No drive or reverse gears in 4̶R̶5̶5̶E̶ 5R55E. Line pressure all over.

[Justin_]

Ok. Well I really couldn't get them out so I passed over them.

Anyway. Made lots of progress today at the expense of sleep. lol.

Got the transmission fully together with t-case and ready to install

Spent a few hours pushing things around attempting to install.


I got the transmission just about in place, but it is about 1" from mating up. At this point im guessing the torque converter became unseated at some point as the TC is up against the flex plate, but the bell housing is not against the block.

So I guess that I will see if I can slide the transmission back enugh to reseat it. If that does not work then I guess ill be forced to pull it back down.

Eah, ill get there soon. Once its in its just a few brackets and driveshafts!

 

[Justin_]

Woo, this just got better. lol
Did not get to finish this last night. Was trying to beat this.

Bout this much more snow coming today. Should start to ease off Friday. Not to mention its super windy

 

[Justin_]

Quick update.

Torque converter was seated down as far as it could with reasonable force so I started looking further. I started by pulling the pump off thinking maybe something got misaligned but that didn't seem to be the issue.

The issue turned out to be the seal on the oil pump input shaft thing. It's one of those one piece seals you stretch into place and it wasn't sized down enough. With the pump still removed I was able to shrink it down a bit and then seat it onto the torque converter and let it rest for a bit.

After that everything worked fine. Through the pump back on the transmission and started getting it back in the vehicle. This time it lined right up.

Got most of the main bolts in place but realized I'm missing one of them so I'll pick up replacement at home depot. Unfortunately it was one of the bottom ones so it's easy to get up.

With all the fiddling with the transmission and pulling it in and out that was about all I had time for today. Started putting in the torque converter bolts and ended up dropping one to the bottom of the bell housing, then also dropped a pic tool in there. Realistically it won't be that hard to get out but I was getting pretty exhausted by that point.


I will be able to (hopefully) get everything else thrown together pretty quickly tomorrow. Just need to tighten down the torque converter, pop in that last mount bolt, get the support in place, throw on a few axles, and get the transfer case skid plate back in. Then just fill it up and see if it'll drive.

Let's hope all goes well!


Honestly I have learned that actual transmission repair work is pretty easy and when I'm not under a terrible time crunch is something that I enjoy. However installing transmissions and to a lesser extent removing them is a huge pain in the ass and I am not a fan.

 

[Justin_]

Well I got it back together today, but i'm still having issues.

First off, I was not actually missing a bell housing bolt. Just totally forgot that one of the bolt holes goes unfilled. Everything went together just fine.

After filling it up on oil I noticed that reverse was super slow to engage. It took several seconds to work, but was solid once it did.

Putting it into drive and taking it for a relaxed spin around the block went ok. 1 to 2 shift was a bit hard, but fine. I tried to take it down a main road and then it had issues. Started off strong, accelerated well, shifted at least once, but then after trying to shift another time it nutraled out. Coming to a stop and going back down the road it did the same thing. Trying neutral gears they seemed fine. 2nd worked even better than it did before. Took it up to 50 in 2nd, then tried to shift back into drive and did not click in anywhere.

The strange thing is after all this reverse didn't want to engage at all the last time I tried it.

I have 1 and 2 in drive, and did get reverse, so I think I fixed what I went inside for. Kinda just thinking I need a new VB at this point.

Anybody have thoughts before I throw another few hundred dollars at this?

Im also wondering if the intermediate band is not correctly adjusted, so I will probably hit that tomorrow and see if it changes anything.

 

[Justin_]

Well moving the vehicle around this morning and trying to drive it back on the ramps I see there is a definite leak from the intermediate servo cover and a bit of a drip from the OD servo cover. I'll chase that down first and get the new pistons that arrived late in while I'm at it.

 

[Justin_]

Well I think I found the problem.

The intermediate apply piston cover has a crack running most of the way around the circumference and also across the middle of it. It must have been spraying fluid everywhere and probably accounts for that little drip hanging off the bottom of the overdrive piston cover. I'll see if I can chase one of these down in a junkyard otherwise I'll order anyone. At least I didn't take very long to figure out.

 

[donalds]

Wow first time I seen that

 

[Justin_]

Yeah, that one is probably on me. The transmission tipped off the jack at one point when I was trying to get it in place. It probably hit there, possibly on top of a socket or something.

The break being new would explain why I had reverse at first but then it just completely went away.

Similarly but in reverse it had basically no leaks at all at first but then they got worse.

 

[donalds]

You'll Get her

 

[Justin_]

Well lucky me. Nobody local wants to sell me anything less than a full transmission. So back to ordering parts.

I was able to get it from the dealership so it should be here in a few days.

 

[Justin_]

Sorry for the delay. Ended up getting my part really late because the dealership didn't get freight for three days.

When I got the new cover on I made sure I was topped up on fluid and tried to drive it around again. Still had an issue where manual first and second were fine and drive worked in first gear then had a hard shift to another gear then after trying to shift again had nothing.

I noticed that drive after the second shift had some really weak engagement so just to test things out I put it in second, got it up to about 45/50 or so, then went into drive and laid on the gas fairly hard for maybe four or five seconds.

After that I was only able to get weak engagement in any of the gears including manual first, second, and drive.

At first I was thinking I was probably just having valve body issues, but now that I am only getting very weak engagement on all gears I really don't know what's going on.

