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Help needed! 5R55E trouble!

308splash

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Year, Model & Trim Level
1998 Ford Explorer XLT
Hey guys, first time poster, long time reader here. Ive been stalking this site for years and have found it infinitely helpful! And would like to thank everyone here for all the knowledge that is shared.

Now heres my problem, I drive a 98 Explorer XLT 4.0 v6, 5r55e 4WD.
I have rebuilt the transmission myself a couple of years ago thanks to this forum (yes you guys are awesome!!). In it I put Super duty friction disks and a whole replacement upgraded valve body (shift kitted etc.).

Recently, while driving down the road, while the transmission was changing from 2nd to 3rd, 3rd didnt engage, and the engine free rev'd, as if in neutral! I got of the the gas and slapped it manually into second, which changed it down, then put it back in drive, and it went in fine. However this happened a couple more times over the following days, so I decided to do a filter and fluid change. There wasnt any metal in the bottom of the pan, just the friction disk dust on the magnet. I also had flushed the lines and coolers.

After this, it decided that going into 1st or 2nd while in drive was just too difficult! It would only start in 3rd gear, while the trans was in drive. I could manually put it into 2nd gear, and start from there, however 1st gear wont work at all! Also Ive lost 5th gear! Now Ive lost 2nd gear as well, it cannot even be put in manually.

Ive retorqued the O/D bands correctly (thank you guys again). They torqued up fine so have to assume nothing is broken. But nothing changed. Well except briefly as I pulled out of the driveway, something clunked, and It dropped into first! But that was the only time.

I have a spanner (wrench) light on the dash which flashes, and the engine light is on. Ive unbolted the battery, and reconnected it, but nothing changed.
My overdrive light has been flashing for some time, and Ive had the codes read, (wait for this)

P1804-Transmission 4-Wheel Drive High Indicator Circuit Failure
B1318-Battery Voltage Low
B1352-Ignition Key-In Circuit Failure
B1833-Door Unlock Disarm Switch Circuit Short To Ground
B1834-Door Unlock Disarm Output Circuit Failure
P0731-First gear incorrect ratio
P0733-Third gear incorrect ratio
P0735-Fifth gear incorrect ratio
P0741-Torque converter too much slip/Torque Converter Clutch Circuit Performance or Stuck Off
P1260-Theft detected/- Engine Disabled
P1762-O/D Band failure/ off-Transmission system problems- O/D light flashing
B1522-Hood Switch Circuit Short To Ground
B1562-Door Lock Cylinder Circuit Short To Ground

Yep I nearly shat myself!

Now I havent had overdrive since the trans rebuild, but i didnt care. None of the gears are slipping at all, and until these issues showed up, it had been shifting nice and firmly (not hard) and engine breaking was great.
The other day I replaced the fuel pump. And Ive replaced the transfer case, as it got stuck in 4 high.
Ive checked the fuses which are fine.

Sorry about making this a small novel.
Any help with which direction to go in with this would seriously be great!
 



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I'm not the expert you need, but an electrical engineer and mechanic - I will say that your post confused me and makes it difficult to comment technically at all because your last paragraph makes it too confusing to even understand the 'current state' of your problem. Chronological list of work/performance/symptoms might help ?

Also, seems like a lot of codes related to an electrical/battery fault...if you clear them, will they all come back ?
 






