Last week, my tranny finally had enough. Noticed it slipping on a 105 degree day, tranny temp gauge was headed above 215 with no load on. Got home, and noticed a trail of oil out to the road.

I tried to save it one last time, did a internal filter change, external filter change, flush, and some soft shift and stop leak, but it had enough. No amount of cpr could bring it back. Pretty happy I got that many miles out of this transmission. I've pulled a load as heavy as 41,000 lbs over 60 miles. Once I had all the fluid dump out of it due to a broken filler neck and still drive it home 10 miles. Plus lots of heavy 4x4 time, miles and miles of trailer towing, etc.

So, today, got a call from the tranny guy, said my cause was warped. I know its been hot at least three times since I bought the truck with 112,000 miles on it. Still rebuildable though. I thought about a BTS tranny, but the wait is September something. I'm having a local diesel shop rebuild it. Billet converter, billet shafts, etc. I think it should outlast the truck at this point.......

I also had an exhaust leak I've been putting off dealing with, figured it was the stock up pipes.....turned out, one manifold was cracked in half, and the y adapter on the back of the turbo was cracked in half! Ouch! Made me feel like a bad owner today!

I know this week will be expensive, but I basically have beat this truck to death since I bought it, and its still going. These trucks are tough! For what I do with mine, it should have went to the superduty in the sky lot a long time ago.

New transmission, new exhaust, and hey, now may be a good time to put on that ball bearing turbo I've been thinking about......

Love my 7.3 and my Ford!

 

Sorry to hear your loss, but it will live again. BTS has a waiting list, but if you are broke like you are, you could get in sooner. Also there are some vendors, who keep them "in stock". Or you could consider the Tow master from JW or Clay.

Riffraff Diesel: John Wood Towmaster Trans

Just food for thought I guess at this point, as I have seen many a rebuild not go that well.

 

With the tranny out it would be real easy to get at those up pipes. Just sayin

 

That is true, and they will already be out probably. God this is getting expensive already, haha.

Im now praying for a 450k mile engine........going to have to keep driving this thing now, haha!

 

When I broke down, BTS shipped me one of their rebuilt transmissions that they have on their garage floor the next day after I called. The wait list is for when you want to use and rebuild your own trucks tranny.

 

Interesting........when I called they never offered that option. Very nice people though, she just said it would be September until he had an opening. I explained to her I was broke down, and was told I would get a call if something opened up.

 

It does add to the cost of a BTS because it has to be shipped to you and you have to have it installed by an out side person. They will want your old transmission back in order to rebuild it and sell it to the next person. They have a special shipping container for the transmissions. Warranty is still the same. From what I understand, there are 'Dealers' who have BTS transmissions. Do not know who they are. You may even be able to ship your tranny (if you have a special bond with it) to them and have them rebuild it 'after hours', when they do not have a customer in the shop looking over their shoulder and watching them work.

Just throwing that out

John Woods has a top of the line transmission also.

Don't go cheap on such an important part of the drive line.

 

hope you get it back together, for a rough truck life it sounds like your tranny held up to the abuse, you mentioned internal and external filters. what set up do you have and what are your maintenance practices and fluid used?

 

I am sorry for your loss! As far as the trans goes. But it sounds like you rode her hard and hung her up wet!! Now with you CO you are in the middle of BTS and JW. And it sounds like you are going to havew the local guys try to have at it. Well I would be asking alot question and maybe even guild them on what parts they are going to use. Most ..OK 98% of local shops over look the center support upgrades. but they put billet shafts in them. They just don't understand the E4OD/ 4R100 as well as they think they do.

Secondly you need to decide what side of the fence you are on???
As far as fiction material (Clutchs) you are on.
You have JW who uses Borg Warner
On the other side you have BTS who uses Alto
Both are GREAT trans but they do it differently with alot of the same hard parts.

I decided to stick with B.W. clutchs. To each their own. It really is NOT a question of right or wrong.

Now after what I have gone though on rebuilding mine. I would NEVER take my trans to any local shop. The only 2 I would let TOUCH my trans would be JW or BTS. So good luck if you use a local shop.
But if you do bite the bullet and get a JW or BTS !!
Or do it yourself

 

I use the dieselsite external trans filter. Seems to work really good. When I pulled the pan, I was expecting tons of metal around the magnet, etc. I was surprised that it was fairly clean. I opened up the external filter, and it was packed full, probably totally plugged. I would highly recommend an external filter! As far as maintenance practices, I've flushed the transmission every 12000 miles since I had it. Every other time I'll add a transmission additive. Every third time I would do the flush, I dropped the pan, and changed the internal filter. Probably over kill, but my transmission lasted quite a long time for what I do with it.

 

The local shop here is a diesel shop, they seem to know what their doing so far. I would never take one of these transmission to just a tranny shop, aamco, etc. Nothing against those shops, but your right, these transmissions require someone with a little more savvy.

Im having the center support addressed. As far as clutches go, I was asked which ones I wanted, I told him either brand in my opinion was good. Not sure which one he picked. I wasn't expecting a warped case, but at least it can be fixed.

Thank you for your good words of advice. It is always nice to hear others opinions on things that could be very expensive. I know bts and john wood are the right choices for a transmission, but at this point, I think the rest of the truck is about wore out. Lots of nickle and dime things starting to happen. My intent is to make this a secondary truck in 6 months. If I was planning on driving this thing as a primary vehicle for 5 more years, there would have been a bts or a john wood transmission installed.

 

What shop are you going to? Diesel Services?

 

Got my truck back today, so nice to be driving it again!

Had the exhaust all fixed while it was in the shop, I couldn't get any higher than around 20lbs of boost before the shop, now I get 26 pretty easy with a stock turbo....not to bad.

Driving home, blew one high pressure oil line, ouch! 2 gallons of oil all over the place. Apparently that was now the weakest link in the system due to all the repairs I just had done, and the turbo/air/fuel system being so much more efficient.

Had new oil lines installed, mine turned to be the original lines from Ford. The looked really bad.

Truck runs like I remember it used to. Pulls great, shifts great, Im satisfied. Guess now I have to drive it another year or so.....

The shop that did all the work did a great job. Guy is a stand up guy, and does quality work. Thanks all y'all for the help, words of advice, etc.

Long live my 7.3!!

 

Good to go for another 250,000.

Glad you got your baby back like you remember.

 

Did a road test today, drove it about 130 miles. It was 98 degrees outside, and the wind was blowing 40 mph headwind. Transmission never even got to 160 degrees. What caught my eye was you can now see the transmission temp climb a little bit under load, and then go back down when you get on the flat ground. Temps on the old transmission used to be at least 190 in these temps......