As you may or may not recall, some months back, even further back, I posted about the tranny in my 96 2500 4x4 Cummins acting up. It was an intermittent problem which tells me it's an electrical problem. Why? When a mechanical thing breaks, it stays broken. Electrical components can be temperamental, work and not work, all in the same day.
When I would take it in to a place, the tranny would work fine. Recently one place with a good rep wanted to rebuild it with a life time warranty for $2700. I went back to a place that I took it to earlier this year. He too enjoys a great rep and isn't a greed-hound. We took it for a spin and before we got a block away he said it's not down shifting. It's starting out in 3rd gear. Next stop 2nd gear. It did it each time after a stop. He said the governor switch end solenoid were probably bad as the truck is searching for it's gearing.
When I described the problem originally on here and to him, I said it felt like something inside it was applying the brakes. Sometimes it would take off like a rocket, other times, slow without much power, and the third way of not going anywhere, then shooting off after it connected. In actuality it was normal, taking off in second or trying to take off in third, dropping down to its proper gear or down to 2nd then going.
He replaced those two components, serviced and I'm back on the road only $300 cheaper. On the bad side he said there was still a slight binding which he tracked down to the rear axle bearing going bad. I'm taking it in Monday to place that has experience with it. The Dana was a little too formidable for the tranny guy. He's done smaller ones but said the truck place would be better suited for the bigger, heavier stuff.
In summary, the way it felt to me was that something was binding and not allowing the tranny to direct power from the engine properly. In truth it wasn't downshifting. Simple enough. It sure didn't feel that downshifting was the problem as it didn't feel like I was taking off in high gear with the engine lugging.
Truck runs like new. Not bad for 208,000 miles. Tranny was rebuilt at
122,000 miles.John