After Marks thoughts and another trans man's, the front seal sounded most likely to be the culprit. Knowing this would result in a teardown I thought why not try some snake oil? nothing to lose right? So I went with a bottle of Lucas.
Now understand that I had 0 expectations from this, it was literally a shot in the dark as far as I was concerned... and 0 is what I got. Did as the bottle directed and nothing. After letting the truck sit and buying another I'd come to the conclusion that I'd pull the engine and throw it in the 1/2 ton.
Monday morning I decided is drive the ole girl to work 1 last time b4 putting it under the knife. Got 1/2 way to work and got stopped waiting for a pilot car in some road construction. I heard the rpms come up as D disengaged and I prayed that it would go back in, which did with some throttle. Got to work, then returned home w/o issue, the tried R D shuffling and lost D on the 2nd time as I recall.
Thinking I'd rather drive the last gallons out than siphon them I tossed fate and drove again tuesday, no probs. Returned home in the afternoon and did the R D shuffle again but this time it didn't let go! Mystified I shut it down and decided to do some work on the 1/2 in prep for the impending swap. That included dragging the cab-less chassis to the car wash for pre-paint cleaning. I decided to use a tow-bar and hitch it to the hurt truck. Having no steering wheel and no weight from the bed forward the short trip required many un-planned back-ups to keep the front tires from cocking sidways. It NEVER lost D! Not b4 or on the return. After unhooking I repeated the DR thing many times b4 giving up and going inside.
Needless to say I drove it again this morning and its right as rain. WTF! Am I stupid or Justified for doubting the Lucas? I have about 5 tons of scrap to haul next week on a 4000 lb GN. its going to get a shakedown at 20k gross to prove itself. If it passes initial testing it will get refueled and make the 70 mile 1-way trip at the usual 70mph ac cranked cruise set trip to show me.
I'm not trying to kill it but sucess means different things to each, and this truck has never nor will it ever be babied. If it survives Lucas will be getting a letter and a link to this thread, hell I'll send them a video of it pulling its guts out if it passes!
Fingers crossed.