Rebuilding a 2001 4r100 from a 7.3L F250 4X4. Its been driven with a Wildman chip for a few years now. Randomly, like a light switch it just start slipping in first and wouldn't shift into 2nd. I also could hear some faint metallic rattling coming from the tranny area. Suspect mechanical diode, turns out I was correct.

I have never been inside an auto tranny before, infact before now I had no idea how they worked. It has been something I've always wanted to learn, and figured now was a good time. Bought an ATSG manual, spent countless hours reading forums and had at it.

That being said, if you see me doing anything stupid please call me out on it!!

Pretty much a must to use a tranny jack for this thing... it weighs 450lbs.


Built a tranmision clamp to mount it to the engine stand:


First sign of issues...


Found the O/D snap ring was loose... a common problem. While this was not my catastrophic failure, it would have led to slipping clutches in the near future. Putting in a spirol snap-ring to fix.


Here is the real failure, the mechanical diode:


Mechanical diode on the left, replacment drum with sprag on the right. Of course the sprag is also somewhat weak, so I will be upgrading to a 45element sprag (original is 34).


There were also a couple thrust washer that were pretty shot::


Being a mechanical engineer, I find this absolutely awesome:


With the center support torqued, I hand stoned the valve body surface (after removign the studs). Got it within .0015" which should be fine.


Then had it stuck in a parts washer at a real shop. Nice and clean now:


Ended up going with a John Wood rebuild kit, with machined center support, rear planetary, coast drum and pressure plates to fit an extra clutch/steel in each pack. JW was very extremely helpful via phone guiding me in the right direction. Also bought his valve body and machined/modded pump. Need to send lots of my stock parts back for core.

While waiting on parts I made some specialty tools needed for re-assembly.

 

Most of the new parts. I think UPS was here everyday for a week :


These were the splines on my Forward drum. Weird how they only splined it half way down the bore. Looked just about stripped to me.


Bought an E4OD forward drum on Ebay for $40 shipped. It has full splines. Also tapped the lube plug and loctite'd a set screw in. They are known for popping out.


When using an E4OD forward drum, JW told me to assemble everything on the bench as shown, and make sure the intermediate shaft is riding on the torrington bearing. Mine was, but if it wasn't I would have had to bevel the edge of the forward drum splines .020" or so.


Don't forget to put some assembly jel on this bearing! I forgot and it fell outa place with I rotated the tranny. Had to take the extension housing back apart to fix. Also notice the one-piece sonnax rear bushing. I would recommend buying the tool or get a bushing driver to match to install this.


The JW kit came with pressure plates machined to fit an extra clutch/steel in each pack. There is no clearance spec for the reverse pack, but I wasn't happy with the ~.065" I ended up with. I had wicked delayed reverse shift before the rebuild, so I wanted this as tight as possible, granted the shift kit should help as well. There is a Sonnax snap ring (Part #36885) for the 5R100 which will fit in here and is thicker (.092") than the factory snap ring (.076").

If your pressure plates are stock, the Sonnax ring is a drop in fit. However, the JW pressure plate has a step machined in it, and the sonnax ring was to wide to clear it and snap into the grove. I had to have a local shop widen the step. It is surprisingly ugly for a "machine shop" but for it getting done without notice on Saturday morning I can't complain. No idea how/why they got a knurled finish on there. Either way, it did the trick. JW's finish was like a mirror before the local shop made it ugly.


If I wasn't trying to get this done this weekend, I would have just bought thicker Alto steels, information courtesy of Mueckster (thank you!):
4R100 L/R oversize steel .081'' Alto part# 36130X The oversize steels will reduce the clearance by ~.013" for each stock (.068") steel replaced

This is why the sonnax ring did not fit before I had the plate re-machined:


After machining, much better. JW sold me a rear planetary machined to accept torrington bearings. My thrust washers here were shot.


Ended up being a lot of money just to loose .016" clearance, oh well.

I was wondering why my center support bolt stripped so easy... this is why:


I've had mostly HF sockets for years (sockets only, I promise) and have never had a single issue. I recently "upgraded" this set to Craftsman and it apparently only lasted me a year. Very dissapointing.

My old center support had the typical wear on it:


Bought a machined one from JW (left):


The center support gets a snap ring on each side so the wear area is on an even steel surface:


Very happy with how my custom tools worked out.


The one thing I never got around to making is a clutch spring compressor. I wish I did, it would have made life much easier. Not a hard tool to make either. I was lazy and used a press, just distribute the load as evenly as possible and take it easy!


To install the O/D Sonnax spirol snap ring, I just pushed down witha pry bar and worked my way around. The Sonnax directions say specifically NOT to do this. Not entirely sure why, it is just manually doing exactly what a clutch spring compressor would do.


Just have the entire valve body left to install. Inforuntately waiting on one more Sonnax part to arrive, won't be here until tomorrow

 

Thank you for excellent photos and descriptions.

