Paging Opera House

[Robert]

I'm getting ready to order a new filter, pan gasket, o-rings and valve body gaskets for my '97 4WD 5R55E transmission. In a previous post you said part # 23921 is the correct filter for the 4WD 5R55E. OK, I got that one. Can you confirm the remaining part numbers?

Bulk Parts doesn't show the o-rings for the 5R55E filter, but they do have the orings for the A4LD so I have chosen 23270 and 23271. Are these the proper o-rings for my 5R55E?

Also, the only pan gasket they show is for the A4LD. They have two listed. One is a Farpak black gasket and the other is shown as rubber & cork. I have chosen the Farpak one (23141D). Is this the correct one?

Also, with all of the talk of the bad valve body gakets I have ordered the upper (23135B) and lower (23136B) gaskets as well for an additional $6.30. What are the symptoms of a bad valve body gasket? The only thing I can think of was where it wouldn't hold 1st gear when the shifter is put into 1.

Also, do you know the Bulk Parts part number for the seperator plate (if they carry it)? I couldn't find a seperator plate listed on their site. I have the annoying whistle that I would like to fix while I have the pan removed.

Finally, my main concern is that I have had a harsh shift when my transmission shifts from 2nd to 3rd. It has been there for about 83K miles now (I have 103K on it now). It hasn't gotten any worse over the years, however recently I now get a harsh downshift when coming to a stop. It seems to happen when my transmission shifts into/through 3rd gear (just before coming to a complete stop). It is worse when the transmission is cold and will occasionally lurch hard enough to activate my ABS. For instance if I am slowing down gradually at the end of my street, at about 20 MPH, I get a harsh clunk and my brake pedal starts pulsating for about 1/2 second. The lurch feels very similar to the lurch my Wife's '93 Sable (AOD) had for about a year before we needed to rebuild her transmission. Hers however, also slipped very badly when flooring it. Mine doesn't slip at all and since it seems to be only tied into 3rd gear, I am thinking that there maybe something wrong with solenoid #2 since solenoid # 2 is only used when in 3rd gear. The only two solenoids used in 3rd gear are #1 & #2 and since #1 is used in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear and since 1st and 2nd shift nice and smooth, I don't think it is the problem. Does this sound like a bad solenoid to you? I'm not sure if a bad solenoid can affect the line pressure during shifts or not or if the only symptoms of a bad solenoid are a lack of shifting into the related gears.

Any other words of advise?

 

[Opera House]

Thr filter gaskets are correct

Personally I'd rather have three of the cork gaskets (no D) for the same price. You should buy an extra filter and a manual while you are at it.

The valve body gaskets are not correct. These are for the four speed only. I admit that you eye transposes the 55E to the 4! You should only buy these and the plate from the dealer to get the latest update. Some new fluid/filter and tightening the valve body bolts might cure this. 7-8 ft-lb is just a good hand twist. Most torque wrenches start at 10 ft-lb. It is likely you will find sediment in the pan and that the new filter will be dirty in six months again. I've been able to reuse the cork gaskets several times with out leaks. It is recommended that guide pins be used to install new valve body gaskets. These cost about $30 but can be made from 5 & 6 mm bolts ground off.

 

[Robert]

Yeah, according to my source the separator plate should only be about $13 at Ford and the two gaskets are each around $3.00 also so I'll pick those up locally. I did a complete fluid flush and filter change 23K miles ago so I don't expect there to be any sludge. The first time I did anything to the transmission was at 50K per my owner's manual for severe duty. At that time, all I did was just a filter change and replaced the pan fluid with new. The fluid at that time looked brand new and when I ran the viscosity on it at work it came in within 2% of my new fluid. At 80K miles I went ahead and decided to do the filter again and since I didn't change all of the fluid at that time I went ahead and changed it as well. At that time though my fluid was very dark and there was a lot of sludge in the bottom of the pan. It took 19 quarts of new fluid before the fluid coming out looked like the new fluid I was pooring in. I now have a little over 103K on it. What little bit of fluid on the dipstick though looks new. I'll go head and order just the filter and pan gasket from bulk parts and pick up the seperator plate and both valve body gaskets locally. I'll be using my 1/4" torque wrench which has a range of 20 - 200 inch/pounds (1.7 - 16.7 ft./pounds).

