'04.5 shudder 325/600

[Fitasc]

For those of you who have experienced the "shudder" at launch, and up through acceleration to appox. 1500/1800 RPM'S--- I noticed the shudder when test driving an 04.5 DEE. I was with the fleet mgr at Benson's Dodge in Greer, SC. We drove about 40 miles and the symptom never left. I at first suspected that DC had made a significant change to the clutch assembly in an attempt to eliminate the "clatter" associated with the '03's, prior to their TSB repair on that issue. The next day I met someone driving an auto-- he said he felt the same "shudder" when driving his, an auto-- Back to Benson's Dodge and talked with their top 2500/3500 tech. ( who, by the way, has corrected the '03 clatter problem on my truck and when test driving, noticed a " tic" during initial throttle-- turned out to be a bad injector nozzle. I'm relating all this because he treats every job as though it's his own vehicle and I would reccomend Benson's service dept to anyone who can get there) Anyway, the tech said he had not seen the complaint as of yet, but said in '95 or '96 he remembered that the trucks did the same thing. Turned out to be the lift blocks ( OEM) used by DC. They were too tall and created an alignment problem for the drive shaft.

Hope this helps by giving you something to consider if you experience the shudder. I've read on other posts that the shudder has disappeared after some driving. Good, but now I'm thinking about problems several K miles out there, as in yokes, bearings and U joints.

Hope this helps someone-- this is surely one of the best boards on the net!
Almost forgot -- Benson's changed the lift blocks and corrected all the shudder ploblems for their customers. I didn't ask if this was a TSB fix-- sorry.

FITASC