So specs on my truck: I bought a 1990 F150 4x4 5.8L Auto w/OD (E4OD according to my research?) on Sunday. It has 146k miles runs like a top but moves like a tortoise.

Symptoms are:
- Slow acceleration, although the motor seems to be revving smoothly, it seems to take a lot of time to get moving.
- As the truck accelerates and shifts, the engine revs high before each shift and then clunks into the next gear. The clunk is similar to being in a car getting rear ended.
- Driving at freeway speeds, moving up an incline, the motor winds up and shifts hard between 3rd and OD.
-Slowing down is the same process only without the revs. The downshifts are hard and very noticeable.

So my question is: With this happening throughout all the gears, is it possible to need just the torque converter replaced without a full tranny rebuild?

I ask because I bought this truck from a used car lot and they are somewhat willing to work with me to get the truck on the road (i.e. a used tranny)

Your thoughts?

 

It depends on what is really going on, if the converter is being applied on top of all the gears then I would think its a control problem, the converter is working it just might be commanded to come on at the wrong time so replacing the converter and or the transmission might not change anything.

Things that can cause the converter to come on like this can be many things, a bad pump can do this, a failed PCM is one I have seen before. The easiest thing it could be is a faulty coolant temp sensor, if the one for the computer is telling the computer the engine is very hot the computer will apply the converter clutch to help stop heat production. The temp sensor in the transmission can do this as well.

This needs to be checked out by someone who can use a scanner and knows what to look for, I don't mean just codes but someone to watch the data going to and coming from the computer and can tell when something is out of line, faulty parts won't always set codes, especially the PCM.