Calling all Mechanics... Cummins Truck Transmission problems!

hey guys this is Josh Stoney rich farmer welcome to the farm blog today we're driving in the dodge cummins truck and we're having issues with our truck this is a 2000 model Dodge Ram Cummins 24-valve diesel pickup and I'm going to show you what's going on here and we're going to try and diagnose this problem together today and I'm gonna pull the truck up in the shop it probably won't be today I'll probably pull it in tomorrow we'll take you into the shop and we're gonna try just cleaning the battery terminals I'm told that this problem can be caused just by a bad ground in the transmission so check it out when I mash the gas and we're in between about 30 and 40 miles an hour and it surges so I'm gonna show you the RPMs real quick here's what we experienced goes back and forth between Drive and overdrive see the RPMs that's what we're experiencing it's doing it right now now this annoying surge I'm told is caused by either the solenoids and the transmission not engaging properly a worn transmission or it could simply be a ground issue it is extremely annoying the truck pulls just fine it drives just fine and when it starts to surge like this if I just give it a little extra gas it pulls right out of it but it's extremely annoying let me show you again it's mainly around 50 miles per hour and you see that rpm gauge just jumping back and forth this has gotta be bad for my truck I'm gonna disengage the overdrive it at first it just did this when I had it only in the driver overdrive now it's starting to do it through all the gears and it went away when I first got the truck this was a problem and it went away as soon as I changed the transmission fluid and the guy told me that looked like that the transmission had had some additives put in it I don't know automatic transmission we're at about a hundred and thirty-five thousand miles on the Dodge Ram mm but 'el is it a new training I don't know so next time you see me we'll be in the shop so we're in the shop on day two of this little escapade here and basically my thought process is to clean the battery terminals I'm told that there can be a problem with the ground system in this truck that causes this whole problem so we're just going to clean the battery terminals we're also gonna take a little look I've got smoke coming from under the hood and I don't know why it's coming from under the hood I suspect a valve cover gasket may be the culprit or an exhaust leak of some sort this is a 2000 model Dodge Ram 130,000 miles ish close to 135,000 miles and it's just getting those little quirks as little adjustments those little things that you need to do for these Cummins diesel engines so let's get under the hood here and check things out so this truck has two heavy-duty batteries one on this side and one on that side they're both the terminals are both pretty tight everything's pretty tight it looks like someone has already ran this additional ground wire from the ground here to the body of the truck we're gonna check the other side and see if that's been done also there is some corrosion on here and this could be part of our issue so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the battery terminals off we're gonna scrub these terminals really good and we're gonna install them back on nice and snug and properly first we'll clean them we'll remove them we'll scrub them clean again we'll reinstall and then we'll take the truck for a drive and see if this solves our problem if this doesn't solve our problem we may end up having to put a shift solenoid on this truck in the transmission we'll have to pull the pan and install a shift solenoid on the truck I hope this solves the problem I had this problem a year maybe a year and a half ago something like that and I changed the fluid in the transmission totally eliminated the problem it all went away now I don't know if that was an issue with ground if that was an issue with the fluid what the issue was but it did make the problem go away I suspect someone's done some pulling with truck in the past and that may be why they traded the truck in it just may be due for a transmission overhaul I don't know we'll see so how we're gonna clean these is gonna be a little bit different than you may have ever seen this is called battery cleaner it's by Lynx I'll post the link down in the video description to a product like this this is basically sodium bicarb in a can in other words it's baking soda spray in a can to clean your battery terminals so first thing we're going to do is soak this thing down with baking soda in a can I want to show you how this stuff works so you can see the corrosion the little flakes right there will just basically soak it down and it just eats those little flakes away just like so what we want to do why we want to clean this first is so that we can get a good bite on our battery when we get ready to remove it you can see that stuff just fizzing and foaming away so this sodium bicarb or baking soda is just basically eating away the corrosion you can see it just bubbling right away pretty awesome we'll rinse this with a little bit of water a little cool water when we get done and again it's just baking soda it's not gonna hurt anything to get it on any stuff under the hood here alright so it's been about five minutes and we're just gonna take a spray bottle with water with cold water and just rinse it off pretty simple stuff nothing special we'll rinse this off good on the driveway with the water hose but for this right now we're just gonna clean it off here in the shop there you want to be sure you're spraying not towards