.

 

[SpicyJam]

You have a failing transmission and need to rebuild or purchase a new better unit.

That is quite the statement there! Just send him out to spend another chunk of $$ and not resarch the problem like he is trying to do.



Since I am in this diesel business there are many things that can contribute to what he has happening.

Personaly it sounds as if it is going in limp mode which can be caused by the PCM seeing too much line pressure. Do you have a VBA soldered in or at min a resitor to fool the line pressures, since your sig shows you have done transmission upgrades?

As far as being stuck in third, and what Bob was saying in his last sentence, if you shut the truck off and refire it the transmission will go back into 1st gear and will resume normal operation, but may resort back to limp mode after awhile if the pressures are too high.