K so here's the deal-

In January I installed all my gauges and whatnot. Apparently I overtightened the tranny temp sender unit. I noticed I never got a reading voer 140 (baseline on my ISSPROs) even though I was towing. Anyways I decided last night to take a look at the sender unit and pulled it out of the tranny. Sure enough it was broke off. I could not figure out any way to get it back out of there, I tried about everything. Tonight I dropped the pan thinking it would be right there easy to get to. WRONG! I saw I needed to drop the valve bodies to get to it so I went ahead and did that, set everything aside in a nice clean area, proceeded to push the old sender unit back out of its hiding place. I then bolted the valve bodies back up, but as I was doing so, a little brown bead about the size of a pea fell and hit me in the face. I had no idea what it was for or even where to put it back in, so I set it aside and went ahead with everything. All went well and I got the pan put back up, and refilled with trans fluid. Went and took it for a test drive to make sure everything was ok. (it wasn't) The truck still drives and everything but it doesn't want to shift for me unless I let my foot off the gas, especially on the 1-2 shift, and my OD shifted in once at 36 mph! I used to have an old 88 with a C6 in it that did the same thing, had to let off for it to shift. I don't know what I did wrong, pretty much all it was unbolt, set down, rebolt up. The only things I noticed that were not quite right was the little brown bead (I found 2 more when cleaning up) and then there is the linkage arm that comes up from the rear of the trans and then goes in between the extended shaft of a valve in the rearmost body that must actuate that shift mechanism!?? Anyways it looks like a shaft with a few half-dollar size protrusions on it. Anyways, that shaft and valve had slid partyway out as I lifted that valve body back up to mount it. It didn't go that far, I just pushed it back in and it went back where it should be, with the end of that linkage arm between the last two "half dollar" protrusions of the shaft. BUT there is a snap ring on that shaft that was just kind of loose...didn't seem right but I hand't seen it before I took it down...it was in between two of those "half dollars" and I didn't see how it could be much tighter than what it was on the shaft. I don't know what happened here but I am REALLY nervous and was planning on doing some towing this weekend. Anyone know what is going on here???

 

The little brown beads you are talking about sound like check ***** and they need to be in the transmission. They stop the fluid from going the wrong way. Hopefully you saved them cause your going to have to take all the valve bodies off again to put them back. Im sure there has to be a drawing or something on the net that shows where they go. I think there were about 9 total, hopefully more than the 3 you found didnt fall out. Im sure its probably not a good thing to be driving the truck like this, I dont think I would tow like that either. The other option is to call the trans god, Brians truck shop, and just ask him how bad that is.

 

Go to your local parts store and get a Haynes or Chilton manual on transmissions. Now go for it. The $16.00 will be well spent.

 

I don't know if Haynes and Chilton show where the checkballs go. I don't think they do. However, if you go to NAPA, or ebay, you can get ATSG (Automatic Transmission Service Group) manuals for about any tranny. Those show very detailed instructions. Another route, as long as you have the valve body off anyway, would be to put in a shift improver (Transgo -- recommend you NOT use B&M) kit. It will also have directions for where the check ***** go. Use petrolium jelly to hold the check ***** in place while you reassemble everything. You'll probably really like the results of the shift improver kit too.

 

Strjock81,

I am an old Ford C-6 expert, and ex Ford mechanic. And even though I don't have any first hand knowledge of your tranny, unless you have a lot of mechanical skill, it will be hard to find where the check ball came from. The cheaper manuals will not show details to help. Plus, in many cases, you may do damage to your tranny from loss of pressure to clutch packs, bands, etc. It may try to apply one clutch pack when the previous clutch pack is not fully disengaged, causing burning of clutches. Its hard to say what that *****'s function is. It might be as simple as an anti-drain valve, which wouldn't do much harm. I think it might be money well spent to just baby it to a dealer, or tranny shop, and show the ball and explain what happened and get them to drop the valve body and reinsert it into its proper place. Of course, to be honest, if I was still in the business, I would not do it for you, because of the risk of it coming back to haunt me for doing a minor patch job.

One thing is for sure, I would discontinue driving and definitely not tow anything . Its very risky, and you may have to buy a new tranny if not careful.

 

It is going to trans shop ASAP

 

strjock81,
Email me i have pic of where the check ***** go

 

Hmmmm,

I posted about doing the same thing to my sender unit. Did not really get any response on how to get it out of the port. I suppose I am fortunate to learn from anothers mistake, was thinking of dropping my pan also. I wish you luck in fixing this.