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06 Ram broken Transmission Pressure Sensor now no go

2K views 17 replies 4 participants last post by  Redtruck-VA 
#1 ·
My son called me to say his 06 Ram 1500 hemi Quad cab 2WD wasn't shifting right and wouldn't go very fast. Then I get the rest of the story.
He was meeting some farm equipment on our narrow road about 1-2 miles from our house. He got over too far into the ditch but easily pulled out and got home, but said it wasn't acting right. He sent me a video showing the RPM going up but not moving. I told him to leave it parked until I got home to look at it. When he got into the ditch, he scooped up some muddy turf with the crossmember. The mud ball had broken off the Transmission Pressure Sensor.
The next day I got a new pressure switch and installed. Unfortunately NO Go.
Unhooked battery to try to rest things but no change. It will not move in reverse or ANY forward gears. It has 5v at the sensor. It is still throwing a bunch of codes that refer back to the pressure switch. Anyone have any ideas where to check next? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Unfortunately correct. Will not move in R, D, 2, or 1. Rpm will just go up, then throw codes all referring to the pressure switch and not shifting into gear. I'll have to pull codes again to post since my phone based reader didn't save them.

The sensor I bought was from Advanced Auto since was only place close that had one in stock. Hate to buy another $50 sensor just to eliminate the possibility of buying a bad sensor. Could it possibly be bad out of the box?
 
#8 ·
Also found a copy or factory service manual that I'll try to work thru but any insight would be greatly appreciated. We bought this for my son to learn on when getting his license. It was high mileage (160K) and has been absolute nightmare with non-stop problems.
In contrast my 2004 has been great. Only basic wear items and an EGR valve in its 150K mile history but looks horrible after a bad hail storm did $11k damage to it. I bought it back from insurance because mechanically it was just to good to let go.
 
#9 ·
Well here is the real crap part. The truck has a mechanical 3rd gear meaning even if you unplug the trans plug it should have reverse and at least 3rd gear it’s limp home mode. The fact that you don’t have that worries me as you might be looking at a trans.
 
#10 ·
Yes that is my fear. I didn't get home in time to look at it last night but did have a thought as I was heading to bed. I do have an 04 Ram that I suspect has the same pressure sensor and works perfectly. I think next step if it's the same part is to just swap that sensor in to rule out a bad new sensor. Then dig in on ringing out the wiring from sensor to pcm. Thanks for the help and support.
 
#11 ·
Well finally got a chance to checking a few things. I swapped in the transmission pressure sensor from my 04 that has no issues. This showed no change in the 06. Found pin outs for wiring from sensor connector to pcm. All 3 wires on the sensor showed good continuity and no shorts between pcm and sensor connector. Decided to drop the pan and see if could find anything. Didn't find anything alarming. Fluid has just a hint of burnt smell possibly. Everything clean, no debris in pan, and very little metal sludge on magnet especially with truck showing about 190K miles. I did notice the main filter didn't seem tight in the pump, so went ahead and replaced both filters and buttoned it up to give it a try. Added little over 4qts to get to cold mark. Still no movement in any gear.
Found in manual about checking pump flow by unhooking cooler line and check in neutral at about 1800rpm. Manual said should be about 1qt in 30 seconds. Checked for about 20-30 seconds and go NO flow. Nothing at all coming out of transmission. So decided to call it a night and pour up the old fluid in old jugs. I had about 7-8qts of old fluid that was drained out, yet only needed about 5 qts to show a good level. So to me it seems that fluid had drained to pan that should normally been held in the transmission. This revelation brought back an observation that I didn't pick up on when first checking it out. When I first pulled the dipstick, I was just checking for fluid presence but didn't look for level. After changing filters and refilling fluid to cold level, its was considerably higher prior to tearing into it. So I suspect fluid had drained to pan at that point.
Sorry for the long post but I'm not sure where to go next. To me it seems something has happened to the pump but that's just a guess. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
 
#12 ·
It could have blown the pump out. By chance did you notice if the accumulator cover plate was still attached to the side of the VB or was it broken hanging off. Other deal could be a broken spring in the pump bypass but trans has to come out to check and change it
 
#14 ·
I didn't notice anything obviously broken put wasn't looking at anything specific. I had slight hope that the pickup filter being slightly loose could be sucking air but that didn't correct anything. I'll probably drop the pan again this weekend to take a further look.
 
#13 ·
Assuming the truck drove to where it went off the road, could it have smashed one of the cooling lines preventing circulation? A lose filter could suck air rather than fluid.
 
#15 ·
It only slightly drug the dirt that the road dept had balled up when cleaning out the ditches and just so happened that it pushed a ball of turf over the passenger side trans crossmember and broke the trans pressure sensor in half. If the sensor hadn't broken, it be hard to tell it had been offroad. just slight mud and grass on crossmember and dual exhaust hanger. I did check the cooler lines from trans to cooler and both lines looked in original position and no sign of damage. Thanks.
 
#17 ·
That's a definitive test. I use to have a guage connected to monitor line pressure. If I remmber the test fitting was something like $65.
 
#18 ·
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