Though its been a while I haven't had much to report excursion-wise. New tires, Mickey Thompson Deegan 38 AT in 265/75/16. Fantastic tire overall!! Great in the snow, good enough on ice, great in deep slush, and pretty good in mud, sand, dirt, and grass too. New windshield last fall with no rust or rot in the frame, for an 03 Ohio truck I was pretty stoked!! Recently the truck has been getting a lot more use. My family of 4 little ones has recently grown (albeit much earlier then expected) when my wife went in with high blood pressure while about 27.5 weeks pregnant. They were able to control, then unable to maintain, when liver function started dropping they did an emergency c-section at exactly 28 weeks (last Tuesday). A tiny little Flo was brought into this world weighing about 2.6lbs and about 14" long. Within 24 hours she was off the ventilator and on a c-pap. As of today she is back to or just above her birth weight of 1190 grams. Mom took a little longer than normal to.be released but is home now. Now taking 2-3 trips a day to the NICU the old family truckster is getting a decent workout again. I haven't caught up with everyone on all the forum posts and happenings but look forward to it. Glad I'm back, its like walking into a favorite bar from the old neighborhood, the familiar faces are there along with some new ones to meet.

 

Congrats bud, glad to hear she's doing well and gaining weight!

And welcome back!

Stewart

 

Thanks Stewart! She's doing pretty good overall, mostly forward steps so far very few backwards steps up to this point.

 

 

Congrats and hoping to read here about her continued healthy progress!

 

Congratulations and happy to hear all are recovering nicely!

 

4R75W fun in my garage if anyone is interested...


got it out!


Then I gutted it. Now to rebuild...

 

Baby is doing great, she's totally off extra ventilation (ventilator, c-pap, etc) and is maintaining pulse o2 fairly well. my wife actually got a video of her this afternoon picking her head up while laying on her belly. While its gonna be a long road, so far that road is not too bumpy thank God!

 

Good times!

 

In November we ordered a new Fusion. Ford was supposed to have it at the dealer today, nope... next week. It is hard to believe it takes 4 months to get a special order car. I wish it was built in the US and not Mexico.

 

Wow, they must be selling a ton of them for it to take that long.

 

So, my 4R75W rebuild....

The truck was "shuddering" when going into overdrive. After 240k miles and never having a fluid change, I decided to drop the pan. Found a Mississippi mud pie in there. I think all the
clutch material from the TC was in the pan. Decided to look deeper, and glad I did.


First I found these...


Which I eventually found were part of the overdrive servo assembly that came apart.


Which did this to the overdrive servo/piston bore...


Was able to save the case by sanding/honing the cylinder by hand


Then I found out the reverse drum only has 7 of the 8 lugs it is supposed to have, and IT CAME FROM FORD THAT WAY.


This is the super worn out sun gear shell. Notice the notches in the slots for the lugs. Those did not come like that...


...and there is one that is still in perfect condition. Hmmm. I think someone was asleep on the job back in October '03. Now I need a reverse drum, and a sun gear shell on top of the rebuild kit...this sucks.

This transmission has never been opened or touched...not even for fluid changes according to my sister. The overdrive servo/piston likely broke from being slammed into position due to the old, worn out fluid in this thing. I think the sun gear shell has extra wear from the 7 lugs having to do the work of 8. Certainly is interesting what you can find going on in one of these things when you open them up. This one was a step away from leaving me or the wife/kids stranded somewhere.

 

240K, I figure it owes you nothing. Very impressed you are doing this in the driveway.

 

I have seen many an automatic torn apart but never had the guts to do it myself.