Howdy, Y'all. My '89 Ranger has an A4ld, and it's doing some weird things. (At least, weird to me!) I've only had this truck for a month, the previous owner said the trans was working fine, but he only had it for a short time. He did say that it wouldn't go into OD at first, but he found that the wire to the OD solenoid was unplugged, he hooked it back up and it was fine. (I think he's full of s***) He also changed the filter. Here's what it's doing to me: Won't shift into OD, you can drive it on the hiway and shift back and forth between D and OD with no change, except that when in OD it freewheels when you let off the gas. When you come to a stop, or slow for a sharp turn, it doesn't want to downshift to 2nd. It shudders to almost a stop and then lurches down to 2nd, unless I downshift manually. Yesterday I loaded it up pretty good for the first time, and I could fell the shifts more distinctly so I stopped and tested them several times. I can feel the 1-2 shift, the 2-3 shift, and then, with the selector still in third, what feels like another shift with a corresponding drop of about 500 rpms. But this thing has a 4.10 rear, it's doing about 3200 rpm at 55mph, it doesn't seem like overdrive to me. I've never had a vehicle with a lock-up converter before, could this 3-4 shift I'm feeling actually be the converter locking? And some times it seems to skip right from 2nd to this (4th?) gear. I crawled under and unplugged the OD solenoid, no change at all, it still drives and shifts exactly as I described. Yes, I got the right plug, driver's side of the tranny, just forward and above the shift linkage. So is there any hope for this thing? Is there something I could do to fix it short of a rebuild? Is the OD band fried, or is there just something wrong with the valve body, or maybe the OD solenoid? Please help if you can. -TD

 

Ok, well, nevermind then...

 

the extra gear is the lock up it comes in in 3rd (D) and 4th(OD)
Ive got a aerostar with an A4LD and am tryin to find out what the differences are between A4LD and the 4R55E and 5R55E boxes as id like to fit a later model trans to my van. So if anyone reading this knows the difference then please let me know

 

sounds like a bad throttle position sensor to me.

 

OK, so it IS the converter locking up, I thought so. And fordman, you say the throttle position senosr could cause this? Could it be that simple? I guess I ought to put a code scanner on it, would that tell me? And if the TPS is bad, wouldn't I likely get some other symptoms as well? Thanks, guys. -TD