Tranny slips bad/won't engage

[2000SL2]

My wife drives a '93 XLT 4X4 with around 140,000 miles. I changed the tranny filter about a year ago and everything looked good. Recently, the truck has started acting up. It would hesitate when shifting into reverse. Then it started hesitating when shifting from reverse to first. It was only momentary at first, but soon took longer and longer. The past two days, it started slipping any time you stopped and tried to give it gas. It would wait a while, then, BOOM! Whiplash! Today it just stopped shifting at all. Just won't get into gear. It has not been slipping while moving, only from a stand still. At least until today. It just slipped all over the place until it wouldn't work anymore. And it only went two blocks.

When this all started I checked the fluid level and it was just below the cross hatch area so I kept watch on it and added some as needed. No leaks underneath. There was a little fluid coming out of the vacuum tree two weeks ago so I figured the vacuum modulator needs to be replaced. It's just been too cold out to do yet. But, I doubt the VM could cause these serious of problems. My keyword searches were fruitless, as everyone elses posts were about problems shifting between 1-2 or while in 4X4, so sorry if this is a beaten subject. I just couldn't think of any other ways to search. Any ideas what is wrong? Thanks in advance!

Brian

 

[Glacier991]

Well this one may be a little bit of a crapshoot.... at 140,000 miles it COULD be internal things that mean rebuild... but it COUDL also mean you have some sticky valve body spools and the proverbial leaky low reverse servo (needs new seals). You could try removing the VB and rebuilding it, adding seals to the L/R servo and adjusting the bands. Might solve it for you.... but, might not. I'd give it a 70% chance.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Your pressure could be low. It would advisable to check it with a transmission pressure gauge. Your cooler and/or valve body could be clogged. Your boost valve, and vb gaskets could be going bad too. If you are going to replace the low/reverse seals, then there are 2 other improved seals compared to the stock O rings. 23256K double wiper low/reverse servo kit ($1.52), Transtec viton seal kit for the low/reverse servo 23256KA ($2.70). They are available from WWW.TransmissionPartsUSA.Com.

 

[2000SL2]

<resurrecting my old thread, lol>

I tried it again today and it almost won't go into drive at all now. Reverse takes a while. I can shift it into 1&2 though. Still sound like the above problems? Also, can these repairs be done with the tranny still in the truck or does it have to be removed? If it has to be removed, it'll just have to wait a while until it gets nicer out. Thanks guys!

Brian

 

[vanionBB]

I believe you can rebuild the valve body with the tranny in the truck. To go any deeper you need to pull the tranny. After reading through these threads I would suggest looking into rebuilding the valve body, the walkthrough posted here is very good. At the very least check your transmission pressure. (I have no idea how to do this btw, maybe someone can help)

 

[BrooklynBay]

There is a good sticky thread about checking the transmission's pressure. The fitting is on the driver's side of the transmission near the rear, but before the extension housing. It is pretty close to the shifting mechanism, but behind it.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Here is a picture of the fitting on the transmission. You could thank Glacier, since it was one of his photographs from another thread.

 

[Krusie]

I have a 93 ranger A4LD. I have a similar problem to this; my transmission would take forever to engage but once it was warmed up, it was fine. It does this when it is cold, but now when my transmission is WARM, I can't put it in drive unless I push it about 20 feet because it won't engage.
The fluid doesn't smell burnt and it isn't low. I tried putting a fluid into loosen the seals but if it did anything I couldn't tell the difference.
Im not sure if I should post this here but it won't let me start a thread.