Lightning transmission questions

Discussion in 'Freightliner Forum' started by chalupa, May 10, 2013.

  1. chalupa

    chalupa Road Train Member

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    Houston,Texas
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    Got a bud with one of these and it's killing him, need your help. No high range! Mechanic keep telling him it's the clutch ( it's not ) and he won't call the transmission house. He keeps letting a general mechanic work on it all the while he's starving to death. ( I know, his own fault BUT, he's a bud so I'm asking )

    I know that ECM can be overridden but don't know how. This is a strange POS too, the shift rods actually extend into the ECM if that helps so it looks like we can't just take it off. Has to be something we can do.........

    Give me some pointers short of tearing it out for a good 10 speed.........

    Tks....
     
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  3. tank4life

    tank4life Light Load Member

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    Baltimore, MD
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    You do realize they only made that transmission for about 9 months. The last that I knew you could not remove the transmission and replace it with a regular 10 spd since the ecm required signals from the tranny ecm to operate. That was the last that I knew of it when I worked for a carrier that had 25 units with that transmission. They were junk from day 1.
     
    chalupa Thanks this.
  4. chalupa

    chalupa Road Train Member

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    Yep, still is junk. It was supposed to be all that because it's so lite blah blah.....and no, didn't know engine had to have input from it.

    So do you have anything for the driver? Is there a way to disable the junk?
     
  5. tank4life

    tank4life Light Load Member

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    Feb 18, 2012
    Baltimore, MD
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    To the best of my knowledge the answer is no. I left that carrier in 2009 and they were still fighting the issue. Those transmissions were even worse if you had to use a PTO. Depending on the type of service you were using the PTO for the initial startup torque was to great for the PTO and it would wipe the bearing out of the PTO and it would allow the PTO gears to get out of line and destroy the transmission. I don't know if your friend is utilizing a PTO or not and if this may be the cause of some of his issues. You can have your friend contact LeBeau's Peterbilt in Kankakee, IL, that's who was working on the issue for our company while I was there. They maybe able to give him some insight as to what he maybe able to do. Good Luck.
     
  6. losttrucker

    losttrucker Road Train Member

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    chalupa Thanks this.
  7. chalupa

    chalupa Road Train Member

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    Thanks LT, I pulled down some other docs last night too. We'll know Monday morning wassup.

    The scary part for my bud ( what I read ) as there are several references to "replace the ECM " in both sets of docs. That will not go over well. He will probably walk away from the L/P deal if it turns out that way.

    Another bud lost a pumpkin this past week on a Freightliner. I was looking at the housing and it didn't look like anything I've seen before........ it was a Merritor! The pumpkin cost him $1700 instead of $1200 like a Rockwell. Makes you wonder what they were thinking when they spec'ed the truck. ( Mercedes and Merritor / automatic ) ???

    tks again....
     
  8. fastsix62

    fastsix62 Light Load Member

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    Feb 4, 2011
    fort worth, tx
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    my lightning started to go that before it went out - going out in style by the way (gears and all). this is going to be a major problem and will leave him no choice but to replace with a regular 10 speed, better he do it before it has to be towed adding to the cost...
     
    chalupa Thanks this.
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