Kickdown doesn't seem right

[moparye]

My 90 ramcharger will only grab 1st gear when ur doing 25 mph or less. It should easily grab it when doing at least 35mph.....right? It raps out around 4800 rpm, when manually shifting 1st will get me to 35-40 mph range before I hit 4800. It drives fine otherwise and grabs 2nd like it should. Any ideas? Thanks.

[moparye]

oops, I mean 3800 rpm's....

[A74speedy]

Answer me this...if your doing say 30mph and you hammer it, will it grap 1st? if not you need to do some adjusting!





Speedy....

[moparye]

nope, only 25mph or less will it grab 1st when I hammer it. When it does grab it, it works fine, it wraps out and catches 2nd...so on so forth.

[A74speedy]

Well I would say you need to adjust the kick down. My 92 Dakota with a 318 will grab 1st if I am doing 30mph, it will spin the hell out of the tires if I hammer it at 30mph! Best of luck adjusting, hope I have been helpful!



Speedy....

[moparye]

Hows the kickdown set on these? There is no cable up to the TB, just the throttle and cruise control cables.

[A74speedy]

Now you have asked a question I can't answer! Let me get back to ya on that. I have a few guys that are Mopar nuts and really into Rams so they should know. I'll get back to ya on it soon!





Speedy....

[84GreyRam]

Your '90, along with mine and all other older RWD Mopars since way-back-when use a steel rod to for actuating the kick-down. It's right below and rear of your throttle linkage. It's about a 1/4" in diameter-you can't miss it.

I'm not sure about the EXACT procedure of adjusting the rod for proper shifting but the way you actually make the adjustment is to crawl underneath and look on the drivers-side of the tranny. You will see where the rod comes down and connects about a 3" long lever on the tranny via an adjustable pivot point. Simply loosen the bolt on the pivot block and slide the tranny lever(don't know the exact name of it) back(towards the rear of the vehicle) on the kickdown rod just a little bit to make it downshift at a higher speed. Don't get too carried away, a small adjustment makes a big difference.

This diagram gives you a slight idea of what the kickdown rod looks like and how it hooks up.

[moparye]

Thanks for the info, never had to mess with the kickdown before. i adjusted the "base" of the kickdown rod to the rear and it did seem to help out some. It will now kick down around 28-29 mph, but to me that still isn't right and I'm pretty much adjusted to the end of the rod. Could it be a TPS going bad as well. Something where it ins't getting enough gas or reading for it to grab 1st at that rpm. I am also still kicking around the idea of a bad fuel pump, something that may also is linked to my hard starting problem. Anyway, thanks for the help. Any other ideas, please let me know.