I'm currently going through the same thing. I mulled around the idea of removing my self and installing. But I called around and got some quotes and its a reputable shop now.

Good Luck

Gilbert

 

I just got two quotes from Ford, one at $1900.oo to R&R and one at $1150.oo to R&R. Don't know the difference except maybe the second one he's doing under the table with service writer. Trans at $3681.oo and they said it comes with converter. Doesn't the HD4R100 have a heavy duty converter? I would think it did. I'll make my mind up tomorrow, I hope. Could of put three of these things in for the price of my super duty one I bought.

 

Chet... this could be an opportunity for your builder's reputation to be enhanced by how he handles this misfortune.

I still remember when another member here reported that your builder had advertised, sold and shipped what he described as a genuine Ford 6.0L transmission cooler, and the member reported that a Dorman 6.0L transmission cooler arrived in the mail. The member called the builder, and the builder claimed that the Dorman cooler and the OEM Ford factory cooler were made in the same factory. (Not true)

That report etched itself in my memory as a "strike", if you will, against the builder. A forgivable strike, when balanced with other reports of solid transmission builds... but still a potential strike on customer interaction and personal integrity. If your experience with warranty service doesn't go well, that would be another strike... still leaving a little bit of room for benefit of the doubt due to it not being possible to truly know the full details of both sides of the story... but less and less room nonetheless.

On the other hand, were you to receive good warranty service, that would do a lot to erase the etching of previously reported experience that didn't sit too well with me. I hope for your sake, as well as for the builder's reputation's sake, that he chooses to stand by his product. The only way for him to do that is for you to give him the opportunity.

At the end of the day, obviously you must do what makes the most sense for you, but you did open this thread up asking for advice, and titled the thread with the same request. So to any extent that you can find an economical way to actually utilize all the warranty that your $5,000 bill already paid for, I hope you can see your way through that solution.

 

Hopefully @Nicmike can provide some input on the HD4R100 and the TC that comes with it.

I don't have the link handy, but I offer this screenshot from my files




I've also attached a pdf file about the torque converter. You'll have to ask someone who knows more about them what it all means, though

I'm not telling you to go one way or the other, not sure I'm even qualified to offer a good opinion on that. But I will provide whatever information I have that could be helpful to make your decision

 

I swapped my HD4R100 out in my driveway. Took me maybe 6 hours with basic tools and a low profile tranny jack. It DID NOT come with a HD torque converter...go figure. They sell the HD torque converter separate from the HD transmission. Isn't that nice?

I absolutely love my Precision of NH converter. It is truly HD, and the difference between it and what Ford put behind the 7.3L from the factory is stark. The change in stall speed alone is worth the money!

Here was my journey: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...fter-255k.html

 

Mike thanks for posting. Oh I don't plow at all. I'm in California. I wonder what the difference is with the stall speed at 1600? I know the new trucks get all there torq in at 1600 which makes it great when towing. Wonder if that would be to much for are trucks. And what do these cost? When I looked up the MSRP prices it was about 4400.oo so I thought I was getting a deal at 3681.oo if I went that way. This just gets back to the wasted money already spent. If your not racing is it really necessary to spend all this extra money? They were really the weak link back when I choose the route but have since be inundated, much better design. We shell see.

 

I paid ~$2650 for my HD4R100 locally. FoMoCo charges the dealer $2150 for the units. I found a dealership that specializes in trucks (Truck City Ford in Buda, TX). They move a lot of these HD4R100s, so they sell them at a $500 profit for volume sales. Once I got it, I traded in the crappy, stamped steel converter that came with it for the PoNH converter I have. It retails for $600, but I got it for much less than that at a local shop that uses/sells their converters. They could have marked it up to match MSRP, but they didn't. I was very grateful.

 

Stall speed. Forgot to touch on that...

7.3L torque band is between 1400-2300. The stock converter was set at....2300 stall speed by Ford. By lowering the stall speed, you get to harness more power and efficiency from your torque band (in layman's terms. Don't kill me Mark K). If you are pulling heavy, you want the lower stall speed. If you aren't pulling heavy you don't need 1600, but you certainly don't want to keep that 2300 RPM stall speed Ford set them up with. I have found 1900 to be great for daily driving and pulling our small stock trailer.

 

Thanks for jumping in, Mike. After the bad luck of a failed "built transmission" didn't want to see him jump into the next repair step without all the info he can get

 

Just read this whole thread, thanks for posting it.

Chet

 

I completely agree.

 

So what is the stall speed on the stock torq. converter? Is it higher then 1900? I know on my stock trans in the sand pulling my little trailer going slow it would heat up fast.

 

The three numbers I heard were

2300 - stock
1900 - daily driver, normal towing
1600 - special heavy tow

1900 is what Mike went with, he said it was a big improvement over the 2300 stock

*all with DIESEL, not gasser, which would be higher to be in the proper "torque band"

(summary of the above thread and linked threads, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

 

Re-read this:

 

Keep in mind though that the higher stall speed helps the transmission live longer because the torque multiplication is lower. I believe this is why Ford specified such a "loose" converter with their 7.3L E4OD and 4R100 transmissions.

It also helps to have a higher stall speed when you have a laggy turbocharger.