5r55w - p0741 after shift kit and high stall converter.

[PopRichie77]

My concern was the O-Ring that is the pump gear that the torque converter engages into. It seals the round part and the flats on the torque converter, this seal is part of the lockup fluid circuit. It may have came out of the groove in the gear, from the torque converter being to far forward and not holding it in place.

 

[drdoom]

Good point Pop.

 

[zerodevil]

the large seal at the base of the pump? it looks in really good shape to be honest, is there more of it inside that i am not seeing? i will have the shop replace them both just to be safe, and do a quick look-see for bits of rubber floating around ^_^. ill update again once i know somthing more.

 

[drdoom]

I think Pop means the small O ring that tucks into the pump gear.

 

[zerodevil]

the little guy on the top of the "tower"? or is there one inside of the assembly that i am missing?

 

[drdoom]

On the inside. Not on the pump stator, but the little one INSIDE the inner pump gear. IIRC it is shaped like the torque converter snout, with two flat sides just like the converter.

 

[zerodevil]

ah, i can see how that would be problematic. Im guessing the front of the pump assembly needs to come out to check this one?

 

[drdoom]

You may be able to peek in there past the gap between the front seal & stator, assuming the configuration is similar to a 5R55E, but you may have to pull the bell housing and disassemble the pump itself. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than myself can expand on this a bit...

 

[zerodevil]

My trans shop is going to hate this but i think im going to force them to remove the front cover and replace all 3 seals just to be sure. If its missing this is going to be fun. thanks for the info!

I have the measurments from my TC spacing at home and i will post them later tonight, but long story short it looks like i had almost half an inch of spacing in there.. WAY TO MUCH!!!.. I am going to be shimming with 5/16ths or so machined washers (going to have to be custom made), and feeding them onto some custom lengthed double ended grade 8 studs for ease of installation and removal. again i will post my exact measurments when i get home tonight.

 

[zerodevil]

torque converter measurments haha.
Torque converter (engaged, from TC hubs to bell housing face) 1.090
From engine block to flex-plate face. .6706
Distance between torque converter and flex plate? .4194

 

[PopRichie77]

Do you realize that with that much spacing the pilot on the torque converter hub may no longer be engaged in the engine crank pilot bearing.
I can't understand why you are doing this, or why the engine and bell hsg are so far off. Not knowing or understanding what you are trying to do, makes it difficult to try and help and as a result the replies that are given may be wrong.

If you have a Explorer 4.6 V8 with a stock crank and pilot bearing and a Explorer stock 5R55W bell housing, and the torque converter is for a Explorer 5R55W then it cannot move back and forth as much as you are saying. Something is wrong or missing or the wrong parts.

 

[zerodevil]

i am thinking my problem lies in the new flex-plate. The torque converters share evenly between the 5r55w and the 5r55s. the only difference is this torque converter came with a billet steel front cover, which removed the need or ability to use the supplied ford adaptor/shim piece to convert from the 8 bolt tc to a 4 bolt on 10.5 bolt pattern. There is also a "plate" on the engine block which seems to serve no purpose other than to shim the distance between the bellhousing and the block. My old flex-plate was starting to crack around the crank so i replaced it at the time of the rebuild and i was forced to get a new starter (05 mustang). It never occured to me that they may have changed deck hight between the 5r55s 6 bolt and the 5r55w 6 bolt. I am going to buy a replacement flexplate from ford and see if that throws my measurements back into spec. Looking at pictures alone it seems the 5r55w 4.6 flexplate is significatnly taller than the 5r55s flexplate i have currently installed.. The torque converter was set up for the new mustangs (5r55s) but was told by TCI that there was no difference as far as the torque converter was concerned between the 5r55w and the 5r55s.

p.s. does the plate between the engine and transmission serve any other purpose other than to shim the distance?

p.s.s. at further risk of sounding like an idiot when it comes to transmissions, what is the purpose of the pilot bearing on the crank?

 

[zerodevil]

i think Im going to pull the trigger and return the torque converter assembly (everything in the bellhousing) to the stock state, this is going on two months and i have had just about enough.

 

[PopRichie77]

That is the plates purpose, why it was designed that way I don't know, I actually forget what it looks like, post a picture. I don't have an engine manual for the 4.6 V8. I do have a manual for the 5R5W/S, but it doesn't show any of that.

Sorry there may not be a pilot bearing in that crank, the center pilot on the torque converter may fit directly into the crank.

 

[zerodevil]

there is no obvious bearing in there, and the hole is to large for a snug fit, it looks like it just has a space for the pilot on the TC to fit in there. I googled pictures of the 4.0, 4.6 mustang, and the 4.6 explorer flexplates, and there are obvious differences in height. I also reconfirmed with TCI that the torque converters are one and the same for this application. I ordered a flexplate from ford on my lunch hour and will gladly take that step over shimming if i can avoid it. It should be here monday or tuesday and i will mount it and take new measurments. At the moment the transmission shop is installing new seals on the front, and TCI is going over their torque converter.. I feel like the flex-plate is the obvious choice as to the difference in space. The explorer flexplate is visualy taller than the mustang (either the 4.6 or the 4.0) (easily the 5/16th's that i came up with).. In anycase a new ford torque converter and mouting plate will set me back about $630, and if this doesnt work out i will just put it back to stock form.

 

[PopRichie77]

You need a Flexplate spacer, the spacer contains the hole for the torque converter pilot to fit in. The space will look similar to one of these.

 

[PopRichie77]

I forgot this the space is used with the auto flex plate to make up the difference from the thicker manual flywheel. The correct spacer should have made your parts work.
Not using a spacer is why you were able to move the torque converter back and forth so much. Now I understand why there was so much movement.

My mind is finally starting to work. I think you said that you were using an after market flex plate, if you call them and tell them what engine ,flex plate, torque converter and transmission, they should be able to tell you what spacer you need and they probably have it.

Spacer goes between crank and flex plate.

 

[zerodevil]

I have been unable to locate any 6 bolt ford spacers, much less ones for my application. I am more than a little confident that the flexplate i ordered should put me back into spec for the propper distance. Can you elaborate more on this small O-ring? Would it be visable with the front seal removed? and is it easily replaced? I am not confident that my transmission shop even looked at it, much less replaced it as i asked.

 

[PopRichie77]

With a very bright light and knowing what you are looking for you should be able to see it. It is in a grove in the ID of the small pump gear. You should get a trans manual as there is a picture of it in the manual, the material has a copy write so posting a pic, is not good.

 

[zerodevil]

**Update** With the new flexplate from ford, and the shim plate removed the spacing spec fell right into 0.082 inches between flexplate and torque converter. Which is beautifully between 1/16 (0.0625) and 1/8 (0.125) inches. I need to verify that the shim plate does not serve any other purpose than to shim the distance inside the bellhousing before i proceed, but i have already checked for bolt head clearence (which is a non issue), i need to make sure the front driveshaft has some flexing room and will install fine with the shortened distance (granted its only 1/16ths), and i may need to do a little bit of metal fab to create a fully covering inspection plate. My next question is how well is the stock flex-plate going to hold up to a higher stall toruqe converter? i am only going up 1000 over stock to 2500 stall w/ lock up. Have people run higher stalls with stock flexplates with no super-fast fail issues?

Hopefully i will have my torque converter back from TCI by next friday and i will attempt a reinstall at that time.