Philtheelder1

I'm new to the forum. My 1999 3500 5.7L has an unsolvable problem. Although it's 17 years old, it only has 85,000 miles. As I was driving at about 35mph my truck died. I had it towed to my "shade tree mechanics. He was scratching his head when he pulled off the distributor cap. His son hit the starter and the distributor didn't move. The distributor drive gear was totally worn out. He looked down the hole and could see that the cam gear for driving the distributor was okay. I picked it up after he had it running again. It seemed like it wasn't quite right. I thought maybe he didn't get timing quite right. My son took it on a 30 mile trip to the dump and back. A few days later I was driving to town - 50 miles away. My entrance to the freeway is downhill. I usually get on, set the cruise at 80 and it usually maintains that all the way to town. The first hill it dropped to 75 and I gave it some gas - it didn't accelerate much, in fact it kept going slower and slower. Started crapping out, transmission shifting up and down and neutral When I got to town, I could barely maintain 55mph. I pulled off the interstate and drove to my appt. - it didn't seem to run bad at 35mph. I had AAA tow it up to my mechanic. That was 6 months ago. (I'm retired and couldn't afford to take it to the dealership or another mechanic) He has tried everything - most of which I thought would have different symptoms - replaced fuel pump which was a little noisy, swapped distributor, computer from salvage yard (no code just like the original) spark plugs? (WTH?) finally decided it was clogged catalytic converters. Cut them out, said it was noisy but it was running fine. welded new ones in, took a drive and the same thing - started crapping out, transmission shifting up and down and neutral - HELP! Anyone have any ideas?

Spencer Kitchen

maybe time for a trans fluid change?