More Truck Stuff
E4OD Transmission Rebuild
What happens when you and your wife are driving along at a steady 60 mph on a flat road in the pouring rain and you hear a "POP" followed by the truck slowing down? Did we hit a huge puddle of water from the down pour that hit the underside of the truck making a "POP" sound with water soooooo deep it was slowing the truck? Maybe. The truck drove normal again for another 100 yeards or so then started slowing down again. Something was definitely wrong. We pulled off the side of the road and I shut the truck down to check one of my greatest fears - breaking the transmission. A quick pull of the dipstick assured my fears have come true. Black stinky goo all over the dipstick. The transmission had been flushed just three months earlier with fluid and filter changes every 36,000 miles. The torque convertor was drained after any hard pulling in addition to the 36,000 mile fluid/filter changes. Oh well, time to get the truck home. My wife and I limped the truck home by staying out of overdrive. After a little while of asking questions on the internet and pricing my options, I decided to rebuild the transmission myself. Another reason to rebuild the transmission myself is I have three other broken automatic transmissions that I should learn how to rebuild while I'm at it. I bought the rebuild parts from Defiant Equipment. Follow along and enjoy. I'll be taking my time during this rebuild, but I will not stop until the trans is back together and working properly.
Transmission ID tag
Hmmmm, the transmission fluid and filter was just changed three months ago, and regularly every 36,000 miles since I owned the truck new in 1997. This is not a good sign.
Burnt clutches with no friction material left - something is not right in here.
Here are some grooves that were left in the case. I had to lightly sand all of the marks down a little to knock off the sharpness of the edges. There were tons of places all the way down, deep in the transmission case that needed lightly sanded.
It is not a good sign when a pile of metal teeth come out of the overdrive assembly.
This photo is from Defiant Equipment. Defiant ran into much worse condition overdrive failures.
Here is a tool I made to compress the intermediate return spring.
Input shell with wear from the intermediate brake drum.
Thrust bearing wear - forward planetary.
This shaft snap ring was difficult to get out. It sits deep into the transmission and doesn't want to come off. 377132S Retaining ring
You can see marks worn into the input shell from the brake drum teeth.
The case is now cleaned from all of the black goo and sludge.
Washing help
Clean pan and magnet
This is why I decided to rebuild the transmission myself. RIP C4 - needs revived.
RIP C4 #2 - needs revived.
RIP AOD with C6 solid input shaft and many internal mods - needs revived.
Cleaned, taped and ready for some paint.
Painted and pretty.
Making a clutch removal/installer tool.
Reverse 4 vs. 6 gear industrial planetaries.
This is the shape to match off of the replacement hardend input shell.
4 gear planetary out, 6 gear planetary in.
5 friction clutch stack out, 8 friction clutch stack in. These were just a few on the upgrades done along the way.
Piston return spring compressor I made. I decided to use angle iron to press on the return spring assembly over a wider area. It seemed pretty flimsy and could use the extra support when compressing.
Mock up of the clutch removal/installer I am making to hold the intermediate brake drum, forward clutch and input shell assemblies together. I used part of the piston return spring compressor.
Forward/direct assembly ready to drop in!
Stock torque convertor. This is the part I though would fail first in the transmission.
Here is the new torque cnvertor. I'll try to get some specs. Right now you can only see the anti-balloon plate welded between the inner shaft and extending outward a few inches and welded to where the torque convertor body starts to "round"... Here are some specs: Forged billet steel inside and out with oversized 13" outside diameter. 3/8 thick forged Billet cover and damper, Wide diameter Triple disc converter clutch, 6 bolt cover tapped and threaded for bolts, no studs, turbine joints are reinforced with Braze and riveted oversized roller bearings replace ALL oem plastic washers and caps, Hardened impeller, heavy duty oversize roller stator. Custom stall speed. Those are the specs. This thing weighs 65 pounds! It makes the stock torque convertor feel light.
Reverse hub installed
Reverse planet installed.
Low/reverse clutches measuring in just around 0.030" of clearance. It is difficult to mearure the clearance here with out compressing the "wavy spacer". Note: I didn't measure the clutches with the transmission standing on end. I forgot to take the pictures when I really measured the clutches.
I finally get to test the new tool I made installing the forward/direct assembly. It worked pretty good. It held on tight to the assembly without letting it go crashing to the floor or anything bad.
Here is the modified transmission wiring harness. It is modified for a Banks Transcommand. I won't be needing the Transcommand anymore. I should go buy a new harness... if can't cost that much, can it... if you can get one at all!
Solenoid for intermediate brake drum band.
Intermediate brake drum band installed.
New vs. old intermediate clutch stacks.
Clutches and steel installed.
Old vs. new center support. New one has more surface area around the outside edge.
This can't be a good sign. The center support bolts do not line up with the holes in the case. I did something wrong.
While I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong, I might as well start thinking of a way to compress the overdrive return spring.
Talk about re-living the past. I gutted everything down to where the last snap rings went in and all was fitting properly.
A call to Defiant Equipment for technical support had me headed in the right direction. Check out the intermediate 1 way clutch race (top part). I had it up side down... check out the pictures a few above to see the difference. Why didn't any of you catch this and straighten me out? Haha!
OOOOOH LOOOKIE!! The bolts and holes line up this time!
The overdrive piston gets a spiral lock ring. It was quite a bit more effort to install than a regular snap ring. I didn't make a tool to compress the overdrive return spring. I just pressed real hard with a big screwdriver in one hand and worked the spiral lock in with a medium sized screw drive with the other. I only bled a little.