I've bookmarked this thread for future reference.

Pop

 

Man, automatic transmissions are magic. I would love to go through one a few times with someone who knows what they are doing. Thank you for sharing those pics and your experience.

 

Looking good.

Low reverse. .020 to .040

 

Very nice job so far. I will jump into a lot of things. This would not be one of them though.

 

Jared,
Are you saying the machined center support came with two snap rings that acted as spacers and fit on both sides? Most have only the snap ring spacer on the case side as the large Bellville Intermediate clutch return spring holds the center support between the Intermediate-Overdrive cylinder and the snap ring above it. I was wondering if there was something different about the JW assembly.

 

Wow, way to make me paranoid Thats a good questions now that you mention it. Of course its too late for me to dig in and look. I know that both sides of the center support were machined and there were two snap rings. He also gave me a machined intermediate clutch piston, so probably that contacts the 2nd snap ring. I think that is just machined to make up for how the intermediate pressure plate is machined.

Thank you all for the kind words! Is there anything I should be doing to the main valve body? Since I bought the accumulator from JW, I don't have a full shift kit, not sure if I'm missing anything. I'm installing the Sonnax L/R modulator valve, and drilling the forward gear engagement hole in the seperator plate per Mueckster's instructions. Any other little tricks?

What do you think about using this to clean the VB bores? Some of mine are a little sticky..
Winchester 42-piece Deluxe Gun Cleaning Kit in Wooden Case: Shooting : Walmart.com

 

Being an electrical engineer, I find it terrifying!!

 

Without seeing the parts, and how the assembly was stacked, I'm not sure what was done. The additional snap ring spacer may be taking up clearance between the Int-OD cylinder and the center support. Did the Int-OD cylinder drop much when the return spring was compressed to install the top snap ring in the case groove? Did he furnish that snap ring, too, or did you use the original one? What was the Intermediate clutch clearance and did you air check all the clutch packs since you don't have the VB's installed yet?

 

Some machine the center support for two rings. This makes the center support more stable.

If you are going tor high horse power, this is a must do.

 

The dimension of the entire stacked assembly would need to be maintained and adjustments made within the assembly to arrive at the proper Intermediate clutch clearance. This appears to be the case as it will also affect OD clutch clearance and is adjusted accordingly with the proper pressure plate/selective snap ring.

 

sometimes, this site make's my head hurt !!

Great job..

 

My whole career is based on my ability to use Google and learn things very quickly.
I can walk into any of my bosses offices with short notice and still be confident I am giving them the right information on something I just learned about less than a couple hours in advance.
This, however, would not apply to this case.
My reaction... wow it all looks soo shiny.. LMAO

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using IB AutoGroup

 

I know the ATSG says there is no spec but I do believe that Speeder is correct with these specs. Now I wonder if you checked the sunshell/ spline end play? Because I think that can also effect the actual end play. But here is a link to a kit from Sonnax that should help tighten up rear end play but it Doesn't since these are 4 tap shims ( 4 pinion rear carrier) and in the 4r100 for the 7.3 we have the 3 tap thrust washers. I called Sonnax and they said they don't make shims for the 3 tap thrust washer for the 6 pinion rear carrier. Look at figure#25 part#36402-Z http://www.sonnax.com/system/instruc...4R100HD-IN.pdf

So Scerb what did you end up with for rear end play? Did you replace the rear case bushing with the 1 piece bushing? http://www.sonnax.com/system/instruc...6008B_D-IN.pdf
First of all welcome to FTE!! I am very impressed with your build, you skills at making some very nice custom tools for the job and I think you did a great job at schooling yourself before starting this build. Trust me I know how painful that is I built my own trans too. But I had Roland and a couple other guys help me out. Thanks again Roland!

Now if you bought a JW accumulator I would call and ask him before changing anything. Because I do believe he resizes the bores and some other cool stuff. The cleaning kit above isn't going to help to resize them bores. It takes special machined tools to do so. So I hate to tell you to spend more money but I would also just buy a JW valve body. I did my own accumulator and vb and I have the valves hang up in the bores every now and them.Bores need to be resized. Live and learn?

I also like how you hand honed the v.b. area and actually spec is max .0015 But here is something I would and have told other builder about and I do believe it makes a big differents. http://www.sonnax.com/system/instruc...6743-01-IN.pdf
This link explains better about this center support modd. http://www.sonnax.com/system/announcement/36743-01.pdf
I too wonder about some of above questions. But if you look at his center support it looks like it has alot more machined off than mine. I wonder if he measured how thick his center support was after machining. I wrote down the measurements somewhere of a unmachined and machined C.S. So with that info and his I'll bet it was machined so much that it needed 2 spacers. I am guessing so hopefully he measure the c.s. and I'll dig up my #'s to make a better quess as why.

That might well be but I have only seen the c.s. that if I recall correctly only have .050 machined off the c.s.. This is what I used http://www.sonnax.com/system/announcement/36743-02.pdf