FrankenTranny...Sort of...

I read and re-read Brain's "Frankentranny" section. Decided to try it myself. I had three 5R's in the discard pile. Most shops in my area do not overhaul trannies, so they simply replace the customers' bad and sometimes not bad trannies with another used one or rebuilt one.

I'm retired and bored so I took on this project. of the three that I disassembled, I could find no visual problem with two of them. the other was obvious; scorched OD unit and band caused a lot of debris and some foul smelling fluid. turned out the valve body was about to fall out of one of the others and shift solenoid(s) checked bad in the other.

Anyway, I took out the good 5R stuff and put into my A4 case. The clearances worked fine and for some reason the wave washer in the rear of the A4 did not interfere with the reverse assy. Perhaps it was worn down enough from the 200k on the A4. if it had interfered, I planned to Dremel the thing out of the way.

it's all back together except for the valve body. the A4 valve body was really stuck unlike the the one in the tranny that I put in my '92 EX. so, I'm taking my time and will have it redone somewhere next week and if I get energetic, I might just try it in my EX to see how it performs.

thanks, again, to all for the wonderful and accurate info on this forum.

......jjf

Jack, what kind of work did you do before you retired? Did you work in a transmission shop or a dealership?

was a certified VW tech in the early 70's. spent my formative years in a wrecking yard. taught marketing/psychology/English for 25 or so years.

always had 2 or 3 clunkers to work on and sell, much to my now ex and our neighbors dismay...lol.

my brother who was a mechanic died in '92. his two sons now own a repair shop and I aggravate them daily and they tolerate me.

I guess I have good research and organization skills, but I grow tired of things in a hurry. (probably have Adult ADD) .one day, this rebuilding and selling Explorers will grow old and I'll be off to something else.

I've been a member of the International Cuemakers Assn since '03. have lathes, mechanics tools and an awful lot of accumulated things for my soon to be 59 years.

I operate under the premise that a mechanic can do almost anything, but a woodworker can't change his own spark plugs...

oh yeah, I shoot a lot of pool.