Dart Sport 360
Wanna Race?
I wanted to tell you guys what went down for us at the Monster Mopar Weekend in Norwalk over the past weekend… besides the great racing.
I went with my father to this event to run the Express. On Friday after we were washed out by the showers we were out driving around in the Ram we use to haul our junk around. It’s an ’06 1500 with a 4.7…. anyway the trans started acting up. It wouldn’t down shift and would only stay in 3rd. We could pull it down into 2nd but there was no 1st at all. We are along way from home and the fact of hauling back to Toronto with only manual 2nd and 3rd did not sound too good.
So we slip into the friendly Norwalk Dodge dealer to see if they could help…. Ya right. It was 4:30 and the ***** wouldn’t give us the time of day. Sorry the tech’s too busy out smoking a cig to give two ***** about someone stuck. More than anything I just wanted it scanned so we could see what the code was. Anyway I suggest you stay far away from the Norwalk Dodge Dealer.
So we go over to the Advance Autoparts to see if they could scan it. The guy there was helpful enough and scanned the truck. It came up with a shift solenoid code…. We are talking to the guy about options and what we are going to do when another customer speaks up. His name is Mo and he thinks it’s the pressure transducer… it might as well be flux capacitor to me… ok Mo… carry on. So we talk a bit and he thinks that he has a transducer and he offers to replace it in the morning at his home shop.
So Saturday Morning I drop Dad off at the track to run is 9am TT and head out to Mo’s. It’s easy 4 hrs between passes so if I have to miss one pass its worth getting this thing fixed. I get to Mo’s and he put the truck up to take a look. We see that the transducer that Mo had was for a different year trans and won’t work… he tells me to jump in his truck and we head off into Norwalk to try to track down the correct one. Of course Norwalk Chrysler’s part dept. is closed on Saturday. Mo tells me he use to work there and confirms there uselessness… We make a few calls and I get a hold of the dealer in Sandusky. He doesn’t have one but the computer says Norwalk has one, great luck, and the dealer in Amherst has one, Slimans I think it was… Keep in mind I have no idea where any of these places are… my trust is with Mo…. So we take off to Amherst… it’s a good hour round trip if not more and we talk about all sorts of things… he’s a pretty good guy… We get the part and get back to his place to put it in…
We take the truck out and guess what….. no different… I’ve just wasted 3 hrs with this guy driving all over Ohio for nothing… now WTF are we going to do…
Mo’s has me drive over to his buddy Tims. Tim works for a company in Milan Ohio called Transtec. They make transmission rebuild kits and Mo and Tim worked together at dodge and have built some toys together.. Tim’s real quiet… I don’t really know what to think. Here we are showing up at his door, some loser with a broken truck and Ohio’s newest tour guide. Mo uses Tims scanner and the same codes some up. They tell me it’s probably the shift solenoid that’s screwed up. Mo’s calls someone he calls Uncle Fester to track down a solenoid. No luck. Order one Monday, install Tuesday… well that’s not going to work, we’ll chance it and limp home before we’re gonna stick around. So Tim speaks up and says that he just might have one back at his office… See he’s in R&D and they bring in all kinds of parts in to copy to make seals and gaskets and whatever… Sounds like a long shot but what options to we have. Mo heads back to his shop with our truck and I go with Tim. Tim is good enough to take me to the track so I can watch some Mopars. He drops me off then is going to look for the solenoid.
Dad and I watch some racing. An hour or more goes by with no word from Mo. I watch Dad’s last time trial, runs 11.04 and all good with the Express. Still there’s very little info from Mo so we decide to go see what’s up. We got a ride from the guys that are pitted next to us out to Mo’s shop, he’s only about 5 mins from the track, south on Old State Rd. We get there just as Mo’s leaving in his Cummins.. He’s going to get the solenoid from Tim. He has it and they’re pretty sure it’s the right one. Me and Dad hang out at Mo’s while he runs over there. He has the valve body out of our Ram. Now the clock is kinda ticking… 1st round is starting whenever they finish running the rest of the classes. It’s gonna be a couple hours so it should be ok.
Mo’s get back and the solenoid looks like a direct replacement so that’s good. Also Tim gave us two complete rebuild kits for the 727 in the Express… what a guy! After about an hour it’s all in and buttoned up… its going onto 4pm now, theres a chance we got to get back to the track or we’ll miss out call… during the install we talked about what if it’s not better with this solenoid…. Mo’s tells us that we will take his truck home and bring it back next weekend.. haha…. we fill it with oil and fire it up…. But of course it won’t start now… Over and over again it won’t crank.. What now! He tries it again and it fires. Seems the computer needed to recognize the new solenoid…. That’s what Mo says, sounds good to me… let go racing… but first we need to settle up.
So Mo says Tim didn’t know what the solenoid was worth. He though his company paid $380 for it. Tim told Mo to get whatever he could for it. So my Dad gives him 2 bills for the part. Now Mo says he doesn’t want anything, just happy its fixed… This guy has just spent his entire Saturday driving around and messing with our junk and he wouldn’t take anything. My Dad forced $250 on him… Forced it! Maybe it wasn’t enough for most people to lose a Saturday… but it was more than Mo was willing to take.
So the truck shifted fine. We did some racing… won a couple rounds and lost a couple close races. It was a great weekend and we got home without any problem. We plan on keeping in touch with Mo and meeting up with him and Tim at next year’s event. It’s nice to know that there are still some good people out there that will help out. I will definitely be looking for someone to pay it forward… If I hear of someone in need and I might be able to help I will not turn and walk away…. I’ll do my best to help
If anyone know Mo.... tell him thanks again from us.