Ok, I guess that would have helped ;)
Well when the trans initially died, I replaced all the friction disks with superduty ones, and replaced the valve body with an upgraded one. New servos, gaskets, bands, etc.
It drove really well, excellent engine braking and gear changes, and felt strong. It just didn't kick down when pressing the overdrive button.
Shortly after, I got a flashing O/D light. It went well for about 3 years.
Recently while mudding through some rather large mud holes, the tranfer case got stuck in 4WD High. So I replaced the transfer case, and all was well again.
Not too long after that (a month maybe) while on my way home from work, the trans was changing from second to third, and felt like it missed the gear altogether, and the engine just rev'd. I put the trans into 2nd, and it went in, then put it back into drive, and it selected third normally. It just seemed to be behaving odd.
This happen again a couple of days later, I even had it go into limp mode at one point, so I gave it a fluid change.
Two days later, it wouldn't start in first, but would try to take of in third. Manually it could be put into second and start from that, then once moving you could put it into drive again, but even putting it into first had no effect on anything, it would only start in second at best. It also wouldn't go into fifth gear.
I then took it to the Ford workshop, who read the codes for me. (As above)
I dropped the pan again, and gave it another fluid change, but this time I removed the valve body and tried to flush out the channels with WD40, I even pulled all the solenoids out and gave them a squirt with the WD40.
While the V/B was out I noticed that the gasket between the separator plate and trans case wasn't stuck to the sep plate (I thought they were supposed to be bonded, im pretty sure they were when I installed it) and I noticed that in one corner, the gasket looked a little kinked. But I tried to line it up and re installed it. (I have new gaskets on the way from the states, although they aren't bonded or anything. Is there a way of gluing them to the plate?)
It was at this time that I put a spare (not new) speed output sensor in the back, due to the Torque Converter slippage code (hoping it would help). Also while under the truck, I re torqued the O/D and intermediate bands. Then took it for a test drive and felt a clunk as I pulled out of the driveway, and it dropped into first (while in drive), then second, and I thought, all might be well again, but on the way home it all changed again, back to only using gears 3 and 4 while in drive, and being able to select second manually. It also had lost engine braking, even manually putting it into second while slowing down, didn't help.
I haven't tried clearing the codes yet to see what happens yet, I figured there was something that needed attention first, something I needed to fix.
 






The new gaskets arrived today. Time to start planning an attack on the trans!
Any advice?
I'll be testing the Ohms of the solenoids, and checking the servos while under there.
Can the gaskets be glued to the valve body?
 






I use alignment pins for the VB gaskets. YMMV
 






Thanks Drdoom, I'll definately be doing that this time.
 






I just made a few by cutting the heads off some bolts and tapering them a bit. I saw someone else cut a slot for a screwdriver, to make removal easy.
 






Well I just spent the last few hours under the truck, after work.
Dropped the pan, removed valve body, got covered in fluid. removed sep plate and gaskets (which looked good still), lightly sanded sep plate with 400 grit paper. Made some pins out of old bolts (by cutting off the heads), made sure every thing lined up straight, and there was nothing blocking any lines in the valve body.
Tested all the solenoids on multimetre;
EPC=5.8 ohm
TCC=11.4 ohm
Coast Clutch sol.=32.5 ohm
Shift Sol. A=33.1 ohm
Shift Sol. B-33.3 ohm
Shift Sol.C=33.3 ohm
All of these were replaced 3 years ago when I had changed the valve body to the new one.
Even used the pins to line up the valve body properly when installing that.
Torqued all the bolts to correct specs.
Gave it some new Mercron V.
Nothing changed! Im ready to drive it off a cliff!
 






Just thinking back to basic electronics here - with the mass amounts of sporadic codes related to different components, I would check resistance of your ground straps and negative battery cable in the Ex to ensure ground is ground throughout your vehicle.

I would OHM from your battery post to points in the frame and chassis. I would also OHM out the negative battery cable and all ground straps (at the connection points) to ensure you are as close to zero as possible.
 






Also thinking - i would check the voltage at the battery while the vehicle off and while the vehicle is running to ensure you do not have a battery, or even the charging system, out of whack... if the voltages appear to be good - start the truck and turn on all the accessories to put the electrical system under load and pull the negative cable to see if the truck continues to run (while checking the voltage of the battery). If the truck continues to run and does not go into Electrical chaos, your alternator/charging system is probably OK. If the battery crashes below 11 volts on disconnect you could have a funky battery.