the painted surfaces of the car so you're not washing off any battery acid on your car we'll take a rag we'll drive these guys off and then we'll remove the clamps from the battery terminals the other side and do the same thing so first we're gonna take this little wire brush and we're just going to scrub away any corrosion we can see here on the surface nuts and bolts and stuff like that in corrosion we can see then we're gonna take them loose and scrub-a-dub-dub I can't find my battery terminal cleaner I'm gonna have to do a little digging hopefully I can find those in the next few minutes that would be ideal to be able to clean the battery terminals with the appropriate tool but if not this guy will work just fine and you can see we're cleaning up pretty nicely pretty nicely so the key is often our cognition we'll go ahead and loosen up our negative battery terminal here on this side very very simple we'll move over to our positive battery terminal and we're gonna need a deep well for that one believe it or not there are three different size nuts on these guys right here three different size nuts on these battery terminals that's kind of funny so we're gonna take our negatives off first we'll take our positives guys leave a comment down below if you think I'm doing that wrong taking our ground off first go a little crusty under there take the ground off on the other side here oh she's on there tight that's for sure come on buddy well I don't know if this kind of dissolves the idea of whether it's a loose ground or not getting in connection cuz that suckers getting the connection no doubt about it batteries like to show off on YouTube just so you guys know hey no sir this could be the problem it looks like the terminal itself is coming loose this could be my problem terminal is coming loose from the battery got it pried apart that terminal is just coming right off that battery awesome didn't want to buy a new battery today look at that no get a close up here for you so the terminal itself is twisting off of the battery or coming out one or the other maybe this was a crappy remanufactured battery or some batteries just coming apart right they're not cool so let's talk about the battery install job here the truck is missing the little hook that holds the battery still it holds the battery in place right here there's corrosion down on the bottom of where the battery mount is there's corrosion in a lot of places and the date that the battery has been put in is not indicated on the battery after looking at this battery just a little bit more I can see that the terminals are kind of leaned and the battery is warped across the top here lately it's been difficult to start the truck when I started I can hear it oh wow so there could be an issue that we need to address well there is an issue now that we need to address we need to go get two new batteries and put in this thing I don't want to put two new batteries in it that's probably more expensive than putting the shift solenoid in there so distressing but we're gonna have to do it so we're gonna run to the parts store we'll get two new batteries then we'll take it for a drive and I'll let you know whether this solves a problem if it doesn't we're getting under the truck and we're gonna do some more work in another video there's one thing that rings true with farming and vehicles there's always some sort of issue with a battery there are so many batteries and tires here on the farm to keep up what a pain in the butt we'll probably go on and get a gasket for our valve cover and maybe going and replace that in another video - we shall see I don't see any signs of exhaust leak but I do see signs of oil dripping onto the exhaust which tells me there's probably a valve cover gasket issue we soaked the pain-in-the-butt terminals here it's a little PB Blaster to see if that would help loosen things up it hasn't as of yet got the terminals off the other battery just fine I'm told that when you replace a battery in a truck that has two batteries you need to go in and do both that's what I am told and this one's obviously garbage yeah yeah a little PB Blaster got her done see if we can get this thing out with a love tap from the ball peen hammer I don't want to get battery acid in my I must slide my glasses on all right love taps yeah she's loose now baby payment but that was not cool not cool at all we'll get you a close-up of that battery here in a second out with the old $4,100 truck going to get parts for the $20,000 truck all right contact oh my goodness are you kidding me really it's every battery on the farm kaput this should not be going on right now oh my god what a pain in the butt contact you guys are never gonna guess what the problem was it wasn't all the way engaged into Park I took the battery out and charged it anyway but here we go here's your hundred dollar truck died cold natured got down to 29 last night let's go get a battery man I'm glad it wasn't another battery issue I I don't know if I can handle another vehicle problem so the silver Dodge right now has an issue with its brakes it had some rust on it and it's 20 years old so one of the brake lines rusted into while I was out and about I had to drive home with the emergency brake we've ordered the part for that we've got issues with the transmission shifting on the 2500 we had a battery issue with this truck it's just one thing after another we're getting there that we entered a these are too heavy batteries I'm gonna say they're about 60 pounds apiece so we went to Autozone we got the appropriate batteries these batteries were 159 bucks at pieces is the door last gold battery