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03 Explorer 4wd 5r55w going into neutral while in drive or reverse

Thanks for the info guys. Im going to start with the valve body and see where it gets me. If not I'll move up to the solenoid pack and servo bore.

Question, the line pressure relief valve is in the pump. Can I remove the pump from under the truck or does it require the transmission to be removed? I saw some info about using a puller to yank it out, but not if the trans was still in the truck or not. That's a $30 part from SONNAX and worth looking into.

You would have to remove the transmission to get to this valve, it can stick and cause all kinds of line pressure problems, sometimes the can hang wide open and you can't get any engagement in to a gear at all. Valve body problems with this transmission are mostly problems hot and during a shift.

First thing to conform is fluid level, engine running in park.

Remove pan and inspect filter and its seals to the valve body.

Delayed engagements in both forward and reverse especially cold tend to be with the pump, the pump valve or converter drain back.

Servo bores won't have anything to do with delayed engagements or falling out of gear at a light.
 



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Yeah, I'm 99% certain it's the line pressure relief valve. My plan of attack right now is to drain and drop the pan, put some more atf in there with lubeguard to see if it will unstick the valve. Just finding the time right now is a challenge for me.

If that doesn't work, I guess I'll be pulling the transmission and replacing that valve. Sonnax makes a revised valve for like $40 that's supposed to completely resolve the sticking issue, but it's a matter of pulling the pump out. From what I gather, the pump is at the front of the trans, behind the torque converter so I'm hoping it wont require a complete teardown. I have a friend that has a full shop with lift in his garage and he's a BMW master tech that specializes in old BMW's, Mercedes and Jags, so he's extremely competent. He doesn't like doing transmission work and usually subs that kind of stuff out to a local shop, but I'd rather take care of it on my own instead of having to pay a shop $1,000+ to replace a $40 part.

The reasoning behind the focus on the valve body was I read a previous thread on here about a guy that had the exact same symptoms as mine, but resolved it by replacing the valve body. My thinking is that when he replaced it and ran new fluid through the trans, it unstuck that valve and it actually had nothing to do with the valve body.

Does anyone have a writeup on the process for removing the pump only? I see that I need a slide hammer and an adapter to hook on the pump, so hopefully that adapter doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

So I'm confident now, it's just a matter of finding time to do the work. I can drive the truck now, but it's a little sketchy trying to pull onto a busy road when I have no idea if the truck will move or not. Plus I'm not confident in towing anything with that issue being there since I don't want to damage anything else. Thanks for the help!
 






You will need a pump alignment tool to put the pump back together, I would recommend the TransGo shift kit. It will give you the valve and a alignment tool as well, I would just install the pump parts I dont like the rest of the kit for the valve body IMO. I think Superior makes the best valve but since you will need the pump tool the shift kit would be best.
 






I've seen the pump alignment tool for sale seperately for like $15 so that's an option without having to go with the shift kit. But what about actually removing the pump? I don't want to crack the trans open and have to figure out how to yank that thing out. How hard is it to remove and will I need the specialty tool to pull it? Slide hammer is no problem, but I've only seen one place selling the pump adapter tool and they want like $200 for it.
 






So I finally had enough time yesterday afternoon to mess around with the truck. I bought a little hand pump from the auto parts store and used the transmission fill adapter I got for $13 on amazon. I was going to pull the pan and replace the filter, but the kids had karate practice last night so I only had an hour to work on the truck.

I ended up pumping 6 quarts of Mercon and 10oz of quick lube into the pan, started it up, ran through all the gears and drained it. I only got about 2 quarts out.

Truck shifts perfect now. I drove it about 75 miles since yesterday and not once did it fall out of gear or have a hard time shifting into second. Every time I put it in drive or reverse it went in and stayed in gear no problem. It feels like it's shifting perfectly and consistently. I'm going to save the filter and replace it sometime in spring. Run another 5 quarts through it and replace the filter just to get more of the old fluid out of it.

But I am so happy that it wasn't anything major. I have stressed myself out for the past few weeks thinking it was something major.

