I've always had 5-spd Manual Cummins Powered Dodges. I don't know anything about the Automatics because I never had one and never spent any time reading or learning abotu them. Well, I sold my '97 club cab 2wd dually the other day because I didn't need a big dually anymore and wanted to get into something smaller but still heavy duty. I ended up finding a low mileage '94 2500 reg cab 2wd and bought it today.This one is automatic, and although I would prefer a 5-spd, I guess putting it into gear and not having to clutch & shift might be kinda nice for a change. The truck is gorgeous, 1-owner, and damn close to being perfect, and I'm really excited about it.

Since this is my first Automatic behind a Cummins....tell me what I need to know about them.

What model trans is this and what are its weak points/problem areas?
What upgrades/preventative maintenance should I do now?
How well do they handle light performance upgrades? (ie; fuel plate, exhaust, bhaf, etc)

Any other tips & information I can use are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

PS: I'll be buying a set of gauges this week, so I'm covered there.

 

94 would be the 47RH.... i have the same thing in my truck

first off to say they suck!!!! you will have to get a converter and a valve body and a rebuild to it eventually, so i would set aside 3k if you plan on anything performance with these trans.....

mine held up to a agressive (0) plate and i use to drive it hard..... you should be ok with minor stuff but more than likely over that they will go....

 

x2. i would do the trans before any major power parts

 

The trans build up is going to depend on what you want to do with the truck. From everything I've read, the converter is the weak link. When you make big torque the front cover will deflect and cause the turbine blades inside to contact other internals which sends lots of nice little metal pieces all through the transmission. A good TC is gonna run in the ~$1000 neighborhood. There's plenty of threads here to get some info from.

With that in mind, I've hung 50k on mine since I bought the truck and haven't had any glitches with mine. Mine is a daily driver that gets weekend duty as a hauler. I flush the trans every 20k with full synthetic and it's seemed to keep everything working great.

 

Can you find this trucks maintnance records?If its running good now it must have been repaired/replaced already.A 94 was the first diesle I ever bought (new)and it blew 3 or 4 of those in the first 1.5 years.Thats why I went blue oval.

 

x3 they suck i had a converter, valve body, shift kit, deep tranny pan, and a rebuild altogether they guess it would hold to 500hp (mine was a 47re though) or so........not, im not even close to that power and i spun it between 1st and 2nd so i opted for the other way out, nv4500 swap and no regrets other then sinking the money in the darn thing to begin with.

 

and fyi i have 8k in my trans so they can get real pricey real quick..... i break a lot of them though

 

So what's involved in a 5-spd conversion? I'm already missing my NV4500.

 

Time, tools, and a good chunk of cash. Run a search here for it. There's a couple good write-ups from guys that have done it. I'm probably going to do it myself when mine craps out. After checking out prices, it looked like I was going to have the same invested in conversion parts as I would have had in a built auto. Look to spend in the 3k-4k range pretty easily.

 

If all the clutches are good then a good converter and valvebody will help out drastically. If clutches are gone then a heavy duty rebuild kit will help out even more.