A4LD - No reverse, dark fluid | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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A4LD - No reverse, dark fluid

j602

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Joined
April 11, 2004
Messages
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City, State
Dothan, AL
Year, Model & Trim Level
'92 XLT
I tried to leave the school parking lot this afternoon and my transmission would not engage into reverse. I put it in drive and it went into gear fine and I drove home. As I got into the driveway, I put it into reverse to back up, and nothing happened. This had never happened before, but the transmission has been slipping a good bit in the mornings, or when it's cold. I went through the gears, and from what I can tell, Park and Reverse are parking gears, and Neutral through 1 (Drive) are drive gears. No reverse. I'm not completely sure on this though. I pulled the pan and immediately knew something was up, since the fluid was dark brown and smelled unusual. It did not smell burnt, but more like motor oil. I looked and smelled closely, and it looks like it's been sucking motor oil into the tranny. I also pulled off the reverse servo and the O rings look ok, as well as the the entire valve body being very clean. There were also no metal shavings or debris in the pan, so I assume that's a good thing. Any help would be appreciated, and I just need some more input before I go off to get a new filter and fluid and put it back together to try it one more time. Thanks in advance.
 



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Well, first off, I can tell you this probably isn't good news if the filter wasn't plugged. If the new filter and fluid change doesn't help your most likely candidate is the reverse clutch. That's rebuild my friend. It certainly is possible you have a valve body spool sticking...and before I rebuilt it I'd probably drop the VB and go through it. But, before I did that I'd check line pressures. But let us know how you make out....and we can go from there.
 






drop the pan and see what is in the botom of it if the fluid has a metalic sparkel or has a blank gunk in the botome your screwed exact same thing has hapned to me twice.
 






also try some lucas
it wount give u reverse but might give you more time to get it replaced
 






Read my post bud. Already dropped the pan, no metal shavings but dark fluid and thick black goo.

Glacier, I'm pretty sure you're right. I changed the filter, fluid, and cleaned the reverse servo and it's still locked in reverse, with Neutral through 1 still being drive gears. I don't think I'll mess with a rebuild, just swap in another as cheaply as I can find it. I appreciate your input.
 






Oh, and what's the point of having more time to replace it? I can't reverse, which I do probably 6-7 times a day. I'd never be able to get the truck out of a parking spot, therefore making it pointless to drive around with only forward gears.
 






hey man just trying to be helpfull. you have to do what you have to do
 






standby... I may have missed something... neutral through 1 being forward gears.... I am sure you already did, but check the linkage all the way into your manual valve Z link. Make sure it's all copacetic. (I need to read more carefully, I apologize). My prior thoughts stand however. Do that, check line pressures, think about fooling with the VB, rebuild. In that order.

I understand about the rebuild.... old A4LD's from the junkyard are a crap shoot though and a rebuild CAN be done at home by yourself.....if you haven't read it go look at the A4LD Rebuild Diary....about 5 or 6 folks have rebuilt theirs using that and other source material.
 






I just don't think I can put the necessary time into a rebuild. It's my DD so I want/need to get it back on the road ASAP. I saw a few A4LD's recently on here from parted out trucks that were real cheap, so I'm gonna try to go that route.
 






good luck, let us know if we can help and how it goes bud!
 






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