Now the only thing left to do is call my buddy up that owns the transmission shop and tell him it wasnt the ****ing servo bores!
 












well that stinks. Oh well. Cost me hundreds less than if I wouldve taken it to a shop, so I'll take the 8.50 loss.
 












well that stinks. Oh well. Cost me hundreds less than if I wouldve taken it to a shop, so I'll take the 8.50 loss.
@Wakeboardrb
They are only ribbing you! Look at it my way: you got the job done for a few bucks more than cheapest price. So what? imp
 












Hey guys, new member here. I started out with an 04 Mountaineer 4.6 with an AWD problem and recently sold that for a 03 4.0 Explorer that was in much better shape. The truck currently has 165k miles on it and within the last week has started giving me a pretty worrisome transmission problem.

It happens at a few different times while driving. First off, if I go to start the truck up and shift into either drive or reverse, it doesn't always go into gear. Sometimes I have to feather the throttle to get the trans to shift into either 1st or reverse and move the truck. The other issue is that when I'm idling at a stoplight, it will fall out of gear as well. I don't believe it has come out of gear while I'm actually driving yet. If it has, I haven't noticed. Also the engine and trans are not throwing any codes and I checked the fluid via the check valve and it still had good color and didn't smell burnt.

Now I'm aware of the servo bore issue, but I was reading on another thread here about someone that had pretty much the same issue as me. His problem was fixed by swapping out the valve body with a remanufactured part. Now I've been researching the shift correction kits like Superior and it seems like its pretty much a rebuild kit that addresses a lot of issues with shifting, but I'm a little unclear on whether it covers the issue I'm having.

Does anyone have any experience with adding a shift/correction kit?

Second, I'm interested in the AJ1E servo bore kit. It seems easy to install and looks like it does a pretty good job of addressing worn servo bores without having to gut the trans and re sleeve the casing. Anyone have any info on this?

So I pretty much want to do everything I can without having to remove the trans and especially not having to re sleeve the casing. My buddy runs a transmission shop and quoted me around $2000, which is not in the cards right now.

I'll of course be doing all the work myself and have access to a lift and pretty much any tool I need. I just dont want to have to pull the trans and especially don't want to have to gut the casing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I pretty much just want to keep the truck until the end of the year and get something newer. So all I'm looking for is something to get me through until then.

Thanks!
 






You may have already checked this, but...
avatar_male_m.png

Rock BenedictNew Member
New
If it is an automatic transmission (I have a 5 Speed automatic w/4.0L in my 3rd generation '02) ...I would suggest checking the transmission fluid level first ~ before checking more expensive repairs.
I wish I could tell you that mine came with a convenient dip-stick, but that is certainly not the case.
Good luck!
 






You may have already checked this, but...
avatar_male_m.png

Rock BenedictNew Member
New
If it is an automatic transmission (I have a 6 Speed automatic w/4.0L in my 3rd generation '02) ...I would suggest checking the transmission fluid level first ~ before checking more expensive repairs.
I wish I could tell you that mine came with a convenient dip-stick, but that is certainly not the case.
Good luck!
Never saw an '02 with 6-speed.......
 


















Five speed automatic.
Good edit! Watch your tachometer as you accelerate easily up to about 55 and you will count 5 drops in engine speed, the 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, and then another apparent "shift". That last one is the Torque Converter Clutch engaging. Won't happen until the trans. is hot. It was misleading as hell to me, until I figured it out. Tach can be a real good diagnostic tool, told me no TCC was happening without pulling codes.
 












What makes you say so? What is the transmission model?
Imp, with as much nerve damage as I have... you're lucky you didn't see 556 speed transmission :p
Either way, if it IS any AUTOMATIC start with the cheap $**** first: trans fluid level. :)
 






TCC will engage after 4th if O/D is turned off.
@TechGuru
Good point. Rarely turn my OD off except to "gear down" long hills. And when that is done, the TCC disengages with closed throttle, as it always does.
 



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Imp, with as much nerve damage as I have... you're lucky you didn't see 556 speed transmission :p
Either way, if it IS any AUTOMATIC start with the cheap first: trans fluid level. :)
Serious? I didn't intend to damage any nerves. My own are shot, too!

At that, fluid level check is easy on my '04 5R55S, as it has a DIPSTICK!
 






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