Hello all,
Yesterday my transmission on my work truck decides to fail. I'm at a loss on trying to figure what the problem is and was hoping you all could help me solve it. I will try to provide as much information as I can.

2003 Ford F350 7.3 diesel auto with 4wd, 85k

Started the truck to allow it to warm up. We have been getting 38 to 45 degree weather. Proceeded to drive the truck for about 8 miles and come up to a red light and stopped. When the light changes to green, I hit the accelerator and the motor just free revs. Look down to make sure that the truck is in drive. No go.

I did check the following,
I have no leaks whats so ever.
I checked the auto tranny oil level and that was fine.
The check engine light did not come on.
I checked to make sure that the 4wd system was not engaged nor sitting in neutral.
No warning signs or noises, the tranny was pulling normal up until I stopped,'
All gears are showing the same signs.
When you move the gear selection to all the other gears, it seems as if it's disconnected. Before when I changed from drive gear to reverse gear I would place my foot on the brake and change to a different gear. You would get a slight hesitation knowing the gear was selected. Now when I move the gear I do not get anything. This has me baffled. Has anyone else come across this problem? I really like this truck and has been pretty much been trouble free.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

Check out this thread, would be worth checking out what others have run into (loose bracket under the steering column) before hauling to a trans shop:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...ift-lever.html

 

I had a 2001 F250/v-10 Did a similar thing..

I drove down to the barn (normally) & turned it off. A little while later & I got into it started & put into gear.. Nothing.. all gears - except reverse caught so I could move it a little backwards. I had to tow it about 20 miles - Some kind of failure in the trans (I'm not a auto Trans guy- that was my first) anyway had to do a $2k rebuild...

Sorry - I hope yours is an easy fix...

 

just replaced my e4od which is the older version of your 4r110?cant remember exact number.
anyways. i had the same as above no forward gears but had reverse. blew up the forward planetary gear. replaced with a steel one that comes in yours now its fixed.

but i had a grinding sound prior. it sounds more like a sensor is out somewhere. not like a failure like what we^^ experienced.

 

maybe your t-case? have you put it in 4 hi and lo? try that?

 

There is no sensor that could do this. The only thing it could be is mechanical failure inside the transmission.

 

I had the same problem with my jeep. Started it up the next day and it seemed fine. 5 miles later same thing, only free revs. Turned out to be the fluid pump.

 

Not to thread Hijack, but my 1999 F450 7.3 diesel 4r100 trans decided to freak out on me last Friday. I was headed home and as I was getting on the freeway someone blew through the on ramp meter lights behind me and about rear ended me. I punched it and it downshifted from 3rd to 2nd and hit 4k rpms, ouch. I eased up and it shifted back to 3rd, then normally into 4th. 15 miles down the road I had to slow down to 10-20mph in traffic. When it shifted back to 3rd it seemed like it was slipping and the converter did not lock up. I gave it more throttle and it shifted to 4th. The overdrive light started flashing then. I stopped off on the side of the road and pulled the codes it was p0783 which is a 3-4 gear solenoid. I cleared it and restarted the engine, it drove fine the rest of the way till I got off the freeway. As I started out it shifted fine till it got to 3rd. The OD light did not flash again. When I got home I tried to back in and it would not engage. It seemed to grab as I revved it. Rather then thrash it I parked on the street. I checked and the fluid was full, reddish and did not smell burnt. I called my Mechanic and told him what happened.

Monday morning I drove it to the shop, It shifted fine the whole way and .... even had reverse.
We pulled the pan to check the fluid and it was slightly burnt , but clean,with no metal in the pan. (the truck has 190k miles on it. I bought it 15 months ago with 165k miles on it and the fluid was clean then.)
We serviced the trans and it would not back up again.
Today we pulled the trans and pulled it apart, all of the hard parts looked completely normal. Only thing we can figure is the converter
( that was a 99' rattler) was starting to come apart and a piece of junk got stuck in the solenoid. Rather then put it all back to gather we are rebuilding it with a new Danco triple disk converter and doing some upgrades to help it deal with my foot and the almost 14,000lbs that the truck weights.
I am not excited to pay for this rebuild, but for the cost to R&R the trans I was not going to put it back in with out fixing it right.

I guess Mark Kovalsky was right when he told me my truck had trans. issues about few months ago in a previous post.

 

P0783 means the 3-4 shift didn't happen when it was commanded. It does not necessarily mean it's the shift solenoid.

 

Well I picked up the truck from the shop today. I trust these guys to stand behind their stuff.

With a new Dacco triple disk billet converter , upgraded drum and all new solinoid pack and programming kit for the valvebody including labor to R&R the trans and rebuild it out the door I paid 3100 bucks. I guess there was over 900 just in hard parts that they replaced in the trans. I did talk them down from the intital bill of over 3400 bucks. (Most of the discount came because I knew how much the converter cost them to buy.) If it was a big name brand converter I would have said OK and not argued.)
but being racing buddies and friends with the shop owner usually has its perks. I have to try for the good guy discount.

On a good note it shifts and drives great.... It just seems that I never am ready for the bill, its like there is always something that I don't expect.

 

I suppose I'm hijacking a rather old thread, but here goes anyway.

I'm about to haul my 2001 F-350 (7.3L SRW) into the shop tomorrow - I have what sound like the exact symptoms as CarbonClear - First started happening when I'd back up a long distance, say 200 yards. Put it in forward, and nothing in any gear. If I go real easy on the throttle, I may get a little creep forward, but not much. So I'd put it in first, set the e-brake and walked away for 5 minutes. Come back and I have forward gears again.

That was the first episode.

Tonite, I backed into a boat ramp at the lake, unloaded the boat (very small boat. probably weighs 500 pounds.), and had no forward. Nice guy at the lake pulled me and my boat out. This time I waited, tried all the gears - Nothing. By the way reverse was working normally.

I'm sure Mark Kovalsky, who sure sounds like knows what he's talking about gets weay of us folks, but man... it's such an odd failure.... I mean I drove 10 miles to the lake, tranny worked fine, lots of stop and go. Drop it in drive and nothing. No noise, no grind, no nothing. Add that to the fact that I've experienced the symptoms before, yet it recovered and was driveable....

Carbon, if you resolved your issue would you mind letting me know what your problem was?

Any other commentary appreciated.
(ATF is full and clean)

 

This could be a loose feed bolt. There are bolts that are hollow that pressure channels pass through. If they loosen you get weird symptoms like this. It might be an easy fix.

 

Thanks Mark - After a bunch of googling I was going to try that as it seemed probable. I went down to the launch this morning, where I left the truck, parked on the level overnight. Drove home fine, all gears seemed to work normally. Was about a 10 mile drive so had plenty of time to warm up.

I plan to take a look at the feed bolts tonight and tomorrow. I'll post back to let others know if that was it.

Mark, one other thing... The check *****/bearings... I assume they're all going to fall out when I drop the valve body etc. (?) I've found a few posts related to this, along with pics of their location, but no definitive info on how you get them to stay back in their respective locations for re-assembly. What's the best way to manage that?

Thanks again for the response.

 

It seems a dollop of vaseline is acceptable to hold them in their locations. Sound right? I read to stick it in the fridge so it thickens up a bit. Being as it's "petroleum" jelly, seems to make sense.

Can anyone confirm?

 

Yes, that's how it's done.