The intermediate return spring is installed.
The intermediate/overdrive assembly is ready to be compressed and the snap ring installed.
Setting up the intermediate clutches.
Removing the manual lever retaining pin. This is a slick trick from Defiant Equipment.
Final grab with a file handle acting as a pin vice.
Out it comes!
Remove this spring assembly so it doesn't break during removel of the 21mm nut.
I didn't have a 21mm box end wrench, so I modified a 21mm socket to fit a 1" open end wrench. The assembly was able to move over far enough with the retaining pin removed to fit the socket.
Old seal out.
Overdrive planetaries. My broken one vs. the Defiant Equipment modified one.
The coast clutch spring compressor I made.
Coast clutch assembly is apart.
The new retention ring is a file fit ring. Note the tight gap. I dread the day I have to take that ring back out.
The Coast clutch assembly is installed. This assembly is such a pain to line up everything. I tried upside down blindly in the trans, got lucky once, but had to pull it back out when I found a thrust bearing I got mixed up with an old one. I didn't get so lucky a second time. I had to align everything together on the work bench and fight gravity on the install.
Stock input shaft (front) vs. billet input shaft. You can see the wear in the original input shaft.
Overdrive assembly together.
Overdrive assembly underside - Look at this mechanical nightmare!!! Who dreamed that up?
Removing the plug for the pump valve assembly.
New aluminum valve vs. stock plastic valve.
Modded assemblies:
Main regulator (back)
Convertor Regulator valve (middle)
Convertor clutch control valve (front)
New pump gerotor inner/outer gears.
The pump halves are together. Shown is looking down the worst aligned hole. You can see a small lip sticking out inside of the hole. There was one other hole with a very slight lip like this. The rest of the holes had no lip showing at all. This will hopefully be a good alignment.
The pump is installed. Checking to see that the input shaft turns in both directions. A nylon strap is protecting the shaft teeth. The input shaft does turn in both directions, but it take a bit of effort.
Accumulator calibration plate. The marked holes get drilled out to fine tune the shifting. I'm starting small and going to gradually work up until I am happy with the shifting. there are recomendations, but my trans used to shift into third like a brick getting throw against a wind shield, so I'll take my time with this one.
Drilling holes in the accumulator valve body. talk about nerve racking!
Great, I get to drill another hole in the main valve body. To my surprise, the holes drilled very nicely and left little to deburr.
Marking the separator plate.
Check balls are installed.
Correct gaskets, solenoid pack, and valve body in place.
This check ball housing has roughness. The original ball had no wear marks, so I didn't try to smooth this out.
The calibration plate is in place.
All fastners torqued.
FINALLY!!!!
New transmission cooler.
Aluminum vs. cast tailshaft housing. The cast iron housing looks like it can hold more capacity.
Trans cooler 30K GVW W/bypass.
Iron tail shaft with plug.
5/16" to 3/8" input lines are bent to shape.
Fittings and stuff.
Brace to hold torque convertor in place during transmission installation.
We went from getting ready to install to you seeing a picture of the coast clutch piston. I'll back up and explain what happened. After the transmission was installed, the road test didn't turn out very well. The truck decided it wanted overdrive on at 35 mph and would not disengage until 22 mph or 600 rpm. The "ODOFF" button would not cancel the overdrive. I could feel like it was trying to work, but something wasn't right so the transmission came back out to see if I installed a seal up side down or something. I had the seal in the correct direction. Time to check for something else wrong.
Checking the solenoids. All checked out good with the ohm meter, and also with voltage and ground attached... keep looking for something wrong...
While I was here I didn't like the way this valve (right) made the shifts feel, so the original (top/center) went back in.
Many hours were spend ringing out the transmission harness to the PCM, ECU or whatever you want to call the truck's computer. Everything seems to check out good. This Manual Lever Position Switch proved to be the problem. There are many signals running through this thing. A different resistance for each tranmsission lever position, neutral safety (start) switch, the speedo... All of the different signals checked good with the digital ohm meter but it really wasn't good. The instructions said to replace this switch during the rebuild. That will teach me to try to reuse a part that seemed to be working fine. The transmission is back in and shifts just fine. I still need to fine tune the calibration plate on the valve body. The shifts are nice, but could be a little firmer. I will drill the holes marked 2nd, 3rd, and 4th a little larger once I put some miles on the transmission and see how it settles in.
I had a lot of fun learning about this transmission and had the satisfaction of rebuilding it myself. The electrical problem was not fun and took a long time to troubleshoot. Now, I'm WAAAAAY behind on the race car!
2/10/08 Update: I didn't like the way 4th was shifting. It was taking about two seconds and the rpms would increase during this shift. The original valve (above center was removed and the Sonnex 0.427" valve was reinstalled . The calibration plate was also drilled out to 0.094". 4th gear now shifts good at low rpm, and high rpm, but still has a delay during mid throttle shifts. I have put about 3000 miles on the transmission since the rebuild and added a spin on style filter with anti-drain back valve to keep the torque convertor from draining back into the transmission. I need to monitor the back pressure prior to the filter so I can determine when it needs to be changed. A lot of debris has already come out of the transmission part of the radiator from when the transmission let go last year.
What is missing from the race car???
Trying to make the 67mm turbo from the race car fit in place of the stock Powerstroke turbo.
Making an oil adapter block.
Stock stuff to compare with.
Drilling out the adapter block.
Adapter oil feed/return block starting to look like something.
Stock Turbo Rebuild
