No 1st, Reverse is great still... any ideas?

[Brandons]

true.. but i also used to have drive working beautifully. I plan on heading down to an auto supply store tomorrow night to get the guage. Then the fun part. I will take pictures of everything i do in case theres anything you want to see.

Also to update the situation, it wont delay more then a second into drive when its cold (like -15 celcius) but once its been running, its harder and harder to get into gear.

 

[Brandons]

Alright i think im giving up on the guage, when the trucks cool enough to go into drive, i plan on putting it up on ramps and pulling the valve body. though ill probably not do it, at least ill have it up on ramps tonight

 

[Brandons]

Well unlike my plans i gave up on the last plan, and tonight was going to be the night until half way through the day i seemed to have pulled a muscle or something in my back. If its better tomorrow then i plan on starting then..

 

[Brandons]

Went out to put the trunk on ramps, no drive at all.... probably toast now..

 

[Brandons]

Ok up on ramps now, and once again im curious...

I have pulled the pan off and when i was checking to see each part id have to pull off to get the valve body out, i noticed the one solenoid (solenoid being two blue wires going to it) has a bit of play in the plastic clip were the wires connect to. I can rotate it almost a centimeter (almsot 1/4"). I dont know if this is alright or not? or perhaps my problem?

 

[Brandons]

Its out finally .. About 2 hours of thinking/pulling bolts... its out.

I bagged everything cept the pan bolts (there in a box with the ratchet i used hehe.) I pulled the little coin sized thing out for bore 203, and the bore didnt move.. Im not sure what needs to be done to pull it out, perhaps just some carefull pushing.. Also one of the L shaped pins fell out, i think i found the right place for it since there appeared to be nothing else holding in the one bore. None that ive played with have bothered to come out so im not sure what to do since i dont want to break anything..

 

[Brandons]

Alright i got Bore 203 out, as for the L pin that fell out, i also found were it went sucessfully (thanks glacier, the Valve body rebuild thread saved me!).

I didnt notice anything wrong with the bore (one tiny tiny tiny scratch which wasnt on the outer most part. The little end part had a couple small scrapes as well.

Im going to look into the solenoid because of the play in it..

 

[Brandons]

Alright a bit of an update, most of the plugs seem to be really hard to get out, some of the bores also seem as if they were stuck... Im still working at it bit by bit.. i also lost place of an L shaped clip while i cleaning it out with brake cleaner (the non chlorinated kind, only type they had).

 

[BrooklynBay]

One thing that should be checked out is the remote cooler. You mentioned that the lines were replaced. Was the cooler flushed out? If it has a partial clog, it will create an intermittent pressure problem that could be affected by temperature changes.

 

[Brandons]

perhaps, i have ran it with the line off (draining a bit too much fluid) its possible theres a clog, but doesnt explain why reverse is perfectly fine...

While pulling bores out (can only get about half of them out, the rest wont go out) there is a bit of ugly black oilish grease on some of the parts.


Also the 3-4 solinoid (i dont know if its that one for sure) when i pull it out the metal, not the filter itself, looks all scratched, as well as on the inside were perhaps it was scratching from the solinoid... I doubt this is any issue, but still..

 

[BrooklynBay]

I should have mentioned that there are a few companies that make a spray can with a hose that screws onto the fitting going to the cooler. I connected it to one of the cooler lines, and connected a hose going into an empty container to catch all of the waste chemical cleaner from the opposite line. It pushed out a lot of junk, and old fluid from the lines, and cooler.

 

[Glacier991]

Also the 3-4 solenoid (i dont know if its that one for sure) when i pull it out the metal, not the filter itself, looks all scratched, as well as on the inside were perhaps it was scratching from the solinoid... I doubt this is any issue, but still..

That scoring seems to be common and I'd advise you just polish it up a little and not worry. As for the bores you cannot get the spools out of, at least make sure that the spools move freely in the bores. As for the "loose" connector on the end of the solenoid, that too is not uncommon. Thanks for posting updates... keep us updated on your progress.

 

[Brandons]

BrooklynBay ill look into the spray can, definately sounds like a good idea .

Glacier im workin away at it for a while tonight hehe (12:17 am here) a few of the bores in there dont budge at all at first.. Im still very unsure how to determine any problems. I plan to go get some good brake cleaner to clean out the residue from each bore. I also found were the L-Clip went, i think losing these parts actually is helping me determine were everything goes.

When i get to the point were im going to go through every bore (once i can get them all to go out) i'll take some pictures just in case theres something i might miss..

For now im going to enjoy watching family guy and workin on this valve body

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[BrooklynBay]

If the bores are stuck, they make a special valve body lubricant that is similar to WD-40. It's in one of Glacier's pictures. He said that one place was real nice to him, and he bought it. He also said that it wasn't really necessary. Brake cleaner is good after you get all of the stuck parts out, but won't act as a lubricant, or something that will free parts inside of it.

 

[Glacier991]

BrooklynBay took the words out of my mouth... once you start using brake cleaner you will need to go back to the bore you are working in and use some spray lubricant... WD-40 is fine... I had (have) some teflon based lube but just so you have a lubricant ... they will seem hard to move once the film of ATF is stripped away with brake cleaner. Hope that helps...

 

[Brandons]

ohh i shall use wd-40 then Im still wondering if perhaps some bore got stuck or something to stop drive from working right. Either way im gonna call it a night guys. Hope you all enjoyed christmas .

 

[Brandons]

Im wondering if i should get a new gasket for the valve body? I pretty sure i should since that would rule out one more possibility.. but i have no idea were to get one. Also picked up a new can of wd-40 and forgot it at my friends, i had a couple cans layin around but i figured i wanted a fresh bottle for it.

 

[Glacier991]

Do you have a local FORD Dealer nearby? They can get you the gaskets. A transmission supply hosue should have them, and failing that I can mail you a pair. But YES replace the gaskets!! By all means.

 

[BrooklynBay]

They make 2 kinds of valve body gaskets. The regular ones are like tissue paper. The second type is a much thicker grade of paper gasket material. The thin ones get stuck to the valve bodies, and are very difficult to scrape clean. If you have to remove the valve body again for some reason, you will see that it was worth the extra money to get the heavier type.

 

[Glacier991]

My experience is that the typical valve body gasket (of which there are 2, one on each side of the separator plate) are about .012 thick... not exactly what my friend Michael calls tissue thin.... on most VB's that is all you have. In the case of the A4LD they DO make a thicker gasket for the separator plate to the case... and as I recall it is .020. If you like I can get you a set with the thicker one on the one side.