A4ld no 4th gear | Ford Explorer Forums

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A4ld no 4th gear

Steaminfreeman

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Joined
November 17, 2013
Messages
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City, State
Birmingham, AL
Year, Model & Trim Level
1994 Explorer EB 2wd
Hey everyone, I've been using this site for information for years but this is my first post. I know that almost everything about the a4ld has been explained but I can't find exactly what I'm looking for.
I have no overdrive. I pulled this transmission from a 93. It's a 2solenoid. I had OD before old tranny crapped out. I've checked to make sure that the 3-4 shift solenoid is getting ECM signal and even ran a jumper to make sure it is "clicking" when grounded. Kick down cable is good and shift linkage is right. I pulled the OD servo and it had a blown seal. I replaced with a new one and no change. What else could it be? I would imagine that if it were a broken band or planetary that it would shift but slip, right?? It runs awesome but only has 1,2,3,3LU. It isn't even attempting to shift into forth even though IT IS getting the ground signal and I've verified the solenoid is good. Thanks in advance for any help.

94 4dr EB 2wd.
 



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Last time I had no overdrive, I replaced the entire valve body with a known good one and installed a Transgo shift correction kit plus a couple Sonnax upgrades at the same time. An autopsy of the old valve body revealed a failing solenoid that would only operate intermittently, plus old gunk making valves sticky in their bores. The refreshed valve body I installed cured the overdrive issue and improved other shifting performance. In my other Explorer I installed a low mileage junkyard valve body with the same upgrades.

If your solenoid and servo are good for sure, you might still have a valve or spool in the valve body sticking. If you're going to go through the trouble of pulling the valve body to try to diagnose/clean the moving parts, you might consider just having a cleaned (and upgraded) valve body ready to just swap in. After all, you already will have to install a new set of body and separator plate gaskets, so you might as well throw in a shift correction kit at the same time. I bought all my parts at Transmission Parts USA online and it was pretty affordable.
 






Thanks for the response. I went through the valve body from the last transmission and have it ready to go. I just hate to swap it because out of the 3 transmissions that's been in it this one runs the best, aside from no OD. This is my first time dealing with an automatic so I'm a little iffy about tinkering in the valve body. I think I'm going to see if that fixes the issue and go with the upgrades later. I'd hate to spend the money on the upgrades and still have the issue. Thanks again. I'll post the outcome after the holidays when I get time to do it.
 






Problem solved.... I decided to go ahead and swap the valve body and found that it had 6 check balls in it. It looked like it had new valve body gaskets and that's why I picked this transmission from the salvage yard. I guess whoever did it must have thought they lost some and just added a ball everywhere one fit.
 






That's pretty funny.
 






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