94 Dead A4LD

Not to hijack the other thread... Thought it was a 92 or 93, its a 94. Has reverse, but no forward gears. Dragging it home in about an hour. Has 191k miles on it. Otherwise nice ride.

As mentioned, I've a friend with his own trans bench the he'll bring over. And we'll go from there.

Not doing a lift, not doing anything but making it safe and reliable. And turning it over to my son for his 21sr birthday. If HE wants to lift it, thats his project.

Sounds almost like the Z-link is messed up....

It doesnt move in the OD and D positions at all?

Nope, not at all. But moves fine in reverse. A friend of mine was a trans tech at the local Ford dealer before moving on to shop manager at the local 4 Wheel parts store. Fluid smells burnt, and is thick with friction material. We'll tear it down and refresh it.

Um, whats the Z link you mention?

1994 Explorer XLT, 4.0L, DEAD A4LD trans, electric shift tcase, and looks to have 3.73s with limited slip. Towed it home, it has really good brakes (dragged my F150 Supercrew to a stop!!!)





The bad...





Not too bad for 191,000 miles. But the receiver hitch is rusted and needs to be removed. The shackles need to replaced too. And clean up some rust on the roof the passenger side rocker panel. And new foglights too. But otherwise it isn't too bad.

The Z link controls the shift linkage position in the valve body. If it would be this part, then you would either have all of the gears in the wrong position if it got bent, or you wouldn't have any gears at all if it got disconnected. It might be a valve body problem or an internal problem which will require a rebuild. Start with the valve body first.

After doing some reading, I'm really sure the Z link isn't the issue. Park is solid, and reverse works fine. All forward gear selections feel like neutral.

But at least the 4x4 locks in and the low range locks in too.

Well, my son and I got the trans out last week. And now I got it draining the rest of the fluid from it this evening.

No big chunks, just a fuzzy magnet and gritty brown fluid.




My friend's bench is *****in' man...



Will take my time with the tear down, and bagging and labeling everything...

I have a similar problem. I can shift into gears but no movement at all in any gear. It's as if the trans is always in neutral....I'llbe watching thi tread...

I could get away with a soft rebuild, except the OD section has problems. I need to get another trans to pull apart, or spend big bucks at the dealer for the OD section.







Otherwise, it didn't look too bad on teardown.

Might want to try calling a local transmission shop for what you need. I have one here that is more than happy to sell parts, and are very reasonable. You should be able to find one near you as well!

Ghosttrain2, I hope you don't mind, I wandered through your photobucket pics... Nice project! A lot more indepth than I would tackle (not counting a cab swap on my Ranger...)
My Ranger project, the Warthog.

But I will call a couple shops (and the one that rebuilt this trans...) for the parts. But I'm looking through the local forums too.

What exactly broke in the OD section?

If you see the previous post there are pictures. The OD clutch housing where the sun gear retainer sits is damaged, the sun gear retainer, and the section with the OD planetaries are all damaged.

Basically, everything between the oil pump and center support has some damage to it.

Check WWW.TransmissionPartsUSA.Com.

OK, so I did a little more looking at my parts, and I was wondering exactly what didn't look right about the OD Planetary section...

And what wasn't right with this part...


So I went back to the garage to look at parts and realized that the planetary section was broken... I wonder what caused that?


So after looking at the provided link from BrooklynBay (thanks brotherman!!!), I realize I might only need thes two parts...
http://www.transmissionpartsusa.com/A4LD_hard_parts_s/11557.htm

I'm left wondering a couple things though. The replacement part at the trans parts site doesn't have the same "cage" as what I have. Or perhaps that is just the illustration. Is that a big deal or not? The next question is, can I clean up the edges where the sun gear retainer sets into the clutch housing (sort of looks to me like someone welded these things together!)?


I reckon the retainer palte should be a pretty tight fit, not very loose?

Whats funny, I've read through a lot of those 4 threads when I bought the EX and that is probably what had my "spidey sense" thinking something wasn't right. Just goes to show, almost anything you want to know, just might be here.

Now, to see what my buddy can get for pricing on parts...

Oh, I don't have any pics, but the only friction plate and steel damages were in the forward clutches...

A manual index sleeve should help prevent the forward clutch from burning out prematurely: http://www.transmissionpartsusa.com/A4LD_Manual_valve_index_sleeve_p/400-005694701.htm
http://www.sonnax.com/instructions/56947-01-IN.pdf

I'll look into that... It would be nice to not have to do this again anytime soon.

OK, I'm not hearing from my buddy about local wholesale parts, and the retail parts stores have nothing of use to me. Rock Auto has this Master Rebuild Kit...

Master Repair Kit ATP Part # FM37 {Contains Friction and Steel Clutch Plates, Gaskets, Seals, O-Rings and Sealing Rings} $82.79

I need to get this project rolling so I can get the truck to my son for his birthday next month... And then I get to the SAS on my Ranger...

Ordered the FM37 kit from RockAuto. Should be here in a couple days. From transmissionpartsusa, I ordered the OD planetary and sun gear retainer. I'm undecided about the index sleeve. This whole experience has been so very interesting...

And I bought a filter kit at a local parts store for $16.

Forgot to mention... When tearing the forward clutch apart, the seal for the piston was damaged with about a 1/4" gap. Which seems to explain the forward friction plates being smooth and the steels being burnt. Just thought I would add that as the cause of the clutches demise.