How Long Will It Last?

[jtn275]

Any help or comments are appreciated.


1996 Ford Ranger, Extended Cab, 4.0L, 4WD, 130,000mi (20,000mi on rebuilt trans) Automatic trans 5re55?

I have inspected U-Joints and appear to be fine.
Trans fluid is at the proper level and does not smell burnt.
No check engine-OD-ABS lights present.

All of the following problems are chronic and occur 70% of the time.


1. Either hot or cold, when trans is placed into reverse from park there is a hard thump, similar to placing the trans from neutral to reverse at 2000 engine rpms.

2. Up shifts from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd are hard. There is no slippage involved just very hard up shifts, similar to placing the trans from neutral to drive with high engine rpms. This occurs at various throttle settings, from a very slow start, to hard acceleration. Also as previously stated the described condition occurs hot or cold.

3. While decelerating there is often a hard thump when the trans downshifts from 2nd to 1st. This thump can be heard throughout the Trans and drive train all the way to the rear wheels. Sometimes accompanying the thump I feel what resembles a high frequency pulsating in the brake pedal similar to anti-lock brake activation. This generally lasts shorter than 1 second. (I know this sounds crazy but this condition has been getting progressively worse.)
This thump is experienced during light and heavy brake applications.



Yesterday morning I drove the truck after it had sat for 1 week. Ambient air temp 55F. As described above, the up shifts were hard under very light acceleration. I decided to go straight to my local Trans shop that is about 35 miles from where I started. (90% highway miles at 60mph) After I got of the freeway the trans performed well. I still took it to the shop and had a mechanic test drive it. Could not duplicate any of the problems. Extremely frustrating.

I ran some errands and the above mentioned problems began to reappear. Hard up shifts and clunking during the 2nd to 1st downshift.

 

[mshannon4]

I had a similar problem several years ago and replacing the screens in the tranny fixed the problem. When the tranny fluid got hot it got thinner and so passed through the screens easier. If this was the problem though I would expect your transmission guy would have thought of it.

 

[Anime]

Might be worth dropping the pan and replacing the screen/filter and doing a fluid change to see if it makes any difference, before laying out the dough for a repair or another rebuild.

Since you only have 20K on the rebuild, isn't it within warranty still? Most quality rebuilds have a pretty good mileage warranty, if so you should probably take it back to where it was rebuilt and have them take care of it.