5R55W teasers

Well I don't have the full tranny yet to take apart, but when I do.... be fun to see the changes from the 55E. Maybe Brain can figure ways to use some of these parts in the Frankentranny. I can show you ONE change.... ALL the solenoids are on a separately mounted cluster that bolts onto the valve body...







Interesting eh? You can test em all from one location. I understand they have "signatures" which on a scope can tell you if they are healthy.... I'll know more, and share more, later. Just a teaser.

[Oh FORD announced today a "Performance" Utility Vehicle (PUV).... by Shelby....an Expedition .... I wonder what the trannie is all about in THAT?... 550HP - 500 ft lbs torque!]

I am convinced that auto trannies will always be a mystery for me.

Actually.... if you can work through the action of a planetary gear set, you are 90% of the way there. Everything else is an arrangement to hold one part or another still (more or less). Torque convertors are something else (and mysterious in their own right)...

Am still trying to find out what tranny i have,5R55E, 5R55S,5R55W, all I know is I have a dipstick for checking the fluid leval

LOL! I know basically what a torque converter does, none of the technicle stuff though. All those little channels in in your tranny pics scare me. Looks like termite damage.

Well of course it does, it IS !

Is that seven solenoids I count in that pack? Does the connector have 14 pins?

yes it is 7 solenoids, but only 12 pins. Some share a common ground.

[edit] AND, there is a spot for an 8th!

Now that I look closer - do I see 8 with room for a ninth (maybe through an external connector)? Maybe that connector is for the input shaft speed sensor or another sensor....

Excellent call Brain. I was remembering 7, but seeing your post I had to come home and voila - 8. I wasn't sure if the 9th was for a possible additional solenoid, but your off body connector makes sense too. As I was further inspecting this, I noticed the aluminum bottom plate was held on my some plastic clips... so I removed it, and guess what...



The plastic thingie (a technical term, we can refer to it as a separator) is a screen! For the solenoids....

Here it is off...



and here's the bottom of the solenoid package with it off...



Now I think I already know the answer, but just to put a point on it... How many people are going to end up paying for a NEW solenoid body ( around $300 list) when all it really needed was to have the screen cleaned? Remember, you read it here first folks!

Just for the Geeks!!

I found out a little more about the signatures/signals that the solenoids give off (and why they can't all use a common ground). It is called an inductive signal. All (4) of the shift/coast soleniods from 95+ have it, the EPC and TCC soleniods have it starting in '97 (but not the '95-'96).

8 solenoids and 12 pins....they can't all have separate signals (at least on the 5R55E they don't). The 5R55E's main connector had 16 pins (and 6 solenoids), but a couple were used for the input shaft speed sensor signal, and 3 were left empty, so that left 11 pins. Four were used for the one solenoid (it has a diode spanning a couple of lines - you can see it in one of the pics), so the remaining seven connections were used for the five remaining solenoids. Here's some pics of the connectors:







All things electrical have resistance, capacitance, and inductance. Since the soleniods are basically wire coils, they have high inductive values.....nice thing to be able to monitor.

All inductance is is the measure of resitance to change in current. So say a voltage is applied through a coil and current starts to flow, if the voltage is changed, the inductance is a measure of how much "pull" the coil has. It might be tough to understand, but with high inductance elements, you can reverse the driving voltage (say from +12V to -12V), and it will take a certain amount of time before the current (flow) is actually reversed.

A fluid analogy would be a pipe filled with water flowing through it. The pressure difference between the two ends (which is required to get any flow) would be like the voltage. The inductance is how long the fluid still flows after the pressure difference is stopped (by shutting off the pump). The water continues to move because it has momentum, so inductance is (in a nutshell) electrical momentum.

Glacier, one of the timgs I'm most curious about at this point is the OD of the W version. I want to know if they used the same OD spring retainer and plastic/metal bearing surface on the inside of the OD planet assembly and if they left more clearance. If they did, it might be a worthwhile thing to change out for other people rebuilding their A4/4R/5R trannies.

Well I received the FORD Factory manual today on the 55W, 55S and 55N. From the diagrams the OD appears to have undergone a mid production change...but before i get to that, the 55N has something VERY interesting.... gear ratio changeability! (only 2nd and OD though.) you can have a 2.41 2nd gear or a 2.29 2nd gear. Your can have a 0.75:1 OD final drive ratio, or a 0.71:1 ratio! It is unclear to me, but I don;t know why this wouldn't be possible to do in the W and S. The manual lists the W/S as v6-2WD transmissions and the 55N as a V-8 2WD transmission. From the illustrations, the cases are quite different. (and the "N" TC has 8 studs on it.)

I am going to be doing a little more reading tonight and I'll post some of the illustrations if I can get decent pics of them. One things I was expecting was a 4 pinion OD planetary... nope... still 3. Stay tuned, film at 11.

Glacier, I have a 5R55... manual also, through Ebay. It's huge, and I haven't had time to look at it yet. Have you noticed yet if the 2WD versions had different output shafts? I would assume so, and I'd really like to know if the 5R55W shaft will go into the 5R55E.
Keep it coming,
DonW