Hey all, I just did my valve body rebuild this weekend too. Superior shift kit, Ford TSB update, Sonnax Boost valve, new servos, and band adjustment. I gotta say that between all these parts, the shift flare and delayed reverse were fixed. I have a few things to add to the forum that may be noteable:
The truck was a 2001 Ranger with the 3.0L engine, 5R44E transmission. The first note is to anybody with a 5R44E instead of a 5R55E, don't worry, the 5R44E used all the same parts as the 55E. The ATSG book should also be fine (it worked for me!) 2.)The 3.0L does not come with the heat shield to protect the servos. If you look in the ATSG book it even shows the heat shield as a 4.0L only part. I think this is a serious design flaw as the front servo is no kidding about 6 inches from the exhaust pipe. When we took that one out, it was kinda stuck and didn't really want to come out. I would recommend replacing the servos with this fix too, especially if your truck doesn't come with the heat shield. The servos are like little pistons that have a rubber seal around the perimeter to provide a good seal. Because my truck didn't have the heat shield, the rubber on my front servo was dried out and heat warped, therefore I'm thinking that was also a big part of the problem.
Getting the servos out isn't really a big deal. You need to drop the exhaust pipe with both converters (make sure you disconnect the O2 sensor). From there I just used a screw driver and levered into the servo cover and popped out the retaining rings. I would recommend snap ring pliers with small diameter pinchers to get the rings out, Ford didn't put an "eye" on the ends of the retainer, it's kind of a gentle curve so the pliers don't have much to grab onto and slip off easily. Anyway, the Superior kit has a new intermediate servo spring that provides more resistance than the Ford one.
All in all it was a worthwhile fix and I couldn't have done it without this forum.
