Okay. Test drives taken...
The first test drive, I was not sure if I had it hooked up right. I could tell by feel that there was more going on under the truck than before, and as I tried to slow down to turn, I noticed I was freewheeling. So that was something at least. Compared the drive to regular (non-overdrive) operation, and if there was a difference, it was very subtle. My fancy test light (an extra instrument panel light that I had wired to the solenoid relay and into the cab) did not work. Did not know why.
I called Fred and told him about the symptoms and came away with a few more things to try.
Yesterday was a different story. I started by reconnecting my test light in the cab and testing it to make sure that it illuminated when the relay powered the solenoid. Fred told me how to ground one of the terminals on the relay to test the power.
Got in and headed down the road. I let the transmission warm up for a bit since it's been cold here. When I hit 28 mph, my little light came on. I finished climbing the hill I was on in second gear and, on the flat, I pulled my foot off the accelerator. Bingo. I felt the transmission shift into overdrive after about a second. On my previous test, I don't think I took my foot off the peddle long enough to complete the shift; Something Fred told me I may be doing wrong.
I accelerated in second OD up through speeds and rpms that normally existed only in my standard third gear. Cool.
I dropped it into third and repeated the process. Next thing I knew, I was cruising at 70 mph with very little foot pressure and an almost idle-sounding rpm. Amazing. As COSMO said, it's a totally different driving experience. Quiet, comfortable, and smooth as silk.
I will be hooking up my dwell meter and running it to the cab somehow so that I can confirm my low rpms, but I know for sure that it worked this time.
I also noted that I could now kick down into standard drive because I adjusted my switch paddle up enough to depress the switch the required .18 inches. That was slick as I prefer to use transmission braking when slowing down.
All-in-all, I was very pleased with the performance. I can't wait for my next long-range trip to see what this thing can do. 70 mph has a tendency to reveal shortcomings in the steering gear, so that's probably my next job.
Thanks everyone for their inputs here. I will post another video when I run the dwell test.
Jim
