Help! Sudden transmission problem--slipping out of gear

[jmden]

Any help would be appreciated. I have had no trouble with this tranny til now. 181K miles on a 97 V6 4.0. Just tonight coming home from Thanksgiving dinner at mostly freeway speeds it would 'slip' (best I can describe) and there would be this sound like gears hitting each other at hi-speed.

The first time it happened we were going down a grade and I went to put it in D2 for a little compression rather than braking and it 'popped out'. I immediately put it in neutral and when we coasted to the stoplight at the bottom of the hill, I put it back in drive and we went on our way. But, then several more times when going downhill or braking while at freeway speeds, it would 'slip-out' of gear again. Each time this happened I would put in neutral quickly and the gears would stop spinning. However, each time this occurred and the rig was put in neutral, it seemed like the gears were spinning for a longer time before slowing down. We would pull to the side of the road, wait a couple of minutes, put it in drive and would be fine for a few miles of freeway travel.

I checked the tranny fluid, of course, and the level, color, etc. seemed fine. In the dark with a flashlight, I did notice a little fluid on the bottom back end of the tranny, which I have not seen before and I was under this rig with a couple of techs 2 weeks ago while it was on a lift and no one saw anything wrong.

Any help would be appreciated.

Not an Elite member, whatever that means, and can't post in the 911 sub-forum.

 

[drdoom]

Transfer case.

 

[jmden]

Any idea of the inner workings of the tcase of what is going on and what it'll take to fix it?

 

[drdoom]

Jmden go imto the transmission suub-forum and there is excellent information on the borg warner 4405 transfer case. The failure points are addressed there.

 

[drdoom]

Also if you are interested I believe wikipedia has a decent page on the ControlTrac system.

 

[drdoom]

Just going by your description I would guess you have a problem with the shift fork and of course possibly some ovalling in the case halves. If its not too bad you would need the enhanced shift fork w/ pads, a new range collar (that will be chewed up its what you heard grinding), possibly the main shaft is still OK. If the case holes a worn out you need a bushing put in there to keep the same thing from happening again. But I can tell you the enhanced hift fork is the ticket, an absolute must for just a few dollars more. Best wishes.

 

[jmden]

Thanx...I'll check all that out.

 

[jmden]

http://www.rsgear.com/articles/2002_09_Gears.pdf

Good article on this case. What they describe later on in the article is exactly what I'm experiencing and apparently one of the know weaknesses of the design. This particular company, rsgear.com, does some in house machining on their rebuilt cases to correct the issue apparently...

 

[jmden]

It's at the transmission shop. Will plan on posting results...

 

[jmden]

Tranny shop pulled the t case to see if it was rebuildable. It was a mess, they said. They will install a rebuilt case soon. They report that the transmission looks like it's in great shape.

Thanks to all who helped me out with this.

 

[jmden]

New t-case is in and all is well so far. Had 'em service the rear diff and tranny as well and both are still in great shape after 181K!

I've had a consistent, but subtle harmonic vibration (on for 4-5 seconds then goes away for 2 secs or so) in the vehicle for over a year. I was only at freeway speeds of about 63 and above. I've had many things checked in an effort to get to the bottom of this vibration--new tires, much front end work, alignments, checking the drivelines and u-joints, etc. Turns out it was the t-case telling me it was going out. No more vibration. Like I said, it was pretty subtle--my family couldn't even feel it even if I told them right when it was happening. Sure wish it hadn't cost as much to fix it!

At at any rate, replacing the t-case with a newly rebuilt t-case solved a couple of problems. This rig feels and drives better than it has in years thanks to solving this issue and a couple of others that I've posted about here and gotten answers and fixes for.

Thanks explorer forum.

Jon