transmission

[AllanDickerson]

I lost 3rd gear tonight and barly made it home. I started having trouble 2 days ago. I have code p0700 I have to get an actual scanner to see what code is in there. Is it better to get a used transmission or get mine rebuilt? Also is there any difference in the power wagons transmission?

[Colibri]

What year is your truck? Sorry to hear of your troubles

[AllanDickerson]

It's a 2005.

[nts007]

If the hard parts are still good and it's a clutch pack gone out, A good transmission shop can do a rebuild with some upgrades for a decent price. Buying used tranny is always a shot in the dark. I just went through a tranny situation so I feel your pain. best of luck to you

[adeluca73]

Sucks man, but it's 10+ yrs old, not bad!

[Colibri]

The 545rfe and its predecessors/variants are pretty common and any competent trans shop should be able to do a quality rebuild. You might consider a transgo shift kit to firm up the shifts as well as a sonnax line booster to raise line pressure. If you want to get serious about it Sharadon performance makes a very well regarded 545. They do valve body mods and machine work to add extra clutches.

[nts007]

The 545rfe and its predecessors/variants are pretty common and any competent trans shop should be able to do a quality rebuild. You might consider a transgo shift kit to firm up the shifts as well as a sonnax line booster to raise line pressure. If you want to get serious about it Sharadon performance makes a very well regarded 545. They do valve body mods and machine work to add extra clutches.

Doing this will increase durability and longevity. By a lot. A well built tranny will last the rest of the trucks life. For an 05 that's awesome yours held up this long. Worth rebuilding. And overbuilding

[AllanDickerson]

I'm really surprised it lasted this long. It had a hard life. But it did make it home last night without locking up so that's good. Saved me a tow bill.

[AllanDickerson]

It has a code for low line pressure and high transmission temp

[AllanDickerson]

It's looking like Ats transmission would be about the same price as all the rebuilds and remans around here. Does anyone have experience with Ats transmissions?

[AllanDickerson]

Ats is 450$ cheaper than the sharadon performance and it seems like they both have the same work done to them. Sharafom includes a pan a Ats doesn't but I can use my factory pan for now.

[Colibri]

NO NO NO absolutely do not go with ATS!!!!!! Ask Pit Slave about his experience with them. I know people who've been so screwed over by them it's not even funny. You would be paying for the privilege of getting ass raped.

[azracer]

NO NO NO absolutely do not go with ATS!!!!!! Ask Pit Slave about his experience with them. I know people who've been so screwed over by them it's not even funny. You would be paying for the privilege of getting ass raped.

X2 ATS has screwed so many people I'm surprised their still in business even.

[Pit Slave]

Don't go ATS. I own what they have. It's all koolaid, don't drink it. Here's a link with some of the stories....

http://dodgetrucksxtreme.com/index.php?topic=15126.0

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[nts007]

Have a shop that's reputable rebuild yours. A new tranny built properly will cost more. Because you are paying for the whole thing. I would sit down with the shop and go over what they can do. And how much. Plus they will be far easier to deal with when it comes to warranty as you can pull right up to their shop.

[TrueCowboy426]

I might be the minority here, but I personally would just do a stock rebuild, add a transgo shift kit and sonnax line booster and call it done. If you can do the work yourself it can be done for $600 or less. From everything I have read and researched, I honestly don't feel like a "built" 545 transmission from any vendor will survive any longer than a stock one if driven in the same manner. The stock internals are more than beefy enough to handle the power/torque the hemi can put out in stock or mildly heavily modified form; it's the way it's abused and the lack of proper tuning that kills these trans. Sure having more clutches in them will technically yield more holding power (and most rebuild kits already add an extra disc), but if the tuning isn't up to snuff to reduce the shift overlap and up the line pressure, all you are doing is adding more clutches to the equation to build heat and eventually kill the trans. I would be willing to bet your failure started with a loss of the overdrives as 4th and 5th have weaker clutches and these are the gears we are more prone to due WOT upshift and downshifts to (are actually going into 2nd prime on those downshifts). Most of the guys who go to a built transmission and have them live, have learned not to do WOT shifts into 4th and 5th or WOT downshifts from overdrive.