I did reach out to Central valve body and got a pretty competitive quote but honestly I want to have someone look this over before I throw much more money into it. I am going to drop it off at a reputable local transmission shop tomorrow morning and have them do a once over and see what they think about it before I do anything myself.

Hopefully it doesn't need to be ripped back out again and it's only a valve body thing, but really who knows.

 

[JK080]

Sounds like low line pressure, if you have a gauge that would help with whats going on, it still could be something with the valve body like a cross leak or something miss assembled.

 

[Justin_]

I did have a Harbor Freight oil pressure gauge, but at some point it totally died. With the line totally open it would read 90PSI. Ya just reminded me that I need to return it before it's too late. Have a few other returns I need to make too. Not having a truck sucks.

I went ahead and ordered a valve body from Central Valve Bodies. Came out to $291 including shipping and a $20 refundable core.

I then found a listing from them on eBay for $195 shipped with no core. Kinda wish I did that, but at the same time the money is going to a small business with a good reputation, so I can't really complain.

It came packed super well. Plastic wrapped with an absorbent pad Then wrapped again with a cardboard backer, then in a vacuumed bag, in a ziplock bag, in a box with packing, in another box with more packing. I was really impressed. Normally only see that level of packing from stuff out of Japan.

Gonna see if that takes care of it in the next day or two. If it does, then great. If not the transmission will need to come out either way anyway. Not paying $950 in labor just for removal and installation.

Ill go from there I guess. Im definitely thinking it could be the VB. The valves in the old one were a lot harder to move than I had any reason to expect they should be, and the manual valve was harder to shift than normal once reinstalled (ill check that that is all correct when I have the pan back off). I wanted to replace the VB when I did the rebuild but didn't have the cash at the moment. Im still looking for a new place to live, but I have my first check from my new job now so im not doing too bad anymore.

 

[Justin_]

Ok so I dug back into the thing.

First off the VB did not make everything suddenly work again, thus the radio silence. I guess I was kinda disappointed (even though I expected that) so I forgot to post an update.

Good news is it only took about 2-1/2 hours to get it out this time. Im getting better

Breaking into it, there was a bit of clutch material in the pan, but not very much. Moving on I found that the pump ring was a bit melty, guess it was too thick. I didn't know there were multiple options until after I put it back in. What is the tool/process to measure this anyway. Would love to get the right one in now.

Moving forward I found that most things looked really good. Clutches were solid, parts looked clean, all was going well until I popped out the forward clutch drum.

As you can see, it looks like first the snap ring got quite hot arround the 2-o'clock posistion, then the top of the drum started to break off just above the snap ring. And all those bits...

Wound up just getting cough in the shell. Fortunately they didn't seem to do any damage at all. Sun gear looks great, as does the rest of the forward clutch assembly. Only other thing noteworthy is the clutch pack was a bit worse for wear. The steels definitely got kinda hot, and the frictions are a touch worn down. This is probably where the material in the pan was from, along with a bit of old material in the t-case and TC.

My immediate thought was to wonder if there was too much pressure applied, but after a bit of thought I dont know if that is possible.

My current theory is that the old failing VB may have applied a forward gear and the reverse gear at the same time, and the forward clutch was the first to go.
Is that something mechanically possible with the VB alone? Would it be possible for the "forward valve" and the "reverse valve" to be on at the same time, or should I keep looking?

Im going to order a new clutch drum and a few gaskets to start here anyway. Looks like the drum is pretty cheap at least.

 

[Justin_]

Well 3 weeks later here and I finally got some time to work on the transmission yesterday. Got it all back together. I finally found the guides on how to size for the pump washer so ill pull the bell back off and check that again. Other than that just need to set the bands and get it back in the truck *fingers crossed*.

When I gave it a going over I found that there was a bit of the OD piston seal that had torn off and had become lodged in the drain hole, probably not helping things. I don't know if I mentioned, but when I did this the first time I ordered 2 new pistons to use on overnight shipping, but they didn't show up for some 2-3 weeks so they didn't make it in. Shows the importance of just taking your time, even if you feel rushed to get the truck back. I wish any of the local trans shops would sell parts to mitigate this, but they are all full service only. No parts, no diagnostics.

I had adjusted the bands when I had the pump and bell housing off and found that even after backing the studs off 2/2.5 turns I was not able to rotate the OD drum by hand as it was still held in place by the band. Is that normal? I figured it could be because there was not enugh trans fluid or because the drums were not firmly supported and were being pushed to the side, but I don't know.

I hadn't found the guides on setting the pump washer until today, so I just went with the biggest washer that would fit without contacting both the OD drum and the pump. Ill actually measure it and see how close that actually got me.

Glad to be about wrapped up on this. Im hoping this will all go smooth now that I'm replacing all the bits.

 

[Justin_]

Oh, also forgot one thing.

The transmission originally had washers on the necks of the bell housing bolts. I ordered some replacements from WITTrans, but they shipped out rubber coated washers. Is there any advantage/disadvantage to using those? Im sure I could go find some O-Rings locally if its better to stick with standard rings.

 

[Justin_]

Well I finally got the last of the parts back in and the truck all back together. Filled it with fluid with the new torque converter and new valve body and got absolutely nothing.

Didn't feel any engagement whatsoever in any gear

 

[Justin_]

Never mind! I'm just an absolute idiot! Apparently 5r55e's don't like to run on four and a half quarts of oil. It works perfect! I'm so happy! Thank you everyone!

 

[Justin_]

See you all on the road ahead!