OK, this is bizarre... on Friday night I drove home and parked the truck, everything ok. Saturday morning I go out and head for town, I'm moving about 1-2 mph (Yep slooow) and reach up to the gear sheift lever and manually drop it in LOW, the truck comes to a skidding stop! Locked up tight. No... it wasn't in park, it was in LOW (manually), so I immediately kick it up into 2nd or D and it rolls on down the driveway normally.
I get into town and pull up to a stop light, (all the time trying to logically figure out what the heeellll just happened), and pull it into 2nd (manually) light changes, I take off and no problem (it took off in 2nd), then I get to the local AM/PM, get my coffee and head back to the house.
I get almost home, another stop light and after waiting at the SL for it to turn green I drop it in LOW manually and it seems fine. I take it through the gears and all is well. So I go home, drop the fluid for a filter and juice change and check the adj on the bands, all ok, and fill it back up. Now I have LOWwithout any problem, but it won't shift out of second, and I have no reverse!
Damn the bad luck... I have poored over pages and pages of valve body pics and descriptions and charts in the manual and still can't get a clue what area to look into. I dropped the VB at 5 last night, took it completely apart, cleaned everything, checked for little debris, burrs etc and found nothing out of the normal black smear on everything after 165,000 miles of not being messed with except filter and fluid changes and an ocassional band adj.
I put it back in, finally getting it fired up at 9:30pm and still no rev gear or shift out of second.

Anyone got an idea of where to look next? I don't think it's anything to do with drums, clutches, or hard parts in the trans, just something not quite right in the VB and I'm just not smart enough to figure it out without your help.

RAM 3500 Dually, 48RE, no hotrod stuff, just a daily driver. All stock of course. I don't have the option to drop hundreds on this repair, just some guidence to try and fix this myself. Anyone out there know enough about the VB to give me some insight?

Thanks a bunch... I had to drive the wife's car today and she needs it back for work tomorrow so I have this one evening to fix it or I loose some time at work till I get it solved.

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As a followup, I hooked up a pressure gauge to the rev port (The one that actuates the rear band) and at an idle (1000 rpm or so) it showed 140 psi. When shifting from REV to N it dropped like a rock to 0 so I would gather from that there's something going on inside at a place where the reverse actio takes place. Maybe an over-run clutch one person suggested? Is there something inside that would cause the lock up on LOW if it broke or if a roller (?) in the one way clutch broke?
Just some questions that might help.

Looks like I'm dropping a trans at this point. Haven't heard a word from anyone on this so I guess I'll see if I'm smarter than a 5th grader. LoL

 

GOOD LUCK!!
I hate tranny work

 

ok, got it all apart last night, (I hate working at my job, I don't have much time to work on my own stuff!) and here's the result of my drag race on Friday night. (Whoops, wasn't supposed to tell that part...) anyway... front clutches and since I'm alreay in there, a front band too. everything else looked good. I'll change out the clutches and steels if they're marginal but for the most part what I saw last night wasn't bad at all. no hot spots on anything and all was good elsewhere.
These parts on the other hand, they don't look so good. I had to take a big screwdriver and a rubber mallet and "beat these clutches" off the hub. It was grooved badly anyway so it didn't matter much if I scratched it up. LoL
Oh well, $200 in parts later, we'll be rollin on Saturday again.

 

Manage to get er fixed??

 

Since no updates in a long time, I'm going to assume this is a fixed problem and am closing the thread. If need be, this thread can be reopened.