Valve body gasket.

hi guys am new to this site, did alot of reading some time ago, about the 1997 explorer xlt, thought this is a very good place to get "knowledge" about this as ford decided they wanted to charge 4000 dollars for an overhaul, and 5000 for the timing redone, so i smiled and walked away with a dumb look on my face, i am tackling it myself with the info from here, the car dont reverse, so i,m going for the valve body gasket approach, i,m hoping this may be the problem, if it is,nt i will start again, i have the "pan" sitting resting tonight on the front shaft and the exhaust, i cannot remove it, so any ideas about this will b great, i live on a property, was hoping to have the valve body inside tonight, so i could admire it, and replace the gasket, am i able to use tubed gasket if i remove the exhaust, until i can get in town to get a proper gasket for it, or should i try the shaft approach, either way i need to do something, the pan is dangling underneath the car unable to be removed, oh and "when" i do this this reversing, i am going into ford with the reciepts, and telling them exactly how much it really should cost plus labor, to tackle this problem, so if it costs me 1000, then it surely will b better than 4k cheers, any tips are appreciated thank you.

Welcome to this forum! I've moved your thread into the transmission section. Check the reverse modulation spool in the valve body, the low/reverse servo, and the low reverse band. You should rebuild the valve body if it's already out.

Pull the shaft

Pull the front drive-shaft, you will then be able to drop the pan.

hi guys thanks for the replies, i ended up putting it all back together with new gaskets and filter, did discover the problem is the band "low reverse" band, its all running at the moment, am going to attempt a rebuild myself once i order all the parts, oh if anyone in this site would like to check out this site for majority of ford explorer parts, i found while browsing about for bits and pieces....thanks guys.....ps this site is a little confusing sometimes

yeh man i ended up dropping the front drive shaft, and let it hang there, it was,nt too difficult once you got it out the way.