Transfer case trouble on a 96 Aerostar.

[corkey]

okay , so , the transmission in the aerostar started not working very good, ,
it would go into gear and reverse, but it made a terrible crunching noise, and seemed not go into park, , checked fluid, level good ,smelled good,

so , that was last night in the dark,, today , i did a few things,, dropped the pan , and looked for pieces,, there were none,at all, not even filings, , ,
than after putting the pan back on with some gasket sealer and the old gasket ,it was okay , no damage,
than , i unbolted the torque converter from theflywheel, ,, it spun freely , but had a bit of resistance,, , like it should, and so , i rematched the proper bolts and holes on that , ,

than came the clincher,, it is a 4 wheel drive trans with t-case,, so i decided to check that too, , i opened the drian plug,, and ugh,, all grey and some filings,,, ,
so ,, than i put the van up on stands and started the engine,,, , it went into gear , and back into park, but made a kind of ratcheting sound every now and again, so that lead me to believe the trans wasn't done for,,
so,, i thought , hmmm what is there to check next,, so, i threw on the e-brake and stopped the back wheels,,
i was eliminating one thing at a time, and checking everything,,some things twice even , well that lead me to putting it in drive while on the stands and made to not move, and the tires not run,,, kind of like the frisbee that kept getting bigger,, it hit me,, the t-case was the cause of the noise,, , it seems the chain may be jumping on the gears, i have located a t-case for a great price, and will be changing that as soon as i can go get it 100 miles away , but i thought i wopuld share this with everybody so that if they have the same trouble even with an Explorer they will know how to trouble shoot for the problem, by Eliminating 1 thing at a time,, ,

i will let the people that are reading this know what the final result is,, if it turns out to be something else,, but i am hoping,, it's easy,,

 

[BrooklynBay]

Thanks for this information! I've updated the title for you. Could you take some pictures to make a photo thread on swapping a transfer case? You could rebuild your old transfer case, and make another thread on that too. I assume that you have a 4.0L since you have the E-4WD T-28 transfer case.

 

[corkey]

i will

 

[corkey]

aerostar t-case,

okay , today i went to a semi local (about 100 miles away ) wrecking yard , and picked up another transmission and t-case,, it was a great deal,,
torque converter , transmission, t-case ,and fromt driveshaft, all for $300, , i had to get it home, so i put it in the back seat of the ex,, it was leaking a bit out of the dipstick tube, so , , off to the local walmart ,and get a shower curtain to lay it on so it didn't leak onto the back seat ,, lol, ,

 

[BrooklynBay]

What year was the vehicle it was pulled out of? That's an interesting shade of forest green. It looks relatively new. It might have been rebuilt recently.

 

[corkey]

its outr of another 96, i didn't get to see it,, but it sure is clean in there,, and the fluid looked brand new,, front drive shaft even has the tag still on it,,

might have been rebuilt, i will examine it futher ,

 

[BrooklynBay]

Did you get a chance to look it over or install it yet?

 

[corkey]

i am installing it tomorow morning,, i will pull the old one, and take pics as i do it,
than after it is out i will show the 2 together, than pics as it goes back in,,

 

[corkey]

i know it looks funny that i put across the back seats of the ex, but i had no other option, it is so long,, almost from door to door in the back seat,, not only that, it had no room to go in the back cause that space right behind the seat is occupied by my sub box, and it is hard wired into the system, and could not be moved,,

 

[corkey]

okay , i got it changed, and it is all good,, it took about 3 1/2 hours in total for all of it,, with hand tools,, i will do a write up a little later tonight with photos,

 

[gmanpaint]

Wow! Corkey, you sure you don't want to open up a firehouse/fishing tour/mechanics shop?

3 1/2 hours to drop, and install all of that? In the frozen tundra no less! You are the man!

 

[BrooklynBay]

Thanks for the update! It usually takes me about 3 1/2 hours just to pull or remove the transmission without a transfer case. How did you pull the old one, and install the new one in this amount of time?

 

[corkey]

t-case

first i undid the back driveshaft from the pinion,12 mm socket , and than i undid the front driveshaft from that pinion, 10mm socket , than i undid all the t-case mounting bolts on the front between the trans and the t-case, all 13 mm bolts,, the top ones were hard to get , so i dropped the one side of the trans crossmember to make it a whole bunch easier to get it out,, ,
once all the bolts were out i pulled back the t-case a bit to get the slip yoke apart , and slid the t-case back to unhook the wiring, and than out onto the floor,, i couldn't get the front driveshaft out, so i left it in at this point,,

next i had already separated the new t-case from the new trans i got and moved it near the van , it still had the front driveshaft hooked up to it as well, seems to be a common problem, i couldn't get it out either,,

next item was to slide the new t-case under the van on a jack , than i fed the driveshaft up over the trans croossmember, and up to the front pinion,, , as i had a friend slide the jack in and lift it up , i got a few of the front pinion bolts on first , as i slid the yokes together inside the transmission ,

i than put a few of the bolts back in the front of the t-case to hold it in place,, and hooked up the wiring,, , just 1 plug, after all them bolts were tight , i took out the plug on the back side by the rear driveshaft output ,and filled it till it was coming back out a bit,, that means it's full, ,

than i put the front of the back driveshaft back into the reap output of the trans , and than put the driveshaft up to the pinion and started the bolts,,

i went back to the front driveshaft and made sure all the bolts were tightened properly, and than checked all the t-case bolts,and reafastened the crossmeber bolt as i jacked it up , than i finished up with making sure i tightened all the rear pinion bolts,, ,

after i tightened all the rear pinion bolts i jacked up each end and took it off the stands , and back on the floor,, , after i did this , i took it for a test drive , it worked great ,

during the test drive i went around a corner and heard a funny noise,, so, i stopped and let it idle,, no more noise,, hmm, , i turned the wheel and went ahead a little bit,, alerting me to another problem , , worn out cv joint in the front on the passenger side,, that will be another day,, i parked it and had a smoke,, happy , but not finished yet , , ,

 

[BrooklynBay]

I thought that you swapped the transmission, and the transfer case in 3 1/2 hours. I could see swapping the transfer case in this amount of time. I'm looking forward to seeing a T-28 rebuild thread.

 

[corkey]

There are only 5 bolts(1/2 inch) on the front of the t-case. They are seen in the pic in the front of the case. Most are pretty easy to get to except for one. The top one on the left side is right near the cat, so that is why I dropped the crossmember to get that one out.

Another thing is the fluid. It is filled with atf, and not gear oil, so I used Mercon V. It goes in a big bolt like plug on the back right by the output for the rear driveshaft. It is a 1 inch bolt.

 

[corkey]

The transmission turned out to be okay. It ended up only being the transfer case. Does anybody close by need a transmission for an Aerostar?

 

[BrooklynBay]

You should save it as a spare.

 

[corkey]

i think the vehicle book said it was a 4r44e , if it is , it might fit an Explorer too ,, but so far i am keeping it,,
it's a 4 speed,,

 

[BrooklynBay]

The 4R44E is used with a 3.0L while the 4R55E is used with a 4.0L.

 

[corkey]

so,, just a question, , does the re and re part get to be a sticky ??



is it most certainly almost the same for an Explorer too ??,