For ATS, I'm sure they build a good trans (used to be highly regarded in the diesel world although not so much anymore, and I run one of their converters in my diesel), but they got a lot of failures due to people putting in their lifetime warranty 545 trans, not getting a quick learn done on it, and then beating the hell out of it and of course it will fail. That and their customer service has tanked.

I'm biased though as I build my own transmissions, and I haven't had a failure yet (and I beat the hell out of my stuff). I've never had the pleasure of rebuilding a 545, but all automatics operate the same and are pretty simple to work on.

[Colibri]

For tuning the 545rfe Jay Greene seems to be the guy to talk too. Commercial powertrain up in canadia pointed me his way and he's got a good reputation in the hemi racing community as far as I can tell. I talked to him the other day and he seemed to know his stuff. Agreed that a built transmission is only as good as the tuning. I went with a sharadon stage 2 and edge converter and had the quick learn done only haven't been able to get the tune done yet because I broke my front axle right after I got the trans back in I can rebuild an auto just fine by myself, but in this instance I opted to pay someone who builds these for racing every day to do it. They know what it takes to keep these trannys alive and happy in heavy trucks with way more power than I have and under the abuse of drag racing. But I'm hard on my truck so it seemed worth it to me.

[nts007]

I might be the minority here, but I personally would just do a stock rebuild, add a transgo shift kit and sonnax line booster and call it done. If you can do the work yourself it can be done for $600 or less. From everything I have read and researched, I honestly don't feel like a "built" 545 transmission from any vendor will survive any longer than a stock one if driven in the same manner. The stock internals are more than beefy enough to handle the power/torque the hemi can put out in stock or mildly heavily modified form; it's the way it's abused and the lack of proper tuning that kills these trans. Sure having more clutches in them will technically yield more holding power (and most rebuild kits already add an extra disc), but if the tuning isn't up to snuff to reduce the shift overlap and up the line pressure, all you are doing is adding more clutches to the equation to build heat and eventually kill the trans. I would be willing to bet your failure started with a loss of the overdrives as 4th and 5th have weaker clutches and these are the gears we are more prone to due WOT upshift and downshifts to (are actually going into 2nd prime on those downshifts). Most of the guys who go to a built transmission and have them live, have learned not to do WOT shifts into 4th and 5th or WOT downshifts from overdrive.

For ATS, I'm sure they build a good trans (used to be highly regarded in the diesel world although not so much anymore, and I run one of their converters in my diesel), but they got a lot of failures due to people putting in their lifetime warranty 545 trans, not getting a quick learn done on it, and then beating the hell out of it and of course it will fail. That and their customer service has tanked.

I'm biased though as I build my own transmissions, and I haven't had a failure yet (and I beat the hell out of my stuff). I've never had the pleasure of rebuilding a 545, but all automatics operate the same and are pretty simple to work on.

I'm with you on this. Through research for my tranny I found my 68rfe and the 545rfe are component identical. Not in size but in assembly. The 545 can be easily rebuilt with some extra clutches and line pressure booster. And there are twin and triple disk converters available as well as billet single disk.

I would find a shop to build it for you if you aren't able to do it yourself. Up here if you pull the tranny and take it to the shop 6-700bucks for labor plus what ever parts you pick out. $2500 and you have a good setup. Clutches are cheap. Converter is the big one. Line booster isn't much.

And stay away from ats. Spend an hour on cummins forum and you will see why.

But pull the tranny yourself if you can. That's where the big money is. They will charge 5-600 to pull it and the same to reinstall. Aside from being heavy it's pretty easy

[AllanDickerson]

The shops around here are kinda expensive for a rebuilt and not a reman. So definitely not don't go with Ats? Sharadon includes the pan so I guess that's where some of the extra money goes to. I'd like to have a reman so all the internals are replaced.