91 4x4 sprayed out all the ATF

[mahieber]

I was 298 miles from home, 2 miles from my deer lease, when my automatic tranny stopped engaging, and I had ATF dripping from the bottom of my truck when I stopped. It seemed that it must have started as a small leak somewhere on the right above the exhaust because there was black sooty oil all over my hatchback. It drained pretty fast at the last because I left a pretty good trail as I coasted to a stop. It is still down in S. Texas, sooned to be towed up. Any ideas where to start looking? The fluid seemed to be dripping towards the front of the tranny or even next to the motor. Didn't see any problems with the cooling lines.

p.s. If you have 2 big enough hog traps you can stack them on top of each other and make your own cellular tower.

[SteveVB]

I would check the vacuum modulator and the vacuum hose that leads to it. It is up on the side of the trans, just above the pan rail, on the pass side right next to the exhaust. You need to remove a heat shield, and a bolt to get the valve out. Thats my best guess.
If its coming from the bell housing then could be the pump seals, or the convertor- lets hope its the modulator!!!

Good luck

[Gofast]

This is what happend to mine. The front seal blew. It pumped all the fluid out at the front of the tranny. Everything under the truck was covered in gunk.

I bet this happened at night and you couldn't see the cloud of smoke behind you as the fluid spryed on the hot exhaust.

Good Luck

[mahieber]

Did it screw up your tranny? I am working out of state, and it finally got trailered back to Houston today. A friend of mine put ATF in it and was able to drive it around the parking lot with no apparent problems, but he could see it leaking from around the front seal area.

[Gofast]

Mine blew out on the way to CCR2000 this year. I caught it in time thanks to Sinjin. I was blowing smoke intermittantly out the back. It would be real heavy then clear up.

I put a new seal in it and drove it about another week or two. The seal blew again, at night. I did not see it go this time and the tranny burned up.

The leak was very noticable from the front area. It would leak very badly then it would stop for a bit then leak again.

I read some more about this on one of the ranger boards listed under 302 conversion's. They said once the seal went you needed to rebuild, the shaft may be to worn for the seal to work good now. Seems this may be a common problem for the A4LD tranny.

Good luck

[Houston at NCSU]

DO NOT TAKE IT TO TRANSPRO TRANSMISSIONS ON NASA ONE NEAR HIGHWAY THREE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. AS A MATTER OF FACT, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND ANY TRANSMISSION SHOPS ON NASA ONE. But i dunno where you live in houston, just avoid that area.

[AgExplorer]

If you're looking for a tranny shop in Houston, I highly recommend A+ Transmissions on Dairy Ashford between I-10 and Memorial. (281) 293-7090 and ask for Dennis.

[mahieber]

hehehe Thanks for the warning about Transpro. I do live right there in League City. I am taking it to Snider's on 518. They have done work for me before. A little pricey, but didn't have any troubles with them.

[mahieber]

Most of the front of the transmission including the pump had turned blue from the heat. They disconnected the coolant lines at the radiator and could not get anything but black gunk oozing out of the radiator with 120 psi of air. Had to rebuild the tranny and replace the radiator (in lieu of just using the auxiliary cooler...too hot in Texas). So for those of you that perform the self-help procedure of flushing the tranny, make sure you flush the coolant tanks (radiator and auxiliary) also.