Time for a new transmission!

[ZXT 2,401]

Last time I hauled a car with my 95 Dodge V10, I noticed the transmission slipping a bit. Been about 6 months since then, and I began noticing it during normal driving. Hoping a fluid and filter change would help it hang on for a little longer, I pulled the pan and found some carnage, which is pictured below. In addition to the non-magnetic stuff floating around in the pan, I found some decent sized chunks of metal stuck to the magnet in the pan. I inspected the filter before pulling it off, and found it to be torn, so it's been ingesting everything through that opening which is likely what caused the problems to begin with. Put a new filter on it, filled it with Dexron, and it's not any better than it was before. Time for a new transmission.

 

I hate automatics (in cars/trucks, WH's are the exception) and took to FB marketplace to see if I could find a 5 speed to put in it. Came across an 01 Dodge parts truck, also a V10 with a 5 speed NV4500, a disc brake Dana 80 rear end, good engine with supposedly 90k miles, for $350!. Transmission would bring 800 by itself on the ground, and the rear end would bring that as well. A kid bought it from his boss with an electrical issue and he pulled every wire out of the fuse block under the hood trying to diagnose, and then gave up once it was apart!

 

Looks like my truck will be being manual swapped in the near future. I'll have to take some pictures of the progress and any hiccups I encounter.

[ClassicTractorProfessor 5,314]

Best move you could ever make in my opinion...I absolutely hate an automatic in a pickup. Only reason I bought the truck from down there even though it was an auto is so Krystal could drive it if need be. Had I known then she was gonna lay claim to my F150 and get rid of her car I would have found a 5 speed

[ebinmaine 67,279]

Be an interesting swap.

I'll hang around for it..

 

[ZXT 2,401]

44 minutes ago, HandyProfessor said:

Best move you could ever make in my opinion...I absolutely hate an automatic in a pickup. Only reason I bought the truck from down there even though it was an auto is so Krystal could drive it if need be. Had I known then she was gonna lay claim to my F150 and get rid of her car I would have found a 5 speed

I've never had a roadworthy truck (above a half ton) with a stick before, but I have driven and pulled with many and the difference is amazing. Many of my cars are sticks, and I just flat out like them better. Heavy traffic can get annoying, but I avoid that the best I can. I've driven the twin to your truck with a 5 speed and loved it. 

11 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Be an interesting swap.

I'll hang around for it..

 

Hopefully it isn't too interesting! I plan on it just being a pull one and slap the other in. Only issue that I know that I will have is with the speedometer. The 95, though it is an electronic speedo, runs off of the transmission. The 01 runs off of a sensor in the rear end, and puts out a different signal that the 95 computer won't recognize. Might have to go to a GPS driven speedometer. On well. 

Edited May 17, 2020 by ZXT

[bc.gold 3,403]

1 hour ago, ZXT said:

I've never had a roadworthy truck (above a half ton) with a stick before, but I have driven and pulled with many and the difference is amazing. Many of my cars are sticks, and I just flat out like them better. Heavy traffic can get annoying, but I avoid that the best I can. I've driven the twin to your truck with a 5 speed and loved it. 

Hopefully it isn't too interesting! I plan on it just being a pull one and slap the other in. Only issue that I know that I will have is with the speedometer. The 95, though it is an electronic speedo, runs off of the transmission. The 01 runs off of a sensor in the rear end, and puts out a different signal that the 95 computer won't recognize. Might have to go to a GPS driven speedometer. On well. 

 

The transmission has a transmission control module needs to communicate with the engine computer, generation vehicles suck.

 

According to the wiki both trucks are second generation, so the transmission swap is possible.

 

Second generation
Ram 1500 Extended Cab
Overview
Production	July 1993-2001 (Ram 1500) 1993–2002 (Ram 2500 and 3500)
Assembly	Warren, Michigan St. Louis, Missouri Saltillo, Mexico Lago Alberto Assembly, Mexico City

Edited May 17, 2020 by bcgold

[953 nut 55,083]

9 hours ago, ZXT said:

A kid bought it from his boss with an electrical issue and he pulled every wire out of the fuse block under the hood trying to diagnose, and then gave up once it was apart!

His loss, your gain!          Sounds like you will have your hands full for a while.

[squonk 41,032]

Worked many years at a Dodge dealer. There was always a trans or rear axle either on the bench,on the floor or outside waiting to be fixed. Even when I went to work at Napa. Deliver to the Dodge shop, same thing

[ZXT 2,401]

 

17 hours ago, bcgold said:

 

The transmission has a transmission control module needs to communicate with the engine computer, generation vehicles suck.

 

According to the wiki both trucks are second generation, so the transmission swap is possible.