Reason I bring this up is I had a weird electrical problem I was chasing down for a friend on a SeaDoo boat - nothing made sense until I went back to electricity 101, after 3 minutes of dorking around I realized the battery had shorted cells when it went under load. Sitting static, it read 12.7 volts - but when I applied power to it (to start the boat) it crashed to around 3 volts. When the boat would run (starting from a jump pack) everything seemed OK at idle until I started to apply accessories, then the charging system could keep up to because adding the severe drop of the messed up battery voltage put the entire electrical system under 10 volts - and it was too low for the boat electronics and it started to pop fuses.

I am just thinking you may have something similar, so I would rule out the basics - solid grounds and knowing your charging system and battery are good.
 






Ok, I've gone around removing all the ground straps I could find, and sanded all the contact areas. I even added an extra ground strap from the battery to the body, for extra measure. I must have the most grounded Ex in history now :)
I've yet to do a complete Voltage test on everything. I'll report back once the battery has been recharged, (someone may have left the boot (um, trunk?) door open, and drained the battery. I think it also has a parasitic drain somewhere, I'll find that one later.

New problem; I decided to give the servo's a check since I had the day off and it would only take an hour or so. Yeah right! I got the spring clip out with no fuss, but the dam overdrive servo cover doesnt want to come out! Why not? I thought they would be under enough pressure! I got the servo's out of my spare trans, with no issues, but this one will compress in only slightly, and wont come out at all. I even sprayed the heck out of it with WD40, nothing! Im stuck again!:mad:

Anyone have a magic trick to getting these things out?
 






Splash, when you said 'the codes came back' - does that include the battery voltage low and other electrical circuit failure codes ?
 






Oh, I haven't been back to the shop to get the codes read again yet, sorry. But once I have checked the servos, and got it back together, I'll take it straight down and have them checked.

I've just checked the voltage of the battery post to post=12.8 volts. However, I cant start it up and check just yet,because I still have the overdrive servo cover unclipped. I still haven't managed to get this off yet, doesn't anyone have some idea why it wouldn't pop out by itself? Or how to get it out at all? I'm tempted to drive a screw into it and crow bar it out! It might damage something though.

I have also just put in a new water temp sender, (to the dash), because it had also died.

I want to get it done soon though, because its my daily driver, and I've had workmates picking me up everyday.
 






So I've tried an industrial strength adhesive, and bonded a bracket to the servo cover, and I got some movement, before the adhesive let go. Then I tried the "You're coming out now" approach, and got myself a small drill bit, and put it in a detachable drill chuck, and drilled a nice little hole in the cover by hand (If you're thinking of trying this, be prepared for cramp!), then jammed a small screw into the hole and pry barred it out. Which worked. It doesn't look like anything is wrong with the bore, or the servo itself at all. I used my spare servo cover and put it back together.
I then started it up, and tried to put it in gear, but it wouldn't move, in any of them, not even reverse. Giving it some good rev's managed to get the slightest movement.
So now I'm wondering why again? Could this all be a lack of line pressure in the trans?
Or could the connector between the servo and the O/D band have slipped out without me noticing?

Ok, now I've been able to start it, and check the voltage, which even under load from accessories is 14.5 volts while running.
 






To whoever designed the 5R55E. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my Explorer live, now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
 












let us know how it's going man - your situation has too many variables, rebuilt trans yourself not long ago, engine codes, trans codes, different trans symptoms from start of post until now.... Hard for me to get a grip on where your problems may be ?

Do you have reverse ?

Seems missing reverse, 1st, 2nd and OD may indicate a broken sprag if I recall ? Not sure if it would be the input or OD sprag in this case ?

Also, when I say 2nd, I'm not referring to 'manual 2' on the shifter which I believe is 3rd, correct ?

Towards helping you - it seems like if you are missing all gears, perhaps pressure (pump) problem, and taking pressure readings are in order ?

Finally, there's another post on here, a recent one (S.O.S. post I think) where the poster outlines a procedure to eliminate the computer from the equation by disconnecting the ECU computer cable at the trans, and it should have both Fwd and Rev --- seems his trans was 'dead' and when he disconnected the cable it came back to life.

I am not a trans expert, trying to come up the curve to repair my 5R55E this summer - just trying to help and keep your post alive...
 






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