What about the two o-rings? At $0.77 for the pair, I'll go ahead and order two pairs. What are your thoughts on the possibility of a bad SS2? I am not totally convinced that the problem is related to loose valve body bolts since the harsh upshift has been there for over 80K miles. I would imagine if the bolts were loose back then, that things would have gotten much worse by now.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Opera House]

Mine were loose on my 97

and it wasn't causing any problems yet. You might also want to get the little cover gasket for the low/reverse servo in case that tears. I only have a few technical pages on the gasket and EPC solenoid problem. They mention the bracket problem and replacing the EPC in '99. Not sure if it applies to all earlier years or if the new solenoid is just replaced so the new bracket can be used. Let us know what the gaskets really cost. I can't imagine ford selling anything for less than $10. I've been wanting to get a set to stash away in the car for when I'm on a trip. I think someone said when they needed them from a dealer they were out of stock for days.

I just got a Snap On 150 in-lb strain gauge torque wrench cheap that I attach to my BLH strain gauge meter. Just twist it with your fingers and you can get a couple digits. Heard someone else say he always sets them to 10 ft-lb because of problems with gasket. Worked on a rebuilt A4LD that almost needed a breaker bar to get the bolts off. Guess he didn't want any leaks. He was no genious, found five errors he did in the rebuild.

 

[Robert]

For the low/reverse gasket that you are talking about, I am assuming you are talking about part number 17? Paft # 17 is listed as "Gasket (Low/Reverse Servo Plate Cover)". Part # 20 is the o-ring.

 

[Opera House]

Yes, #17

Don't you just hate it when you pull something apart and find you need an additional part. This gasket is thicker than the others and usually stays in one piece. Did see a picture here of one that blew out from pressure and they lost the low gear.

I guess the cross section of #20 shows that they are still using a standard O ring for the large one. Another poster mentioned that they went to Ford dealer and it was just an O ring. SPX and Transtec supply one as a replacement that has a double lip.

 

[Robert]

I got everything on order with Bulkpart.com and Ford. I ordered two each of the filter, large & small filter o-rings and cork gasket. At Ford I ordered one each of the upper & lower valve body gasket ($5.39 & $5.20 each), a low/reverse servo gasket ($5.58), a small filter o-ring ($1.68), a large filter o-ring ($1.72) and the most current seperator plate ($16.57). The seperator plate is on national backorder until approximately May 2, everything else I could get in a day or two. I went ahead and ordered the filter o-rings from Ford since I know they will fit and I'm not sure about the ones from Bulkpart. If Bulkpart o-rings are the correct size then I'll have a couple spares. I also ordered the transmission manual, but I don't think I really need it now since everything I needed to know, I found on my Ford CD. I certainly don't plan on doing any rebuilds. I also don't believe that the harsh shifting when going into 3rd is due to a bad shift solenoid since the symptoms for a bad shift solenoid on my CD only indicate a loss of gear or locked into gear (depending on if the solenoid fails on or off). I went ahead and priced a new solenoid at Ford just in case and it is $68. I'll try the gaskets, filter, seperator plate and fluid first and go from there.

I took my SuperChip out which makes the harsh downshift practically non-existant. I was able to determine how much my SuperChip bumped up my pressure to my EPC solenoid. My scanner calls it line pressure, however the pressure results match what Ford calls EPC. What Ford is calling line pressure is about 2 or 3 times as high as my scanner indicates. What I found out was all of the static tests (Idleing in P, R, D, 2 & 1) my results match dead on what Ford states they should be. I don't know what they should be while driving though, but I did discover that with my SuperChip in, my pressure got as high as about 70 PSI during certain conditions. With my SuperChip removed, it maxes out about 45 PSI while driving.

I beginning to suspect that the harsh downshift is more of a result of putting my 33" tires on. My engine RPM doesn't match the original vehicle speed profile stored in my PCM. One thing I found on my CD was that a faulty VSS can cause a closed throttle downshift, bump or harsh shifting. This pretty much sounds like what I may be experiencing. Since my VSS is now regestering a speed that is 10% lower than expected, it is probably affecting my transmission. I plan on regearing to 4.56 which will put my RPMs back to where they should be, but that won't be happening for a while now.