I picked up an old shuttle bus that is a 1994 built 11/93 Ford E350 with the 5.8L and the A4OD trans, the bus has 196K miles on the clock. It's 20ft long and rides on a cutaway RV chassie I think. During the test drive, it kept stalling going into reverse and was slow to engage, turns out was low on fluid and replaced the IACV. Fixed that, so I did a tune up, trans pan drop, (pan looked very clean and nice) cleaned the throttle body etc etc, after restarting it had a fast idle, would drive it self 30mph down the road would not down shift into 1st. Check engine light said the TPS voltage was low, replaced that it fixed the fast idle.

The Issue:
I still have a mildy harsh engagement to Drive or Reverse and the 1-2 shift is harsh not like you got rear ended but pretty close. The rest of the shifts are border line to hard, I also have an ABS light that stays on, and will stay on even though the battery is disconnected to clear codes, From my research it seems the trans is in fail safe mode and might be from the ABS light on? I know the trans in fine, one time I did drive it after doing something it shifted without even feeling anything I thought it did not shift and it had no harsh engagements.

My speedo works fine so I assume the VSS in the pumpkin is ok? Were do I go next from here? I am pretty sure it's a sensor.

 

If no one here steps up try FTE's sub-forum that deals with transmissions etc: FTE Transmission Forum

HTH

 

The E4OD trans in your truck will go into a failure mode when the input from one or more sensors is bad. The ABS light is telling you that there is an ABS problem. The computer gets it's vehicle speed info from the ABS. You need to find out what's wrong with the ABS and get that fixed before the transmission is going to work right.

 

How do I pull the codes? It seems that in 94 you could have both four wheel ABS or just Rear wheel ABS. I don't know what this one has?

 

It looks like it has front ABS? I assume that is what this is? https://photos.app.goo.gl/7o8NshppAphfQi3b9

 

Yea that's an ABS sensor. Might try pulling it and give it a cleaning then see if that fixes the problem.

 

I had a '94 with ABS and the abs sensors would get contaminated with metal from the rotors and throw a code. Cleaning them usually fixed the problem but eventually the sensors failed one by one and I had to change them.

You will need a scanner that can work with Ford's pre- OBDII ECUs. I have an older Snap-On that works great for this.

 

Thanks guys for your feedback, I think I might need a new throttle cable it's getting stuck/ sticking and making the engine rev to high, and not letting the trans down shift into 1st and making harsh engagements.

 

The Snap-On Tools MT2500 w/ applicable primary & troubleshooter cartridges and the FORD-4 adapter (for this niche ABS ECU) come to mind. You can purchase all of this on eBay for $500...maybe less. The MT2500 lost support from Snap-On in 2008; it's worthless for newer vehicles but affordably-priced gold for those of us with older cars!

Here's how to pull the codes.