Weirdest thing happened today. I have a 94 E-150 with the 351 with 142,000 on it. Absolutely no issues and runs like a charm. All fluids are up. I pulled away from running an errand and all of a sudden the trans started shifting late and banging into gear when it did shift. I pushed the OD button on the stalk and nothing happened...the little light didn't come on. In addition, my odometer went blank and the speedo needle wavered instead of being steady.

I was a bit distracted by all this and went over some RR tracks a bit too fast and it bounced pretty hard. After the bumps, everything returned to normal! Is there a sensor or something that could have been hanging up and then jolted back to life? I am really scratching my head! Thanks!!!

 

It's not a sensor. You have something damaged somewhere in the wiring harness. It shorted, then the bumps moved it away from the short,

 

In that it mostly affected the transmission and the odometer, is there a way to narrow down the search for the short?

 

I had a similar situation and Mark K is pretty much spot on about the electrical issues.

Long story I swapped an incorrect instrument cluster into my E250 because several gauges had failed, speedo and odo working just fine prior to the swap.

Once installed I had no odo, all gauges worked perfectly yet the transmission behaved exactly as you describe. As it turns out there is a microprocessor inside the proper cluster that affects shift points etc----your symptoms are very indicative all this is more cluster related.

Clusters are year, model and engine/fuel specific---salvage yards or eBay tend to have many that are compatible, usually fair priced.

Not sure if this is good or bad news but it is what it is! Best of luck with this too.

 

Start by reading codes from the engine computer.

 

Mark I'm curious if the cluster had failed would that be a DTC and readable by better scanning tools?

 

I don't know the answer to that. I suspect you'd get a vehicle speed error if the PSOM isn't sending good info.

 

It sounds like a faulty cluster. We rebuild a lot of the 94-98 clusters for these same issues. Rebuilding it will retain the same mileage and also prevent any incompatibility issues. Feel free to call us at 800-547-2049 if you want to send the cluster in. We will confirm that it is faulty before rebuilding it.

 

Thanks for all the input, guys. I'll definitely keep your number for the cluster repair. So far, it has only happened once and I am naive enough to hope that it was a one time event. If it happens again, I'll be sending in the cluster! Thanks again!