ummm help lol

[toomanycars]

ok so I do small repair jobs on the side to help friends and family ..
So a friend of mine calls me and asks if i would replace the tranny in his 96 explorer .. so i told him I would take a look at it and see what I could find ..so he told me where it was and that the keys were in it .. I went to take a look and found a few interesting things .. 1. the tranny clunks hard into gear .2 once the truck had warmed up to running temp I checked the tranny dipstick and found that it was about 4 quarts over full 3. the fluid is burnt smells burnt and looks burnt ...

so I called him and asked if it had ,had any other tranny issues slipping or anything .. he said that i has never had any probables and when i told him it was over full he said that he had never put any fluid in it.. the truck will move but barely.. its been very cold here the last few weeks ..I did wonder if the transfer case could be part of the problem . when i was first looking it over i switched it to 4x4 and it just blinked at me with out doing anything ...

I have not pulled the tranny pan or anything yet.. I was thinking of just draining the fluid and flushing the system and installing a new filter and see if that changes anything..

I guess im kinda lost on were the extra fluid would have came from .. I know on these setups the transfer case uses the trans fluid as well and I was thinking that maybe something there was cloged or broken .. I just dont want to spend unnecessary money to find out the tranny is shot ..

 

[Bruces expo]

Well if the fluid looks and smells burnt , that means clutch packs ,and or bands have made some problems internally , I wouldn't try the flush or filter to only find the problem again . I would look into a used trans or possibly a full rebuild with a new Torque Converter . Just my $0.2

 

[Turdle]

I wonder if engine coolant went to the transmission via the internal radiator cooler-how does the coolant level look? does it look oily?

 

[Justme63]

I have an early 96 and when the 2nd gear starts to bang it is an inherent problem, easier to replace unless you got the $$$ to repair. Check the door tag and if it happens to be a late 96 you are in luck, early 96 is a pain. The door tag will also tell you which trans. is in the truck. I know there is a post in here to decipher the codes, somewhere. The 95 and early 96 models used a 4R44E transmission which turned out to be weak and even more doomed to failure if used for any towing, later in 96 the people at Ford upgraded the tranny to, I think, a 5R44E or 5R55E which from the info I have read has an extra clutch. Now somewhere in here is the procedure to convert a later model transmission and I don't think it was all that complicated either. I lucked out with a 95 parts donor that had never seen a hitch, not even on the bumper. I was able to drive said donor as well so I did a straight swap. Good luck and I hope I helped some. Happy New Year

 

[toomanycars]

the coolant is still green and full so i dont think that the rad cooler went.

heres a pic of the trans dipstick.. this is completely cold mind you I havent taken a pic with the trans warm..

 

[PopRichie77]

The fluid level must be checked when warm, engine running and in park.

 

[1992fordgreen]

Clutch packs need replacing. If not now, eventually.