problems... :(

myanmar1993

two things for this beast. 1, when I start the car, the engine rattles or knocks for 2-3 seconds and then stops. sounds like metal on metal. (Piston slap?) idk but its confusing, 2nd. When I try to speed up on an entrance ramp or just gain speed in general, my tranny seems to slip, or chug. It doesn't shift smoothly all of the time so I think its definitely a tranny problem (slipping). Please help me!

Mr_Shiftright

Sometimes transmission problems are easy to confuse with engine misfires. Given you also have a rough start up, I'd suggest scanning the truck for trouble codes related to ignition misfire problems.

alwaysfords2

You don't say what year this is, but my guess on the rough start noise is cam phasers, a known problem. I agree on the misfire. You can get pending codes read for the misfire and it will tell you which cylinder(s) are missing. One thing you can do to investigate the misses a bit is when it starts acting up turn overdrive off and see if it clears up. If it does, it is more than likely a miss.