I went with my father to this event to run the Express. On Friday after we were washed out by the showers we were out driving around in the Ram we use to haul our junk around. It’s an ’06 1500 with a 4.7…. anyway the trans started acting up. It wouldn’t down shift and would only stay in 3rd. We could pull it down into 2nd but there was no 1st at all. We are along way from home and the fact of hauling back to Toronto with only manual 2nd and 3rd did not sound too good.
So we slip into the friendly Norwalk Dodge dealer to see if they could help…. Ya right. It was 4:30 and the ***** wouldn’t give us the time of day. Sorry the tech’s too busy out smoking a cig to give two ***** about someone stuck. More than anything I just wanted it scanned so we could see what the code was. Anyway I suggest you stay far away from the Norwalk Dodge Dealer.
So we go over to the Advance Autoparts to see if they could scan it. The guy there was helpful enough and scanned the truck. It came up with a shift solenoid code…. We are talking to the guy about options and what we are going to do when another customer speaks up. His name is Mo and he thinks it’s the pressure transducer… it might as well be flux capacitor to me… ok Mo… carry on. So we talk a bit and he thinks that he has a transducer and he offers to replace it in the morning at his home shop.
So Saturday Morning I drop Dad off at the track to run is 9am TT and head out to Mo’s. It’s easy 4 hrs between passes so if I have to miss one pass its worth getting this thing fixed. I get to Mo’s and he put the truck up to take a look. We see that the transducer that Mo had was for a different year trans and won’t work… he tells me to jump in his truck and we head off into Norwalk to try to track down the correct one. Of course Norwalk Chrysler’s part dept. is closed on Saturday. Mo tells me he use to work there and confirms there uselessness… We make a few calls and I get a hold of the dealer in Sandusky. He doesn’t have one but the computer says Norwalk has one, great luck, and the dealer in Amherst has one, Slimans I think it was… Keep in mind I have no idea where any of these places are… my trust is with Mo…. So we take off to Amherst… it’s a good hour round trip if not more and we talk about all sorts of things… he’s a pretty good guy… We get the part and get back to his place to put it in…
We take the truck out and guess what….. no different… I’ve just wasted 3 hrs with this guy driving all over Ohio for nothing… now WTF are we going to do…
Mo’s has me drive over to his buddy Tims. Tim works for a company in Milan Ohio called Transtec. They make transmission rebuild kits and Mo and Tim worked together at dodge and have built some toys together.. Tim’s real quiet… I don’t really know what to think. Here we are showing up at his door, some loser with a broken truck and Ohio’s newest tour guide. Mo uses Tims scanner and the same codes some up. They tell me it’s probably the shift solenoid that’s screwed up. Mo’s calls someone he calls Uncle Fester to track down a solenoid. No luck. Order one Monday, install Tuesday… well that’s not going to work, we’ll chance it and limp home before we’re gonna stick around. So Tim speaks up and says that he just might have one back at his office… See he’s in R&D and they bring in all kinds of parts in to copy to make seals and gaskets and whatever… Sounds like a long shot but what options to we have. Mo heads back to his shop with our truck and I go with Tim. Tim is good enough to take me to the track so I can watch some Mopars. He drops me off then is going to look for the solenoid.
Dad and I watch some racing. An hour or more goes by with no word from Mo. I watch Dad’s last time trial, runs 11.04 and all good with the Express. Still there’s very little info from Mo so we decide to go see what’s up. We got a ride from the guys that are pitted next to us out to Mo’s shop, he’s only about 5 mins from the track, south on Old State Rd. We get there just as Mo’s leaving in his Cummins.. He’s going to get the solenoid from Tim. He has it and they’re pretty sure it’s the right one. Me and Dad hang out at Mo’s while he runs over there. He has the valve body out of our Ram. Now the clock is kinda ticking… 1st round is starting whenever they finish running the rest of the classes. It’s gonna be a couple hours so it should be ok.
Mo’s get back and the solenoid looks like a direct replacement so that’s good. Also Tim gave us two complete rebuild kits for the 727 in the Express… what a guy! After about an hour it’s all in and buttoned up… its going onto 4pm now, theres a chance we got to get back to the track or we’ll miss out call… during the install we talked about what if it’s not better with this solenoid…. Mo’s tells us that we will take his truck home and bring it back next weekend.. haha…. we fill it with oil and fire it up…. But of course it won’t start now… Over and over again it won’t crank.. What now! He tries it again and it fires. Seems the computer needed to recognize the new solenoid…. That’s what Mo says, sounds good to me… let go racing… but first we need to settle up.
So Mo says Tim didn’t know what the solenoid was worth. He though his company paid $380 for it. Tim told Mo to get whatever he could for it. So my Dad gives him 2 bills for the part. Now Mo says he doesn’t want anything, just happy its fixed… This guy has just spent his entire Saturday driving around and messing with our junk and he wouldn’t take anything. My Dad forced $250 on him… Forced it! Maybe it wasn’t enough for most people to lose a Saturday… but it was more than Mo was willing to take.
So the truck shifted fine. We did some racing… won a couple rounds and lost a couple close races. It was a great weekend and we got home without any problem. We plan on keeping in touch with Mo and meeting up with him and Tim at next year’s event. It’s nice to know that there are still some good people out there that will help out. I will definitely be looking for someone to pay it forward… If I hear of someone in need and I might be able to help I will not turn and walk away…. I’ll do my best to help
If anyone know Mo.... tell him thanks again from us.
