Well, to re-cap, I bought a '92 Dakota a while back, in need of an auto
tranny rebuild,
for $1300. The truck is Dark Blue, LE trim, 186,000 miles on a 3.9 V6, long bed
standard cab, A/C, ABS, PS. This is my newest vehicle ever! Of course whenever
you buy a disabled vehicle there's always apprehension about what else
might be
wrong, and I'm a born worrier which adds to it!
So... Bill Mutter and I take 2 Saturdays to pull the trans, then wait 2
weeks (over
Thanksgiving) for my friend Russ to re-build the trans, and then Bill and I
spend
2 more Saturdays re-installing it (I sure do like working on older vehicles
better,
4 days to R&R a trans, that's sad ;-)). The moment of truth, Bang bang
bang, what
the Hell is that! Well long story, short, Russ looks at it and discovers
the TQ inspection
cover is hitting the TQ bolts ( I bent the cover up getting it on and off
over the starter
stud) so we're good, or so we thought!
Driving the truck to work I notice an occasional banging noise, but from
58-62 mph it
sounds like someone is hitting the drive shaft with a hammer! It's
consistent, speeding
up or slowing down 58-62mph bang bang bang. Of course I expect the worse,
worrying
everyday as I drive back and forth to work, is it the new trans? or maybe
it's the TQ cover
again.
Finally, Sunday I get ahead of this flu enough to spend some time out in
the driveway on the
truck. I grab all the wrenches I think I might need, jack the truck up and
slide under. Of
course I have every wrench, but the ones I need! So, back into the garage
to get the wrenches,
and I decide to disconnect the battery while I'm up. Back under the truck
I'm looking at
what a pain in the butt pulling this cover is, long story, but trust me,
they worked long and
hard at making an easy job into a royal pain. Then suddenly I am overcome
with inspiration,
I think, before I go through all this, kick the drive shaft and see if you
can make that noise.
Low and behold, the Gods who watch over people who get in way over their
heads, smiled
on me. Bang bang, it's the same rattle I heard on the road (At this point
I'll believe anything).
As I keep tapping on things I finally isolate it to the heat shield on top
of the catalytic converter!
Since the floor of the truck already has a heat shield, I removed the one
on the cat, dropped
the truck back to the ground, hooked up the battery and took her for a drive!
Noise is gone!!! I've put 600 miles on this
truck and can finally relax when I drive it. Looks like I did good for
around $2000.
BTW Just so you don't think everything went so easily this weekend. I
decided since things
were going so smoothly to do a plug, wires, cap and rotor replacement while
I was at it.
Well first the cap was the wrong one (clips instead of screws) so I sent
Lynn to the store
with both caps and rotor,and I proceeded to replace all the plugs and
wires. Now I was careful,
and drew a picture of where everything went. Lynn returned with the parts
and I slapped them
in, just starting to rain, damn I'm good, let's go get lunch! Whoa! truck
is running rough, crap,
I check the drawing, everything looks good, sure wish I had a FSM (waiting
on a good deal!).
I pull each plug wire and don't notice any difference except #6 seems to
make it run rougher
when pulled than the others. OK, now what ? I know, the firing order has to
be on the Inter-net,
so I run into the house. While I'm dialing up I look over my book case and
see one of my Chrysler
engine rebuild books, wow, it says 3.9 V6, who would of thunk? Bad news, I
have the firing order
right. Now what?
I go back outside and start pulling wires again, this time paying close
attention to the slightest
change. Aha, plugs 1-4 only make a slight roughness in the idle, but they
do make a difference.
6 makes a big difference and 5 doesn't appear to make any difference! A
closer look at 5
reveals that is might not be seating all the way on the plug, tada! that
was it ! Now I'm a little
wetter, a lot less smug and still hungry, so off to lunch we went.
BTW2 The truck runs great and even chirps the tires in second! Thanks to
the MML and DML for
much needed info and special thanks to Bill Mutter who kept making me put
the torch down
whenever I decided it was time to stop playing around and get that tranny
out now ;-).
Mark Johnson (mAARk) Pasadena, Maryland. '92 Dakota V6/Auto daily driver!
1970 AAR 'Cuda, Sassy Grass Green, weekend cruiser and rough show car.
1973 Challenger, Med. Blue, 318/2bbl,daily driver,future 360 muscle car!
1940 Chrysler Royal Coupe,440/auto,under construction, future street rod!
See my cars and my huge AAR gallery @ http://aar.moparweb.com (Thanks Chris!)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:46:34 EDT