Detailed story:
The truck is a ’02 Dmax/ally CC/SB 4X4 with around 194k miles of hard work on it. It’s history is rather unimpressive – 8 years of use as a ranch truck with a few trips every year to mexico for racing (off-road) and maybe a dozen hunting trips to Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, etc. It has never had any major problems beyond the norm: 3 sets of injectors, rodent-chewed VSS harness, NSBU , and so forth.
Last month, I was on a hunting trip in Alamagordo, New Mexico when the engine began making a horrible racket, mis-firing, stumbling, detonating violently and generally sounded like it was gonna send parts through the hood.
(Just before the trip, I took the truck to my local GM dealer, and had them run a check on the injectors before they ran out of warranty at 200k. They told me #5 was under fueling, and #8 was overfueling, but that neither was covered by warranty. With full intent to change the complete set at home after my hunting trip, I had them button it back up and call it a day!)
I got it dragged out of the hills and into the Motel 8 Parking lot. The next day, Monday, I felt lucky that the local GM dealer has a pair of injectors, so I went ahead and swapped out the #5 and #8 injectors.
After changing two injectors in the hotel parking lot in the August heat of New Mexico, I was more than disappointed that it ran no better. We dragged it to the dealer in Alamagordo. Over the next 4 days, they followed the codes and checked all the wire connectors, tested all the ground leads, changed out the Cam Pos. sensor, and the Crank Pos sensor, and ultimately the ECM also (Grand Total $2500). I couldn’t afford to have them chase it any further, So I told them to park it and I’d be back to get it in a couple of weeks.
The service tech was a great guy and hated to give up without solving the riddle, so he asked if he could work on it after hours. I told him to go for it as long as I didn’t have to pay the full dealership rate! He agreed, so I loaded up my rental van and took off on the 22 hour drive home!
A full week later, the tech called me to report that he found the problem: 4 wires in the harness between the ECM and the C1 connector had chafed and where the harness draped over the power steering line to the hydro-boost. He fixed it and drove it home that night and back the next day (25 miles each way). As he took it to McD’s for lunch, he said it dropped into neutral and wouldn’t move.
He cycled the ignition a few times, started it, and put it into Drive. He said it engaged harshly and stayed in first at a max of 15 mph. He limped it back to the dealership, and pulled the codes and parked it! The codes were: P0732 (incorrect 2nd gear ratio), P0500 (VSS), P0700 (TCM request MIL), and the dreaded P0776 (Pressure Solenoid B Controlled Clutch Stuck Off).
I now have the truck home, and on it’s first test run, it acted fine, shifting 1-2-3-4-5 with no problem, after coming to a complete stop and putting it in park, it now engages harshly into drive, but won’t shift out of first gear. The trans fluid is tinged brown, smells burned, and has very fine metal particles in it.
I’ve accepted that I’ll have to swap the trans, but before I do that, my questions are these:
Is it normal for a trans to go from fully functional with clean fluid to burned up – within 60 miles ?
Could the new (reman) factory ECM have played a part in the trans’ demise?
My problem is I don’t want to put a new trans in only to have it immediately fail also from a problematic sensor or…? I like seeing smoking guns before I feel the problem is solved – I can’t afford any more WAG’s
