Yesterday, I’d almost completed a 280 mile trip to a campground in NY without any problems. We stopped at a traffic light after exiting the highway, once the light turned green, I tried to accelerate, the motorhome began to move, than a hard stop, engine still running normal. The transmission had jumped into neutral, 1st attempt to put the transmission back in drive had the same result. About the 3rd attempt, it worked and the motorhome accelerated normally. There were two more stopped we had to make before getting to our campsite, with the same problem each time, as we tried to accelerate, transmission had jumps into neutral, after several attempts, it will hold in drive.

Before getting to the exit for the campground, we’d stopped several times and had no issue.

Anyone else experience this kind of problem? Any clues?

I haven't started the engine today to check error codes, but tired checking yesterday and did see anything of value there.

BTW, the transmission filters and fluid was chanced about 5k mile ago..

TIA,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: gMw,

I had that experience about 1000 miles ago. Never re-occurred.

First thing to check is the transmission fluid level.

A intermittent power or ground for the transmission controller (TCM) or the shifter panel could have that effect too, I think. Tough to diagnose that until it fails solid.

I'll add a shortcut in the Allison Tranmission forum to try for some more input on this.

Gary,

Thanks for the reply. I contacted Freightliner, a local Freightliner dealer and an Allison service person. Basically Freightliner thought it was an Allison transmission problem, Allison thought it was an electrical problem.

Things got worse, or better, depending on how one looks at it, I went to start the engine, it promptly died, than lost all 12v power from the chassis batteries. Batteries were replaced 2 months go and read 12+v. After contacting Freightliner, they told me about a circuit breaker that’s been known to fail (like this), after some searching, found the defective 130 amp 12v circuit breaker. Replaced the circuit breaker and have 12v power back, engine starts, lights work again, etc…. Hopefully this fixes everything.

I had that same problem with the circuit breaker and a allison dealer charged me 10 Hr. labor for a cost of $1100 to repair it. It was the circuit breaker.

George/FrankT--Come-on guys, don't leave us hanging.

What fuse was it and where is it located?? If it failed on your coach it will probably fail on someone else(s). Sure would be nice to be able to check that fuse before incurring an expensive repair. Thanks

The circuit breaked is mounted on the frame rail near the transmission. It is about 2"x2"x1/2" in size. It looks like a little box with 2 wires attached.

Yesterday I put in a temp. fix, installed a 40 amp fuse, just to see if it would hold, it did and there was enough power available to start the engine and test lights and such. Of course I didn’t try running everything at one time. Once I knew there wasn’t a short, I called the nearest Freightliner dealer, 45 miles away. They don’t carry the part, which is Buss 181135P010. So I returned to the local parts store and found a 150 amp, reset able circuit breaker. I installed it morning, everything appears to work just fine.

Frank is right, it is about 2"x2"x1/2" in size, black (painted red on our coach), mounts with ¼ 20 nuts and bolts.

On our coach, this circuit breaker is mounted on the battery side, to a bracket that's mounted on top of the frame. Same bracket that holds the started motor replay and another circuit breaker. It’s a bit of a challenge to change, but obviously do-able.

Once the job was done, I couldn’t resist the urge to open the defective circuit breaker. There’s a bi-metallic metal piece with two contacts mounted to it. One of the contacts looked great, the other a bit burnt and had fallen off the bi-metallic metal piece. Explains the rattle I heard shaking it prior to opening it up…

Although my Allison problem was not the Circuit Breaker, I thought it might be helpful for someone who is looking for a solution to mention that our Allison computer failed. Symptoms: shuddering until warmed up; loss of power during initial take off; then after a few minutes everything returned to normal and ran normal all day. Overheating alert when transmission was running at 165 degrees. Took a while for mechanic to diagnoise it as initial codes indicated sensor failure. But since the gizzmo thzt monitored the sensor failed how would it know? Fixed now and we lucked out as or 2004 Journey was still under the 5 year unlimited Allison warranty.

After we drove the “fixed” transmission home it turns out that the take off shuddering we were experiencing is still taking place. Allison told me that once the engine problem is solved then the Allison computer will be able to correctly “learn” the shift points and will stop banging into 1st gear. This has become quite a learning experience!

Steve, Thanks for the info.

We just returned from another trip to New York.

One symptom I failed to mention in my original posting was our dash board lights flashed when we hit a good size bump, the motorhome continued to run just fine, right up ‘til the time it failed completely.

We taken a couple of trips since replacing the circuit breaker and the flashing dash light problem hasn’t returned.