My VB rebuild..

[whoathere]

Well, as some of you may know from the VB Rebuild Diary, I too have the 2-3 flare on my 2000 Sport. It's got the OHV and the 5R55E transmission, with 70k miles. Well anyway, since no one is sure what fixes the the flare, but that a combination of a few things *usually* solves the problem, I sought out to try and do it piece by piece and see if we could maybe narrow it down.

Anyway, last weekend, I did some work to it. The first thing we did was the new VB sep. plate with bonded gaskets, and the Ford mod. This didn't fix the problem.

Here is what I found:
This is what I first noticed when I dropped the pan...

and this is what else I found a little closer up.

The original gasket was obviously shot.. it was actually pretty bad. There was another area where it had torn too, but I didn't take a pic. Anyway, back to the fact that it didnt fix the problem. Up next is the superior shift kit, and probably the EPC solenoid, and I'm hoping it will fix it.

I do have one question tho, since I have already put it back together, will I need to buy a new sep plate? My dad is saying that I should, but I don't really see the need to seeing as how it's going to go back on the same way, I mean it would be pretty difficult to misalign, seeing as how its screwed down with 3 bolts and all.. but what do you guys think?

 

[Blee1099]

You already have it taken apart, I'd replace all consumables or anything that doesn't look great.. You have to consider that maybe 6 months down the road a part you didn't replace may come back to haunt you.

 

[whoathere]

eh, I'm not worried about that. It's for sale as soon as its fixed. I have an 01 Mounty 5.0 now to play with.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Get the bonded separator plates.

 

[whoathere]

Brooklyn...thats what I have.. What I'm wondering is since I have put everything back together, and my problem is not solved, will I need to get another seperator plate, with the gaskets, if I want to do more work, or can I use the same one that I just put in.

 

[Wrench]

I did a check of the gasket crush after I too had to pull the bonded seperator plate and questioned its reuse. The original unused gaskets were 0.012" each, after installation they got crushed down to 0.006". Did I reuse the bonded gasket seperator plate - No! The 5R55E has enough VB pressure issues and I didn't wish to risk further problems because of a gasket not sealing. You will note that a number of people here have tackled the shift issues by covering the know problem areas all at once. Most have had good success in this approach. I guess it all boils down to how many times you want to take an ATF bath till the real problem is found.
Good luck