Need trans help

neverkickn · May 29, 2011

I had to back up a pretty good grade yesterday with a trailer. I had done this several times ofer the past few years but this particular time I couldnt get traction. I tried four times before I gave up. I decided to pull in head first and spend the extra time trying to manuever the limited space at the top of the drive to turn around.

When I pulled back out to leave I shifted to 2 and 3 and that was it. TC wouldnt lock, the OD light is flashing and the fluid smells like burned clutch. I will have to wait till Tuesday to get it on a scanner but it doesn't smell good.

I wonder if it is time to blow another hole in my mad money by taking a trip to see Brian.

Tree Trimmer · May 29, 2011

do you have a trans guage? i bet you baked it. did that to mine once. if you have 4wd, next time put it in 4lo. you dont need to lock the front end in if you dont want to, you need the gear reduction.

for future reference, if you need to push the go pedal past about 1/4 throttle to get it moving in reverse, go to 4lo

neverkickn · May 29, 2011

2wd. I have a temp gauge and it was reading 170 @ 90 degrees ambient. I think I remember hearing somewhere that reverse runs more line pressure and a lot of trans failures happen in the reverse gear, backing up camper ect...

Tom S · May 29, 2011

That is the one where they like to puke fluid too.

crowz · May 29, 2011

Feel for you. I want to do a bts in mine but its going to have to wait a bit. I will have one for sure before I pull my 5th wheel again. My trans temp gauge actually went up some for the first time pulling it up a 3 mile long hill thats at least a 30 degree incline. I backed off it when it started climbing on me. Got to 3/4 on the trans temp gauge so hopefully it didnt hurt anything. Once it upshifted at the top of the hill it went back to normal temp.

I always use 4 low when moving a trailer around backing in and such. Yours being 2wd you didnt have that option though.

bluedge8 · May 29, 2011

yep, you fried it, they burn up in reverse pretty easy

neverkickn · May 30, 2011

bluedge8 said:
yep, you fried it, they burn up in reverse pretty easy

I am pretty sure you are right but I am still interested to see what codes are in it. I will limp it over to the shop tomorrow and get it scanned. I imagine I will be on the phone with Brian shortly after, that is if I can get throughLOL

Crowz don't feel too bad for me. I have a feeling that when I get her running again that I wont be too upset about the whole thing

Tree Trimmer · May 30, 2011

when you bake it in reverse, my buddies didnt have a code. when we took it apart, it was blued, like it got heated, all the clutches were pitch black. i think you did the same thing. you literally "baked" it.

neverkickn · Jun 1, 2011

Well it is shifting fine now. Runs all the gears, the tc locks up and I can manually disengage od. The oil still smells like burned clutch though. I got p0733 (3 to 4 shift error due to shift solenoid a or b or internal parts) and p0782 (2 to 3 shift error " " ) out of it. From talking to Brian he believes the problem is electrical as if it was mechanical I would still be having problems. I am sure that I lost some clutch material but after talking to Brian I think I might try a new solenoid pack and a oil and filter change.

Thoughts anyone?

Tree Trimmer · Jun 1, 2011

the trans god answered yor questin personally, and then you ask us??

anyone else see a.... odd train of thought here?

bluedge8 · Jun 1, 2011

neverkickn said:
Well it is shifting fine now. Runs all the gears, the tc locks up and I can manually disengage od. The oil still smells like burned clutch though. I got p0733 (3 to 4 shift error due to shift solenoid a or b or internal parts) and p0782 (2 to 3 shift error " " ) out of it. From talking to Brian he believes the problem is electrical as if it was mechanical I would still be having problems. I am sure that I lost some clutch material but after talking to Brian I think I might try a new solenoid pack and a oil and filter change.

Thoughts anyone?

the only other thing I would do is a flush as per Mark K. on psn, you flush out all the old fluid, then drop the pan for the solenoid pack.

neverkickn · Jun 1, 2011

Tree Trimmer said:
the trans god answered yor questin personally, and then you ask us??

anyone else see a.... odd train of thought here?

Would you show me where I said he answered my question definitively?

He interpreted the codes which basically said that I either have or have had some slippage due to a solenoid or an internal hard part.

Basically the skinny is that I could change the solenoid pack and still have issues.

More to the point of how to fix the problem does anyone know how to change the solenoids out or have a good resource for that info that they can post up. I am almost completely ignorant about the inner workings beyond changing out the vb and filter/fluid change.

neverkickn · Jun 1, 2011

bluedge8 said:
the only other thing I would do is a flush as per Mark K. on psn, you flush out all the old fluid, then drop the pan for the solenoid pack.

I am guessing that the solenoid pack is the assembly with the wires routed to it. If I remember right there was a couple different ones. Any idea which one contains A and B or does A refer to one assembly and B to the other?

bluedge8 · Jun 2, 2011

neverkickn said:
Would you show me where I said he answered my question definitively?

He interpreted the codes which basically said that I either have or have had some slippage due to a solenoid or an internal hard part.

Basically the skinny is that I could change the solenoid pack and still have issues.

More to the point of how to fix the problem does anyone know how to change the solenoids out or have a good resource for that info that they can post up. I am almost completely ignorant about the inner workings beyond changing out the vb and filter/fluid change.

neverkickn said:
I am guessing that the solenoid pack is the assembly with the wires routed to it. If I remember right there was a couple different ones. Any idea which one contains A and B or does A refer to one assembly and B to the other?

I changed the solenoid pack on my 4r100, it wasn't too hard, drop the pan, the filter and then the solenoid pack is right there, I think there may only be one but I'm not sure. If you call ford and get the 3-4 pack you should be able to match it up, but like I said I think there was only one pack. I ordered the gasket for the solenoid pack but the old gasket looked fine. Good guy price on the pack was like $225.00 so just throwing it in there as a guess is a little spendy but so is a new trans, your call. btw if you are a member of the diesel stop Tousley ford is a sponsor there and gives great discounts, has a large inventory and ships pretty quick.

neverkickn · Jun 2, 2011

Thanks bluedge I am gonna drop the pan and see how much friction material is in there first. I may just bite the bullet now on a new trans, but if things look fairly clean in the pan and the radiator cooling circuit then I will just do the solenoid pack and a flush.

bluedge8 · Jun 2, 2011

sounds good, let us know.

neverkickn · Jun 12, 2011

Well I dropped the pan to have a look and had quite a bit more trash in there than I would expect. The fluid was obviously burned and while still red I could see some black swirls in the fluid in the catch tub. I changed the fluid and filter about 20k tops ago. Is it as bad as it looks to me or does that look about normal?

HaysKSFirefighter · Jun 12, 2011

I'm no tranny expert but that don't look good to me...That's a lot of crap in the bottom of your pan! Sorry man!

neverkickn · Jun 13, 2011

Just gonna run it. I am not changing the solenoid pack just gonna drive it till it quits then throw another one in. It is still shifting right so maybe I will get some more mileage out of it.