Riddle me this please. I am new to this 1995 7.3 E350 club wagon, I believe with an E40D. First diesel vehicle! I absolutely love it and want to keep it alive and happy but its been testing me. Since I got it, it seemed to sometimes shift a little harder than I'd like but I didn't think much of it. The overdrive light would flash, but it was always going into all gears and overdrive. Another issue I had that I chalked up to a poor battery terminal connection was glow plug relay and possibly alternator seemed to only work sometimes and gave me difficult starts or dead batteries. After tightening the connections up, the problems went away.

-Reverse sometimes doesn't work. It will come and go, engagement has always been strong even when it comes back
-Hard shifts turned into extremely delayed shifts
-Sometimes can get 1-3, but not 4/OD
-Sometimes can get 1-2
-Sometimes get all gears except OD.
-It does have a 6 POS chip tuned by a diesel shop. I leave in standard mode (Shifted too hard for my liking when moved outside of standard)
-OD light comes on and off

Just seems to be mood dependent and I haven't really nailed down anything specific to cause it. Fluid level is fine and color isn't too concerning.
Anything I should try to check before leaving it with a shop? I'm currently in a position where I really want to avoid leaving it at a shop as much as I can and its going to be a very inconvenient financial hit, but I also don't have the space to diagnose it outside of a driveway or side street at best and am extremely busy trying to get everything tidied up before winter officially hits in the north east.

Thanks a bunch

 

Check for codes, if your OD light flashed you bet there are codes stored. Get those read first and report back

 

@PatinaAlice , welcome to the FTE!

Piggybacking on what Adam has said about checking the codes, most parts stores will NOT be able to read the codes from your truck. In order to accomplish this task, the most reliable and thrifty method is to use FORScan or FORScan Lite.

Details are below... Pay special attention to the Q&A link put together by BWST, another well respected FTE'r.

FORScan

• FORScan Instructions - PC
• FORScan Lite Instructions - Android
• FORScan Lite Instructions - iOS
• FORScan + FORScan Lite: Class Tutorial Q&A

I hope this helps and keep us updated!