Solved: 1999 Ram 1500 48k miles -- GRINDING NOISE WHEN TURNING

From : ignoramus5278

Q: brake fluid should be flushed every other year or changed to a silicone based fluid. silicone based and dot 3 should not be used together. i dont recall seeing that in the fsm. thats because it isnt there. but as the number of responses that affirm my opinion shows it doesnt have to be in the fsm to make sense. if the factory doesnt think that it is important enough to put it into the fsm or the owners manual then i think that you are just paranoid. i have yet to see brake fluid break down. lol. ok. if it is contaminated with water it will turn acidic dot 3 dot 3 is acidic right out of the bottle thats why it feels warm on the skin and eats paint. i think that you may need to look up what an acid is. many things eat paint and yet are not considered acids. and the trick there is to keep the system sealed. yup thats a trick alright. put seals down in the water from puddles drive through water even rain water on the highway and youll soon see that keeping those seals in perfect condition is indeed a trick. if the seals fail and they probably will someday then you have far worse problems on your hands then getting water in the brake fluid. better yet use a better type of fluid. since you havent thought that fluid needs changing ill bet your truck still has dot 3 in it doesnt it could be dot 3 maybe dot 4. whatever it came with it still has and looks clean. thanks for reminding me to check the front brakes. they are about due for new pads again. as far as engine oil it is under much greater abuse and exposure then trans fluid was in the older transmissions. that is debatable. no it isnt. then you are just plain ignorant of trans conditions. i was talking about the older 3 speed autos like the turbo 350 and 400 as well as the ford c6 and the chrysler 727 and 904. the fsm for my dodge from the 70s clearly suggested that the fluid be changed and the trans be serviced at 100000 miles for all but extreem duty service. conditions must have been much easier then and the very design of the trans proves it. once again you only see half of the point. the drain plug on the pan is nothing without a spin-on filter instead of the one in the pan. bullshit. you just dont like getting trans fluid on your computer soft hands. lol the fact that you have to take it apart to drain the fluid and replace the filter shows that the origional design was not intended for regular service every 10000 to 12000 miles. if the fluid and filter requires the level of service that you and gary suggest then not making it easier to do is just screwing the customer. hardly. most customers wouldnt think of servicing the trans themselves. not the way it currently needs to be done but with a spin on filter and a drain plug the same people who change their own oil would servive their trans as well. perhaps they should remove the spin on filter and drain plug from the oil system as well. for some guys they might as well. fleet owners often save money by sampling oil and changing only when contaminants reach damaging levels. and the problem with this is hell on the locomotives i worked on years ago the filters lived inside a housing and the drain valve was at the bottom of the sump...... on the inside. we changed oil only when oil samples indicated a need for it. but then changing 75 gallons of lube oil on a whim isnt exactly economical. agreed and if the tests were cost effective for cars people may do with them as well. i bet they saved all of $.05 on each pan. iow its not exactly gonna make or break them one way or the other. a drain and spin on filter would cost much more then $.05. a drain plug retails for about $2 at the mass quantity dc would buy them its just pennies installed. the spin on filters ive seen listed for the 48re and the 45rfe are about the same cost as the filters i use in my 47re. bfd. and i bet that they still cost more than $.05 btw imagine that a redesign of the trans and suddenly its got a spin on filter just like the allison. the primary reason the prior atods from mopar never got one was that the trans front section was the same one from 1965 or so till 2003. like i said they are still using parts of an old design that didnt require anywhere near the level of service that these new atods require and that is saving money at a cost to the consumer. -- if at first you dont succeed youre not cut out for skydiving .