Hi, I baught my 92 Bronco 6 years ago with 80,000 miles. It pushed snow in the mountains of New Mexico and was maintained by the State of New Mexico prior to my ownership. I've put 100,000 miles with very little maintenance with the exception of regualr oil changes and occassion (partial ) tranny fluid changes. I;ve replaced the AIr Cond compressor (kept R-12), fuel pump and front engine seal (& preventtive H20 pump change). (recently new Front rotors and bearings too) Thousands of dollars in fuel.
I was towing 3500 lbs bayliner and had 4 teenagers in the Bronco and camping gear & lots of firewood. Made it to the lake (150 miles) . In the way, with windows down I was corning a swithcback on gravel road with windows down, crawling about 10 mph I heard a high pitched "zzzzip". Slowed down to a few mph, droped it in 1st, stepped on it and recovered back to normal. It;s was weird. After camping we left Apache Lake and climbed 8% grade for 2 miles (***** to the walls) no problem. Weaved aour way through Roosevelt Lake area stopped for fuel and began a climbing 5% grade in second gear at about 35 mph. Suddenly, no power the rear whell engine ran up. No noise when it happened and believe me I was listening how nice the engine sounded. Left engine running when I pulled off. 5 minutes later, I locked the hubs and shift into 4 Wheel low. By god I had power to the front hubs. I was able to pull the trailer completely off the highway. I thought...(transfer case !). A couple (man & wife) who where hunt nule deer stopped, befriended my and towed my boat home. AAA came with flat bed, rolled my up, the boys rode in the Bronco (it';s legal in AZ). We got 80 miles closer to hoe, and the Chevy flat bed lost a rear wheel bearing. PTO still worked so the winch and hydrolics worked to get my Bronco off the bed. It was cooled down and I started it up , put in Reverse and I went forward! (dang, now I;m thinking tranny). Once I got home that night be another flatbed I started the truck and in Nuetral tires rotate slightly in reverse, If in 2nd or first I the wheel rotaote in reverse. 4 Wheel drive appears to work fine, but, like the rear wheels, they roatate in reverse when I;m in 1st or 2nd. If I select Reverse, the wheels rotate slightly but is not sensitive to increased engine RPM. After, and only after I have the truck in 4 Wheel drive (with truck completely blocked up) so wheel can rotate) I cannot put the selecter back in park...it chatters bad. I had to shut down the Bronco and restart to stop the chatter. Only applies after in 4WD. In no case could I get the Bronco to go into forward motion. When in Drive, the engine RPM drops slightly but drive shaft gets nothing. When engine if not running and I have in drive, I can rotate the wheels and when in 4Wd I can rotate all 4 wheels by rotating just one.
I drained transfer case and fluid was clean. I pulled tranny pan and fluid was like coffe and had what appeared to be brass particles (looked like glitter) in the sunlight. donut magnet in pan bottom had less steel particles than when I did partial change of fluid 6 months ago.
The rear engine seal never leaked prior to this failure, and now it does... maybe got too hot?? don;t know. I;m trying to convince myself the tranny should be replaced and I;m fixing to do that. Found a E40D in Phoenix Remanufactured for 950 w/exchange.
Neighbor put is Ford (STAR) tester on the Bronco (before I pulled tranny pan) and only found a bad EGR valve and some other stuff unrelated to the tranny. No tranny codes. Display was burnt out so we counted beeps.
Got 32 80 63 33 and 46 (no hard fail codes at startup)
I just hope we didn;t misread the beeps, I didn;t realize there were 3 digit codes some of whcih are E40D related... I gotta trust my neighbor though.
The overdrive button on shift selector made no difference when I was testing drive train behavior while truck was on blocks.
I just hope it is tranny cause I don;t want to spend 950 and see it do same thing. Not sure if MLPS of shift module can trigger these symptoms.
Being this Bronco pushed snow for 1st 80,000 miles I suspect the tranny is shot. The transfer case has beads of silicon between the two cases, so I suspect it was serviced before I baught the Bronco with 80,000 miles. Since I will remove it when I replace the tranny, I want to crackit open and look inside. Maybe that discussion should be it;s own thread. Anyway I need some
professional opinion on the symptoms I described and the odds if I replace the tranny I;ll be driving my Bronco again.
Thanks, Bob

 

I'm not a tranny expert but the fact that your fluid looks like coffee is enough indication that it's shot.

 

In my experiance the "zzzzip" sound is usually synonimus with a tranny failure. but being there are no chunks in the pan can mean the tranny could be saved. If it's anything I think it's the tourque converter. but with these E4s it's a little hard to tell. If I were you I would start by doing a full fluid change and really look at what comes out of the TC if chunks come out your buying a TC. Usually the parts that fail on the E4 are either the TC, solenoid pack, or pump. but since there are no codes, and the tester is reading clear (you may want to do a seprate check on the tranny using a tranny tester, the plug is on top of the driver's side of the tranny) I'm thinking something let go in the TC.

 

If you do replace the tranny, make sure you flush the cooler & the line. Often, they have chunks in them, which won't do your brand-new tranny any good. I'd agreed with frogger, probably the TC. You'll have to have the tranny checked either way, because if the TC went, chunks will ruin the tranny as well.

 

Sounds like ths zip you heard were the que.....

The metallic particles and dark colored trans fluid spelled it out, also take a whiff of the fluid....if it smells like comething burnt then that is the last nail in the coffin for that trans.

The fact that no chunks were seen in the trans oil pan meas that it is a good core.

pull the transmission out and go for that remanufactured unit. Once there, go with a trans go shift kit and a TCI heavy duty torque converter.

Do flush the oil cooler lines and cooler out too.

good luck

 

Another thought on Capone's recomendation is to get a large tranny cooler with it's own fan. From the sound of your story you tend to tow a lot over mountains. Mountains + Towing = Lots O' heat Lots O' Heat + E4OD = POP! there goes the tranny.

And he's right even if there are no chunks in the pan it is still very possible the tranny is toast. I'm just tring to bring the best (Cheapest) possible fix to a possiblily incredibily expensive problem.

 

Even if the tranny somehow managed to survive that ordeal, if the torque converter went, then the aluminum fins inside the converter have become aluminum BB shot at best. Since it sounds like you lost the pump first, the torque converter may have welded itself in a "locked up" position which would have let you keep running for a while but without the fluid moving it was just a matter of time before other things began to go south.

The long and short ending to this story is transmission replacement time.

 

When i lost my transfer case, it did a few of the same things. Mine was caused by something in the transfer case sticking in low but only 2wd. (after a little 4wd offroad action 3 days after I bought it!!) But some of the symptoms are the same. I gradualy lost power. The clicking sound when you put it in park,or at least try to, is, as the expert at the tranny shop told me, the output shaft of the tranny spinning in the transfer case, but not turning anything inside it. He told me this was a "Good Sign". Meaning the tranny is still doing its job.
The Xfer case was shot, because I drove it till it stopped on its own I burnt up a pump in the Xfer case and a chain or gear or something broke while I was in 4low He said it went back to 2wd but stayed in low.
Make a long story short, the xfer case was rebuilt and now it's good as new.

$1300 for the rebuild, The pump itself was $800.

Mine is a 302 with the AOD so, it may not be the answer to your problem, but it's something to look at before you replace the tranny and find out that wasn't it or it wasn't the whole problem.


Good luck.