Truck has been sitting for months while I had been working out of town. did a long overdue oil change, loaded up the dirtbikes and guns and headed up north last weekend. truck ran and drove great all weekend. did some trails in it and did some hills in the quarry we shoot at. ran through the gears of the T-Case. if you dont shift it once in a while it gets hard to shift. all in all I was no more rough on it than any other time. the drive home was fine. as I pulled into my driveway the thing starts bleeding a steady stream of ATF up my driveway. I know a couple guys who work for FoMoCo they both tell me its ether the tourque converter or the pump seal. one of my buds works at the dyno and dealt with these trans back then. the other friend worked in the plant where they built transmissions. since I have to pull the rear drive shaft and t-case and trans anyways, it there an upgraded pump seal for these transmissions? Ive heard people say the factory torque converter isnt that great. is there a better one I should consider? Personally, the oem converter just ran 100,000 trouble free miles so I would do a stock one unless someone can give me some real reasons why I shouldnt. while I have the trans out what all should be done? this trans has been trouble free the entire time Ive owned it. I dont tow alot of heavy loads. A fiberglass boat is about the heaviest thing its ever towed in the 55,000 miles that Ive had it. Money is an issue. I really only want to fix whats wrong, but I dont want to do this again for at least another 100k miles. aside from aftermarket exhaust and the riffraff cold air kit its very stock truck. so I dont want to build a racing trans or anything crazy like that. Whatsay you guys? any tips for making this a pain free op?

 

Read post #6 here. The KE4OD-V shift kit makes the leaking problem nearly impossible and improves the function of the the pump and valve body.

I wrote this last year after I had built my own trans to accommodate the engine modifications I had done to my 7.3L. I have since sold the truck to a friend, but the trans is still pulling hard with more than 100k on the rebuild.

Personally, the converter is a weak link that can take out your entire transmission if it shreds out. I would replace it if you are correcting the converter seal leak issue. Take a look here for a budget built, but extreme duty converter that will last you years. I had the triple disk billet unit in mine. Paid about $450. It was well worth it.

 

Does that kit come with good instructions? I Read through the process on fourdoorbronco. thanks for that link for sure. plenty of pictures. never been in one of these transmissions though. It doesnt look like its going to be very tough to do. looks like I may as well rework the up pipes while I have good access to them and the plugs and fittings on the backs of the heads too. I broke the top starter bolt years ago. now I get to fix that too.