Well, my "bulletproof" 4r100 from Phoenix Remanufactured Transmissions" lasted about 1500 miles. Failed while towing a 5000 lb travel trailer for the first time. I'm not looking forward to swapping it out again. They will send one under warranty. I'm thinking about putting the replacement up on ebay.

I just wish there was a reasonable solution for a replacement. The BTS unit sounds nice, but I didn't have $4000 to spend when it went out last time. It shouldn't even be necessary to spend that much.

The PRT unit had all diesel internals. I'm on the lookout for some cores to build up a spare.

It wasn't abused, never overheated. Same with the factory reconditioned unit that was put in under recall. Stupid recall F'ed me. Seems like the factory new units do OK. Yes I had a filter on the cooler line and a flush.

I guess the good thing is the swap will go much faster this time.

Does anyone know a good forum that covers the 4r100/E4OD?

Too bad it isn't practical to do a 5r110 swap or a manual swap. At this point I've just lost faith in this truck.

Eric

 

What type of fluid were you using?
This is a rare for that short amount of miles.
How long did the oem last?
Did your filter catch alot of particles ?

Rich

 

Did a little digging last night. The computer threw about 15 tranny related codes. Pulled the pan and a thin shaving of steel got under the orange plastic shield on the solenoid pack. It was pretty clean. The filter was pretty clean, a few shavings. There was a little powdered metal and fine shavings attached to the drain plug.

It could be just changing the solenoid pack out would get it going again, but I have a feeling the tranny is toast after finding the shavings.

Fluid was Dexron III Mercon.

The OEM was changed out before I bought it used because of the recall. The rebuild lasted about 35,000 give or take. The previous owner wasn't sure exactly when the recall was done.

I have 2 friends with 01's that had rebuilt trannies put in because of the recall and they both failed within 40k. My truck currently has 51500 give or take.

I think I just got unlucky on this one. I should have built it myself, I was just short on time when it happened. The rebuilt that was in it when I got it failed in a big way. There was a quarter inch of shrapnel in the pan.

Eric

 

Here is a bit of information that I found at Jasper.

http://www.jasperengines.com/

Now this info is if you purchase a Jasper Tranny, but something worth considering...especially regarding the trans cooler.

Good luck with the new replacement tranny!

biz

_______________________________
2003 F250 SD SC 142" XLT FX4 V10 Auto 4x4 3.73s

 

I performed a flow test, and got more than enough flow through the cooler. I also installed a filter on the return line from the cooler. I don't think that caused the failure. The filter caught a ton of stuff from the cooler in the first 100 miles or so, but I checked again at around 1000 and it was clean.

I have 2 new ford v10 coolers, and will be installing both of them. The old one will go to the recylcler just in case. I'll remount the filter so it filters outgoing fluid, so it won't ruin the coolers if, or I should say WHEN, it fails again.

Should have gotten a stickshift, just hard to find a crew cab six speed, espescially around here.

It's just sitting in the driveway. Should have the old tranny out today. Things are going wrong with this truck at an alarming rate lately. I'd sell it, but would barely get a decent down payment on a new one.

Window motors
E brake cable
unit bearings (still need to fix this, they are getting worse)
remote unlock (possible GEM failure, can't program new remotes)
Tranny
Ball joints
Radio

All within the last year. I keep hoping to get rearended by a trash truck or bus or something.

Eric

 

It's not unusual to get some metal in the pan. Otherwise, they wouldn't put a magnet in it

How did this latest tranny fail?

 

Got off the freeway near the campground. Tried to start from a stop and it just barely moved. OD light flashing. Felt like it was locked in OD or something. Moved about 40 feet to get off the offramp. Waited 4 hours for tow truck with my 15 month old in the 100 degree heat. At least my buddy I was traveling with had the extended tow option on AAA so I didn't have to pay to get the truck home. I used his Chevy Dually 8.1 allison to tow mine back home. I still have to drive back out to pick him up on Sunday. It gets really crappy mileage but the 8.1/allison towed way nicer than my v10. The little pieces of metal I'm not worried about, there were a couple big pieces though. One was thin metal, like a piece of sheet metal. Looked like part of the one way clutch sprag whatever it's called. A couple of slivers about 1/2 inch long that look like galled metal.

The solenoid pack in the tranny had been modified by PRT. It had a diode soldered across a couple pins and that caused the orange protector piece to not sit flat. That's how the metal sliver got stuck in there and shorted it out causing the failure, at least that's how I see it. Alot of the codes are electrical short codes. I just hope the computer is OK. I thouroughly checked the wiring, no problems I can see. I pulled the loom out and unwrapped the whole thing. It's clean.

It's tempting to swap the solenoid pack, but I think the tranny has been damaged. My luck it'll work just long enough for the warranty to end.

I took yesterday and today off and should be camping and having fun.

Eric

 

Well that is good to know that you have extra coolers. Hope it does the trick for you. Plus, it was probably just a bad tranny. Sometimes those things happen...and that is what the warranty is all about.

GOOD luck...and keep us posted!

biz

_____________________________
2003 F250 SD SC 142" XLT FX4 V10 Auto 4x4 3.73s

 

I've been playing around with it while waiting for the rebuilt unit. I'm worried maybe the computer has been damaged or something.

I put a new solenoid pack in, I had purchased it a while back hoping that might be the problem with the original tranny. Same codes, and now it will actually die in gear. I've pulled the tranny harness out all the way to where it plugs in near the master cylinder and it's free of damage.

Any other ideas on where to look for the electrical problem?

EPC failure
EPC short
Torque converter failure
Torque converter electrical
etc

Every code is accompanied by and electrical error. When the replacement tranny gets here I plan on replacing it, but not until I get the electrical sorted out.

The solenoid pack from PRT had a big resistor soldered in series with what I believe is the EPC solenoid . I'm not sure which one is which, have to check my book (it's an older book, covers e4od, but it's the same arangement). They add that resistor to increase line pressure, but they don't make that modification anymore. I'm wondering why they don't?

Eric

 

Woohoo!!!

Well I worked on this for a little while today and got it going.

I tried disconnecting the loom from the solenoid pack and got the same error codes. I disconnected it on the other end and still got the same codes. Hmmm. I figured either it's the computer, the main harness or something else. I started checking fuses again. Found a blown one, problem solved. The solenoid pack was still bad. One of the solenoids measured a dead short, which blew the fuse. I checked some fuses when it initially happened, but I misinterpreted the map and didn't check the one that was bad.

The other thing that threw me was one of the codes was an "Electrical Short" code. That got me on the wrong tangent and I didn't recheck fuses because of it.

While I had the Hughes pan off I painted it and sanded the tops of the fins and lettering. Looks really nice now.

I'm crossing my fingers, I feel pretty good about it right now though.

Eric