Hi all. I'm new to Ford work but have been doing everything on my Jeep for years. I've tackled suspension upgrades, engine rebuilds, axle gear swaps, and just about anything else that was needed. So I'm not afraid to dig into the transmission on my E150 van. I been searching for answers for the past 2 days, but have not found the info I need.

A short history - The rear brake line rusted out causing a loss of most braking. I manually downshifted the trans to slow down at stop signs and limped 5 miles home. After fixing the brakes, the trans had a loud whine noise in 1st gear. I changed the oil and clean out the metal chunks in the pan hoping for the best. My daughter drove it for a few weeks but said it started making a loud grinding noise the last time she drove it. I planned on a trans rebuild but my wife decided to take it to the store but didn't make it. It stopped moving and stalled the engine when she tried to drive it. I had it towed home.

It will not move forward at all and when you shift into any forward gear it stalls the engine. Reverse will not move it but it does not stall. It did not roll backwards in the driveway (slight incline) but I was able to push it into the garage with my riding mower with the van in neutral.

The van has the 4.6L engine. Trans is a 4R70W. I would like to rebuild it using a full rebuild kit (cost is around $200 from what I've found) but I worried that it is damaged beyond what a rebuild will fix. I called a few junkyards and was told that the trans in my van is unique to the 2001 to 2003 E150.

If my trans is not rebuildable, what makes it so unique and what would I have to do to a trans from a different donor vehicle to make it work? What other donor year/vehicles can I use?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

I started to pull the trans and drained the fluid first. It is a messy job but less so if you drop the front of the pan instead of the back. The fluid doesn't run on the cross member that way and go everywhere. Anyway here is the inside of pan after just a couple weeks:

 

The 4R70W was used in many vehicles. Sometimes the output shaft length changed, some of them were common across vehicles. That might be what makes this one unique. I never worked on the 4R70Ws, so I don't know the interchangeability.

If you find one from a 4.6L or 5.4L that is the same length as the one you have it should bolt up and work fine.

 

Thanks for the info. I managed to pull the trans out of the van today and got it up on a table. I drained the torque converter and ran out of energy, so I'm done for the day. One more question - How would you know if you need a new torque converter?

 

You do need a converter because of all that metal, some of that has made its way into the converter and its not worth the risk to reuse it and pump metal back into a fresh rebuild. You will want to flush the cooler real good, there will be some metal in there as well.

This transmission is rebuildable, I have seen this many times before in the 4R70W transmission. What happened is a needle bearing that sits between the sun gear shell and the forward sun gear has failed. The pieces of bearing ended up in the planetary and destroyed its gears and the rest of the gear train.

You can buy a complete gear train from a transmission parts supply company, I am sure they will have it in stock because its a common failure. I am not real familiar with interchangeability with different transmissions because you can get into some real trouble with small changes between the years. I do know that there is two different gear ratios and some have a extra speed sensor that requires the correct parts inside to allow them to read properly.

I would rebuild it especially if you want to keep the vehicle for any length of time, and replace that bearing with a brand new one even if it looks good in your replacement gear train.

 

Thanks. I will disassemble it tomorrow and see what I find.

 

The easiest way to tell if you need a new torque converter is that if you are rebuilding the transmission you need a new torque converter. Never install a used converter on a new (or rebuilt) transmission unless you want to do it over again.

 

Good point Mark. Thanks. New it is.

 

I have the ATSG manual for the AODE transmission and I printed out all the pages so that I can check off the disassembly steps as I go. Tear down starts tonight. I haven't bought any new parts yet until I see how it looks inside. I have found a few low mileage used transmissions from national used parts sources that will work with the lowest cost being $650. This is from a '01 van with 80k on it. Includes the torque converter, wiring harness, shipping and a 30 day warranty. I'll post some pics of the internals once I get that far. Thanks again for everyone's help.