AL4D blown front seal and no O/D problem

[rbbaker]

At the end of last week I noticed that my o/d did not seem to be working. I attributed it to the fact that on the road I was on my speed was varying to much due to traffic. This past Saturday I was heading out to meet some friends to go do some ice fishing and realized that since I had the cruise set at 110 and the engine was revving at 2800 to 3000 rpm that my o/d definitely was not working. About 45 minutes after leaving the city, once the fog cleared I noticed a white stream of smoke coming from behind the truck and the smell of trans fluid. Pulled over and saw the fluid on the back of the truck and dripping from the front of the transmission. I put what fluid I had on me into the transmission and headed back home. About 10 minutes from home spreed dropped dramatically and revs increased. I was only about 500 feet from a Canadian Tire so i was able to limp into there. Grabbed 4 litres of transmission fluid, started the truck up and made the 10k drive home with no real problems except lack of o/d.

Now that I am done the long preamble I will get to the gist of things. I know I have to replace the front seal and was wondering if I should replace the clutch packs and o/d band as well. I will be honest, I do not have a lot of cash or time. This is my daily driver. I am not afraid of the tranny, I went to college for my auto mechanics, mind you it was over 30 years ago.

At the risk of repeating myself. What is the minimum I can get away with barring seeing any major damage once I open it up?

Oh ya, there is about 380,000 k on the truck.

Update: When I pulled it into the garage last not it barely made it in. Once I did get it in put in in part and the engine revs started to climb to over 2000 and the only way to get the revs to drop was to shut the engine down.

Any Ideas??

 

[Rhett]

What is the minimum I can get away with barring seeing any major damage once I open it up

The minimum you can get away with would be replace the seal, (change the pan filter and vacuum modulator while you're at it), and button it up, re-fill to the proper level and see what happens.

But you are right to be concerned about the condition of the overdrive band etc. I'd try the above first and see if it handles it. You may luck out. The A4LD hates low fluid level more than most transmissions I've seen.

 

[FR-425]

While you have the pan off you can see the band anchors, check to see if broken or loose. Best to do a band adjustment with the pan off for visual verification.

 

[TDG]

Oh ya, there is about 380,000 k on the truck.

So about 230,000 miles or so - do you know the history on this transmission?

In addition to the front seal leaking a lack of movement indicates potential problems with the torque converter, front pump, bellhousing bushing / etc. This begins a discussion about "If you going to do A you should also do B, C, D and E" while the transmission is out and that cost of that discussion adds up quick.

I pieced together an A4LD to get my Explorer back on the road while I rebuild the original and will forewarn that if you remove the bellhousing from the transmission do pay attention to the little o-rings near the heads of the blue bolts that retain the bellhousing - my A4LD hack job works well but has a slight leak from the bell housing and I suspect that it may be from those o-rings as I did not check or pay attention to them; additionally when I disassembled the original transmission those o-rings came out in little pieces.

Additionally it is my experience that the market for good hard parts for these transmissions is drying up rapidly, many of the 'upgrades' are manufacturer discontinued now and new / old stock hard parts are becoming scarce - soft parts kits are readily available for however much you want to spend.

 

[Dragon90815]

I had that seal burst on me while on I-5 (Oil everywhere and lots of traffic) it scorched the torque convertor so recommend replacing both.

 

[rbbaker]

Thanks for all the information everyone. It had been quite cold her for a while, running around the -15 to -20 degree range (celsius) and my garage is unheated and uninsulated so was never able to work on the thing for to long at any one time. Had tranny out, replaced all seals, o-ring and gasket I could with out digging to deep. Checked o/d band and it still had a fair amount of material left and was not broken. Cleaned v/b really good with brake cleaner, checked solenoids for proper operation and they seemed good. I could hear them clicking when I applied power to them. Governor was stuck, cleaned it up and got it moving freely. Put tranny back in truck and took it for a test drive. Good reverse, good first gear and that was it. Did some reading and in my haste forgot all about replacing the intermediate and o/d servos. duh. Replaced them with the tranny still in truck. What a PITA.

Truck now has reverse, 1st, 2nd and that is it. Shifts from 1st to 2nd ok but no matter what will not engage 3rd or 4th, and I am getting a whining from the transmission. I adjusted the bands while the tranny was out, but will try adjusting them again in case I messed up somewhere. Fluid seems to be at proper level.

Any suggestions?

 

[Rhett]

Truck now has reverse, 1st, 2nd and that is it. Shifts from 1st to 2nd ok but no matter what will not engage 3rd or 4th,

Hmm, the 2-3 and 3-4 and 4-OD shifts are electronically controlled. Your 1-2 shift (the shift that's working) is vacuum.

 

[Dora 1993]

so it sounds like something must have been done wrong when you installed the new servo/solenoids. unless everything burnt up earlier when it failed. But the fact that you had 3rd gear all the time before makes it sounds like there was a small mistake somewhere when you installed them. I would give them both a quick check