2003, 7.3, 4x4 roughly 210,000. This issue started a couple years ago and has gotten progressively worse. In a nutshell the forward gears will not engage until the engine temperature reaches operating temperature. Reverse works fine. When this first started happening I had to wait until the tranny reached operating temperature. If I attempted to gun the engine prior to the heating up I would here a scream coming out of the tranny. In either case I put it into drive and then have to give the throttle a couple quick hits and then the tranny engages. Once engaged I have no issues driving. I have not tried to tow with this issue for obvious reasons. I have changed the fluid, flushed, replaced the filter, made sure the feed bolts were tight. I believe the issue was created by the first owner. I bought the truck in 04' with 7,000 miles on it. Just prior to flying out to get it the dealer that was selling it for a friend of his calls me up and tells me to wait a few days because his buddy came to the lot over the weekend to use the truck to pull tree stumps on his property. In the process he snapped a chain and it went through the tail gate so it had to be replaced. I got the truck and a year later I had an issue with the transfer engaging. It was still under warranty so I had it fixed. The dealer told me the case was fried and asked if I had been doing any heavy aggressive pulling. A few years after that I started noticing the following. I bring the front tires up to lets say a street curb, dead stop, then push the accelerator and the truck would struggle to go up the curb, as if the first was slipping. Any ideas on the issue? I was told by one tranny guy, does not work on these, the problem might be the pump seals. As he put it as the tranny heats up the seals are swelling up which is allowing your pump to produce enough pressure to engage the tranny, other wise the fluid is just leaking by. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2nd: part. I am in Southern California. I was going to have John Wood rebuild the tranny a few years back but Covid hit. My plan was to have him do the tranny the first of this year. When I looked into it last summer he was still in business, then around Sept, there were changes to his web site mentioning supply chain issues. The the first of the year his web site went off line. I finally got a hold of him two weeks ago and it looks like he closed shop, he said he's doing some trannys out of his house but the wait list was twenty deep and the price he quoted was more than he was charging when he operated a full service shop. He also said the contract company he uses for his CNC work was in Canada and starting last summer he started having major delivery issues with them and it has been ongoing and getting worse.

If I could find an 4R100 out here used I would buy it and rebuild it but there pretty hard to find as you just don't see 7.3 on the road out here. I've got several contract jobs coming up across the country so I need a rebuild that I can get at least a couple hundred thousand miles out of. Over the years I have read countless stories where inexperienced builders have claimed they can rebuild a 4r100 and guys have been stranded on the side of the road.

so my first question. Anybody located in SoCal that know a builder, or know were I can find a used 4r100, or have one laying around? My 2nd question. If I can't find a builder who's shop ships trannies, who do you recommend and why?

3rd, what torque converter do you recommend?

Thx.

 

Unless your doing big upgrades it’s pointless to rebuild the transmission in my opinion. Especially when considering at the standard level your paying for the labor not upgrades. Ask for a breakdown of the estimate in parts/labor before having the work done. Ford has a hd4r100 and the regular those would be my choices. When I did mine the ford transmission was the same price as a “rebuild”. Obviously the ford is a reman as well but they are a reputable builder. Years later and 120k on mine still going strong.

 

My F350 kind of did the same thing for years. When it was first started at the beginning of the day I would put it in reverse and if I gave it a bit of pedal it wouldn't move full force and the engine would rev. If I put it in reverse and waited a couple seconds it was better. The rest of the day it would be fine. A couple of years back with 176K on the clock the front seal sprung a bit of a leak so I had a transmission shop pull it and while they were in there look at the friction plates. So I decided to go ahead and have them rebuild it with moderate upgrades for towing...tugger kit, sprags, etc. Since I had a billet torque converter they sent it out to a shop that cut it open and replaced and/or upgraded the internal bearings and went with a triple disc scenario. What I was told for the reason the truck had this issue was an internal fluid leak...believe it was a solenoid gasket, or something like that. Crazy thing about it is it seemed to have started on my truck when a neighbor was cutting down a tree in his yard and he had the stump dug out and I latched onto it with the truck and yanked on it a couple of times.

The wife's Excursion has about 248k on the clock with the original transmission that has no issues so far...but it's a grocery getter and out of town road cruiser. When and if it gets to the point of needing a transmission I will probably go the route as aforementioned...the HD4r100 with a billet triple disc converter. Another upgrade you want to definitely consider is the larger 6.0L transmission cooler.

 

BTS

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