I have an 02 Ranger 4x4 5sp Automatic (5R55E?) with about 120K miles that's having some transmission issues. I'd like some input by those more in the know than myself about whether this is a valve body gasket issue or something more insidious.
We don't drive this thing a ton, it sits most of the time until we need it to haul something, so timeframes here are long but mileage isn't. All of this has happened within 5k miles or so.
Started noticing hesitation, hard shifts and what felt like slips a while back.... mostly while holding a constant highway speed. Made a note of it, but never took it in for diagnostics. It slowly got worse until when you were hard on the throttle from a stop, it wouldn't ever upshift... it'd just hold the 1st gear. If you back off the throttle, it'll upshift normally. Not driving it hard results in pretty normal shifting, tho you'll still have some of the slips and hard shifts.
Took it in to our mechanic, who hasn't ever tried to screw us before... but who knows. In any case, he calls today with a diagnosis of a "burned up transmission" and wants to replace it with a Jasper reman for $3300 (P&L). Since the truck is only worth about $4500-5000, I'm not about to throw $3300 into a reman trans, so we went and picked it back up tonight.
The O/D Off light has never been on (except when I used the O/D Off button) or flashed.
Could this be the valve body gasket problem that seems all too common? If not, what might it be? Is a rebuild job on these trannys difficult? I'm somewhat mechanically inclined, but I've never screwed around with an A/T before... though I am in the middle of a restoration on a 66 Bronco (with 1997 Explorer EFI 5.0L) so I'm not a complete car dumbo.
I ordered the ATSG book on the 5R55E and will take a gander at that when it arrives, but if this is the valve body gasket blowing out, that'd make my life a LOT less stressful moving forward.
Thanks...
We don't drive this thing a ton, it sits most of the time until we need it to haul something, so timeframes here are long but mileage isn't. All of this has happened within 5k miles or so.
Started noticing hesitation, hard shifts and what felt like slips a while back.... mostly while holding a constant highway speed. Made a note of it, but never took it in for diagnostics. It slowly got worse until when you were hard on the throttle from a stop, it wouldn't ever upshift... it'd just hold the 1st gear. If you back off the throttle, it'll upshift normally. Not driving it hard results in pretty normal shifting, tho you'll still have some of the slips and hard shifts.
Took it in to our mechanic, who hasn't ever tried to screw us before... but who knows. In any case, he calls today with a diagnosis of a "burned up transmission" and wants to replace it with a Jasper reman for $3300 (P&L). Since the truck is only worth about $4500-5000, I'm not about to throw $3300 into a reman trans, so we went and picked it back up tonight.
The O/D Off light has never been on (except when I used the O/D Off button) or flashed.
Could this be the valve body gasket problem that seems all too common? If not, what might it be? Is a rebuild job on these trannys difficult? I'm somewhat mechanically inclined, but I've never screwed around with an A/T before... though I am in the middle of a restoration on a 66 Bronco (with 1997 Explorer EFI 5.0L) so I'm not a complete car dumbo.
I ordered the ATSG book on the 5R55E and will take a gander at that when it arrives, but if this is the valve body gasket blowing out, that'd make my life a LOT less stressful moving forward.
Thanks...