 

Second generation
Ram 1500 Extended Cab
Overview
Production	July 1993-2001 (Ram 1500) 1993–2002 (Ram 2500 and 3500)
Assembly	Warren, Michigan St. Louis, Missouri Saltillo, Mexico Lago Alberto Assembly, Mexico City

These trucks do not have a TCM. It all runs off of the ECM. When swapping to a manual on these, the only light it will throw is the transmission temperature light, unless you leave the sensor plugged in or install a resistor. 

 

Yep, the swap is possible.. That's why I'm doing it! 

8 hours ago, squonk said:

Worked many years at a Dodge dealer. There was always a trans or rear axle either on the bench,on the floor or outside waiting to be fixed. Even when I went to work at Napa. Deliver to the Dodge shop, same thing

How'd they hurt the rear axle? They're just a Dana 60-80. Pretty hard to kill. On the transmissions, the only people who had issues were those who pulled far too much weight and/or didn't disable overdrive while pulling. The first couple years of the OD truck transmissions they had some issues with shift solenoids which was easily remedied. Add a transmission cooler and these transmissions are pretty stout. Mine lasted 230k miles, pulling a load for at least half of that by a doufus that did no maintanence. Same exact transmission as was put in the Cummins trucks, except that the V10 had 150HP and 50 Tq on the cummins.

Edited May 17, 2020 by ZXT

[ebinmaine 67,279]

27 minutes ago, ZXT said:

On the transmissions

Might have been a Northeast thing but in 2000-2001 we had about a slew and a half of LD truck transmissions go bad.

The trucks were from the mid - late 90s.

 

Up here the axles were phenomenal except the wheel seals. 

A lot of wheel seals.......

 

[squonk 41,032]

1 hour ago, ZXT said:

 

These trucks do not have a TCM. It all runs off of the ECM. When swapping to a manual on these, the only light it will throw is the transmission temperature light, unless you leave the sensor plugged in or install a resistor. 

 

Yep, the swap is possible.. That's why I'm doing it! 

How'd they hurt the rear axle? They're just a Dana 60-80. Pretty hard to kill. On the transmissions, the only people who had issues were those who pulled far too much weight and/or didn't disable overdrive while pulling. The first couple years of the OD truck transmissions they had some issues with shift solenoids which was easily remedied. Add a transmission cooler and these transmissions are pretty stout. Mine lasted 230k miles, pulling a load for at least half of that by a doufus that did no maintanence. Same exact transmission as was put in the Cummins trucks, except that the V10 had 150HP and 50 Tq on the cummins.

Carrier and pinion bearings mostly

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

I’m interested to watch this swap.  As is mentioned in my vintage trucks thread, my old beater work truck is a K2500 Chebby with a 5.7 TBI,  a 3.50 ratio 14 Bolt semi floater, but by far my favorite option is the NV4500 tranny.  People that go with me for a ride always comment on it being a stick.  I really enjoy the experience of driving a manual transmission vehicle but feel like it is almost a necessity on a work truck. One of these days, mine just might get an LS swap 🤞🏻.

 

Good luck on your project and don’t forget to take pics and write up how it goes...

[ZXT 2,401]

Well, I've started the swap. Didn't take as many pictures of the disassembly as I should, but oh well. I'll post them later. Planned on doing it sooner, but I had to put an engine in my Sister's car.

 

Sunday evening, I pulled the transmission and all of the other pieces needed from the donor truck. Monday evening I pulled the auto out of my truck. That part went pretty smooth; had it completely apart in about two hours. My new clutch came in yesterday morning, so after work I installed that, and then stabbed the transmission. 

 

That didn't go as easy as pulling the auto. Couldn't get the input shaft into the pilot bearing. Fit perfectly on the ground, but obviously angles aren't going to be perfect when installing. Spend around 4 hours on that part. I pulled the transmission back out, and the alignment tool still went in fine. Pulled the clutch and re-aligned, tried to stab the transmission again, and the same thing happened. About 11PM last night, I finally got it where I thought it was started in the bearing, and pulled the transmission the rest of the way up with the bolts. The pilot bearing presses into the flywheel on this truck, so if it wasn't aligned, it probably just pressed the bushing out and I'll find out the hard way when I get it all back together. Hopefully it went in. 

 

Just picked up some oil for it. Mopar discontinued the fluid, as did GM with their equivalent. The only fluid on the market that is compatible (from my research) is Royal Purple MaxGear 75-90. It has the right additives for the carbon fiber synchros. The local GM house had 3 quarts of the "original" stuff, and I needed 5, and at $32/qt I passed on it. The RP was bad enough at $22!

 

I still lack installing the cross member and driveshaft. Hopefully if all goes well, It'll be mobile before dark!

