JTravis
Member
- Joined
- July 4, 2006
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Waverly, TN
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1991 Explorer 2wd XLT
Well, a couple of weeks ago I went up from TN to OH with my 1991 2WD Explorer 4Dr to pick up my new Harley and trailer it back home. The Ex is an automatic and was towing a trailer all the way up there. It pulled fine the entire way, except once there, my cousin was attempting to back the truck uphill in the seller's driveway (while pushing the trailer) to get the bike loaded, and he managed to roll one of the front wheels off into a small ditch by the edge of the drive and gets it stuck. So, once it won't move, instead of putting it in park or yelling for us to come push it out (which we had to do anyway) instead he thinks it is better to just goose the throttle and hold it there until *something* starts streaming from underneath the vehicle. At first I thought maybe power steering fluid, but as it turned out, no- it was transmission fluid. After we pushed it out of the ditch and got it backed up and the bike loaded, we took off to try and get back home. I stopped at the first gas station and bought a couple of quarts of ATF, thinking I could add some to replace what had come out (maybe a pressure pop-off valve had let off the excess?). Unfortunately, we got about maybe 15-20 miles up the road and noticed smoke (actually a spray of transmission fluid) coming out from behind the vehicle, and then it started slipping. I pulled over and checked, and no fluid on the tranny dipstick so I added enough to fill it back up. Off we go again for a few more miles until that runs out and the same thing, slip and pull over (never did let it run dry). Finally, we wind up stuck on the side of the road until an Ohio State Trooper comes and gives my cousin a ride into the next small town (Seamen, OH) and brings back enough transmission fluid to limp the truck to a motel there. We get my neighbor to come up the next day and give us and the motorcycle and trailer a ride home, and a few days later I get the truck hauled home. So here it sits. It will still drive around the street and back a few blocks, but it does leak fluid from under what appears to be the front transmission seal area. But I know something is not right with it. When underneath it idling, it didn't stream fluid as before but you could hear something that sounded like a slight ringing sound coming from it. I am guessing that the front transmission seal might have popped out under the pressure of his holding the gas on it while not moving, but I don't know enough about automatics to really troubleshoot it correctly and I don't have the money to just take it to the transmission shop and let them rebuild it. So any ideas/suggestions/etc. to figure out A) what exactly happened, and B) how can I fix it? I keep reading all these posts about what a lump the original auto transmissions are in these first gen Explorers. If it IS shot, would it be easier/cheaper to try and swap it to something else that would hold up better? Or is this possibly something relatively inexpensive to fix? It was working fine before; no shifting issues or anything. And it seems to still work OK except for the leak and the ringing sound when limping it around here (although I've only driven it once about a mile or two). So I don't know if it is as shot as I may be worried about. Where do I start with it? I hate to scrap an otherwise good-running vehicle over something like this, but money is tight.