and it came with a little kit for installation with the anti-corrosion little slime that you put on the battery terminals we also bought a terminal cleaning kit so we can clean our terminals properly before we reinstall and I met a guy in the parking lot that had a Cummins diesel with about 260,000 miles on it and told him about my issue he also had an automatic transmission and he told me to pull a certain wire out of the Loom to get it away from the windings on the alternator he said that causes interference so I went to look and see if that had been done and it has been done online so that must be an issue with these trucks it causes interference and causes that solenoid in the transmission to act up cross your fingers guys we're gonna put these batteries in and then we're gonna take off for a drive we made a mess cleaning those terminals with that terminal cleaner we're gonna get this guy shining we want good connection nothing but good to come from this right here hopefully this all works out I ended up buying two of those battery cleaning kits in other words two of these little dudes right here because I just want to have one in each tool box I want to be able to access one really easily and I don't want to be looking for tools anymore now we were missing one of the bolts that you used to hold the battery down and they were zip-tied down for me it's kind of Mickey Mouse if you know what I mean so we ended up buying some new battery mounting bolts so we can put this thing in properly so we've got our brand new battery terminals and I'm gonna clean those up too before we get started installing everything and make sure that they are shiny and clean as a whistle it's a little twist blow the shavings off do the other side the same way you'll install the little fuzzies that come with the battery and positive negative then we'll get our anti-corrosion gel and we will put a blob on each one just like so set that off to the side and we're gonna rub this in really good actually I'm going to remove that we're gonna rub this stuff in really good it's almost like petroleum jelly just want to coat that really good seal that off we're gonna do the other one the same way that guy off we're gonna rub that jelly on there really good so we can cut back this corrosion issue now the other battery it looked like once we got to the auto parts store the other battery had been in here about seven years that's pretty good lifespan of a battery pretty happy with that snug that guy down we'll go to the other side and install the other battery then we'll connect our terminals guys if you like this kind of content found that like button subscribe the channel if you're not already subscribed get a lot more fun stuff to come here on the channel come on and join us have some fun subscribe it's a good time to Stoney read woo Oh better find that probably smelling it later these diesel trucks they just require work they require maintenance you just require a little bit more love and attention than regular old gas truck that's why we love them so much love getting out in the shop and working wish I could do it more I'm gonna do it more love bringing you guys along to this is fun stuff that's what life's all about learning building and growing and not breaking the new battery terminal off I made a boo-boo I put the battery in backwards I put the positive side that way instead of that way so redo mulligan open up them very nice daddy like it one day I'm gonna get a nice tool set where I don't have a calico mix of tools I've got husky and cobalt and all kinds of stuff in your craftsman one day I'll get a nice set of tools but for right now I ain't made of money okay here is our clearance issue got one on both sides hopefully I close our hood here we're not gonna hit and it's right there coming down with the hood I think we're in good shape much shut well there's no little fuzzies on here and there doesn't seem to be an issue up there so we're good on clearance let's get out and drive this truck and see if this fix my problem that's the silver truck with the break this year [Applause] beautiful evening here on the farm so we're gonna have to drive the truck around for about 15-20 minutes get it up to a good hot operating temperature and make sure that we're not gonna have this issue anymore it really doesn't happen when the engine is cool and if you guys have any insight into this please leave me a message down there leave me a comment we're gonna get out here on the road and we're gonna cruise and I'll show you if it starts messing up will definitely show you hopefully we're good to go fingers crossed guys fingers crossed so if you guys will remember about this speed yesterday this time yesterday this truck was searching for gears over and over and over it is running fabulous now awesome I think we found the gremlin I think the gremlin was that battery terminal I think that battery terminal was going bad for a year or more now and it finally just broke off inside the battery when I went to disconnect the battery terminal it was just a disaster so maybe that's what the issue was not doing it anymore the problem is solved super awesome keep your fingers crossed for me thanks a lot for watching the channel today guys I hope you enjoyed this we're having a little bit of fun working on the truck be sure I'm found that like button subscribe the channel and if you have any comments or any input be sure and post it down there I appreciate that kind of stuff we'll see you next time on the Stoney Ridge farm alright Trek's working baby don't ring dear sweet that's the way suppose the knees don't read you didn't do that very good did ya