It took four years- but I found the problem!

Un-Freak'in believable!!

For four years this Columbia has been slamming gears and shifting without using the clutch. SmartShift- HA !
I just had the second new clutch in four years installed in it.
Other drivers tell me stories like "My trans cracked in half and gears went all over the roadway". And "My trans was ripped out and came off the truck, they had to pick it up off the median".

At random- with no warning, this trans would upshift or downshift itself and not disengage the clutch. I'm AMAZED it hasn't ripped itself out by now.

Today the right headlight went out (again). Only by chance, I found one wire in the harness close to the right headlight that was outside the protective sheathing. It had rubbed through and was grounding on the radiator mount.

After I fixed it and was driving down the road the feeling that something wasn't right started bugging me. Checked the gauges, -remembered latching the hood, everything seemed ok.

Then it hit me. In the last half hour, there had not been a constant ten second alarm for no reason. All day long, I get ten second long beeps- the gear position gauge goes blank, or it turns into a red square of dots, or two horizontal lines- or it shows a gear that it's not in. But now, it seems to work OK. And it didn't miss any shifts. In fact, it shifted nice and smooth and did it more than once.

By the time I stopped for the night, the truck was shifting really well- and consistently. With no fault codes, no alarms, no missed gears, no clutch fumbles...

But only one headlight working again.

It took FOUR YEARS to find ONE CHAFED WIRE that was causing the problem. So now I'm debating whether to look at the headlight again, don't want to jinx anything...

 

It's been a couple of days since that chafed wire was fixed- it shifts sure and smooth, starts IMMEDIATELY first thing in the morning (it's always been hard to start)and the turbo brake works every time it's needed. I used to have to bump the switch to get it to kick in. What a good feeling.

The right headlight's still out- still afraid to fix it- maybe tomorrow?