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

13 hours ago, ZXT said:

 

Just picked up some oil for it. Mopar discontinued the fluid, as did GM with their equivalent. The only fluid on the market that is compatible (from my research) is Royal Purple MaxGear 75-90. It has the right additives for the carbon fiber synchros. The local GM house had 3 quarts of the "original" stuff, and I needed 5, and at $32/qt I passed on it. The RP was bad enough at $22!

I know you already have made your purchase but I figured I would chime in here for anyone who hits this thread in the future.  From my research, New Vendors worked directly with Castrol to develop a special gear lube for the NV4500 tranny. It was called commercially “SynTorque” and both GM and Mopar carried their own part numbers for the product. As you stated it had very special additives for the synchros and other gear lubes without those won’t work for long.  Case in point, I had some tranny work done on mine a couple of years ago and the tranny shop put in the regular stuff.  After about two weeks it started shifting really hard, after three weeks I could hardly get it to shift at all.  A word to the wise is sufficient, don’t substitute a great lube that is not formulated for this particular tranny, you won’t like the results! I have been a big proponent of Amsoil and I went to their website to see what they had...

Sure enough, they carry a product especially for the NV4500 and when I switched to it, the change was instantaneous!!!  It works great and is cost efficient for what it is. 

Glad @ZXT you found a suitable replacement in the RP product and I am looking forward to seeing your beast up and running with the gear jammer  in place!

[16 Automatic 53]

Interesting. I need to change the fluid in my NV5600 and it uses a different recommendation than the NV4500. 5W-30

Edited June 11, 2020 by 16 Automatic

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

 Not sure why they changed the internals of the tranny but maybe for the simple reason that the 4500 required special fluid? However, you are correct in that the 3500 and the 5600 both use the same fluid but different from the 4500.

[ZXT 2,401]

15 hours ago, PeacemakerJack said:

I know you already have made your purchase but I figured I would chime in here for anyone who hits this thread in the future.  From my research, New Vendors worked directly with Castrol to develop a special gear lube for the NV4500 tranny. It was called commercially “SynTorque” and both GM and Mopar carried their own part numbers for the product. As you stated it had very special additives for the synchros and other gear lubes without those won’t work for long.  Case in point, I had some tranny work done on mine a couple of years ago and the tranny shop put in the regular stuff.  After about two weeks it started shifting really hard, after three weeks I could hardly get it to shift at all.  A word to the wise is sufficient, don’t substitute a great lube that is not formulated for this particular tranny, you won’t like the results! I have been a big proponent of Amsoil and I went to their website to see what they had...

 

Sure enough, they carry a product especially for the NV4500 and when I switched to it, the change was instantaneous!!!  It works great and is cost efficient for what it is. 

Glad @ZXT you found a suitable replacement in the RP product and I am looking forward to seeing your beast up and running with the gear jammer  in place!

Thanks for the info on that fluid! I'll write down that part number for future reference. I came across someone mentioning that AmsOil made a suitable replacement, but I wasn't able to find a part number for it! I went to Oreilly's and gave them the part number for the Mopar oil - it cross referenced to a oil sold by Red Line, and I could buy it for the low, low price of just $376 a GALLON! No thanks!

14 hours ago, 16 Automatic said:

Interesting. I need to change the fluid in my NV5600 and it uses a different recommendation than the NV4500. 5W-30

I believe the main difference is the composition of the synchros. I've read a few places that the special oil isn't always necessary if the transmission has been rebuilt - some of the aftermarket synchros aren't carbon fiber. The NV4500 came out before both the 3500 and 5600, so maybe they decided the carbon fiber synchros weren't necessary after experimenting with the 4500. 

 

I did get the truck back together last night and took it for a drive. Looks like the pilot bearing is all good, thankfully. However, the synchros for 3rd gear appear to be gone.. Because of this, I somewhat learned how to double clutch today. Upshifting is fine, but downshifting into 3rd is another story.. Haven't mastered that yet. Hopefully I get it figured out soon, because I don't want to knock any teeth off of the gear or put a bunch of metal shavings in my overly expensive oil. 

 

With all of that said, I love the 5 speed. Completely transformed the truck. I have a lot more confidence in its pulling ability now. Now I just wait for my fancy Dakota Digital box to show up to make the speedometer work. I might've mentioned it in an earlier post, but my truck (a 95 model) utilized a speed sensor that ran off of the tail housing of the transmission. In 1998, they eliminated that sensor and instead ran the speedometer off of the ABS sensor located in the top of the rear differential. The trans I put in was from an 01, so it lacked the place for the speed sensor. In 98 the updated the trucks and changed to a different dash/speedometer, and the ABS sensor puts out a different signal than my speedometer will run off of. The Dakota Digital SGI-100BT unit will convert the signal to what I need.