Late 2-3 and 3-OD shift when cold

[nathaniversen]

1995 Explorer XLT Limited,
Control Trac 4WD,
4r55e (I think)
~177k miles.


Shortly after I got the car about a year or so ago, I noticed that the transmission started acting stubbornly in cold conditions. When I start it and take off, it goes through first and into second just fine, but when I hit 35mph where the gear it's supposed to go into 3rd, it doesn't. If I drive 3 or 4 miles like that it will finally shift up to third then have a tiny bit of hesitation going into overdrive, but only once until it sits in cold weather long enough. If I don't feel like waiting, I can force it up to 50 or 60 mph where it will go into third then into Overdrive after a few seconds. Again, it only needs that once per driving session.


Anybody have any ideas what it might be?

 

[Omgrtfa]

i had a '93 that did the exact same thing.. only cold, only once. then it worked fine.

matter of fact when the gear shift was in OD, the whole trans seemed sluggish.. maybe never downing into first. but in drive it was like a mustang, a completely different accelleration.

anyway. sold the truck to a friend for nothin, shortly their after he got it stuck in a drainage hole in my yard.. started throwing it in R-D-R-D-R-D-R-D-R before i could yell at him.. needless to say he blew all forward gears... dont know if its related but.. look out.

p.s. he did note that when he replaced the filter it helped.. but then new problems appeared.

 

[nathaniversen]

The '93 had he A4LD, right? Since the problem isn't particular to just one model, it has to be something general... Do you know exactly what other problems appeared when he replaced the filter?

Mine acts the same regardless of if overdrive is disabled or not. Although, dropping to either 2 or 1 on the column loosens up the torque converter from 0-3 mph. I dunno if that's standard operation or not.