Mark, since your an automatic transmission engineer I have some questions.

1) What is most likely to fail in the E4OD?
2) What color did ford pain the converters mine is blue, previous owner said transmission didn't have anywork done. Someone says factory converters not painted blue.
3) I have 4.10 gears, will the transmission take 14k trailer okay?
4) Does this transmission have any of the corrugated tin cans in the clutch drums? Or is it like the good old day of broached splines?
5) How about planetary carriers, are there any aluminum ones in it like C4 days?

Thanks

 

Probably the torque converter.

Ford has never painted a torque converter. All of the converters in the transmission plant are unpainted.

The weight of the trailer is much less important than the torque going through the trans. If the engine is stock and the trans has enough cooling it will live through it.

I'm not that familiar with the drums in the E4OD, but they are probably stamped, not broached. Broached is much more expensive.

I think so, but once again, I'm not that familiar with the innerds of the E4OD.

 

Howdy,

I just had my E4OD rebuilt by a local friend and trans guy. Mine came out of a 94 F450 diesel and had about 100,000 miles on it when it was pulled. THe guy that I got it from routinely pulls an equipment trailer with a mini excavator on it with his F450. Total weight is about 22,000 lbs for the combination. He never had a problem with the E4OD pulling it other than a minor front seal leak.



When my friend got it apart he found no major problems other than normal wear for the amount of miles it ran.


He did a complete rebuild for me, replacing the pump and other wear parts. It did have the aluminum (4) pinion forward planet gear and he replaced it with a steel 6 pinion gear.

The rebuilt torque converter is blue.


He told me that the E4OD/4R100 are some of the best transmissions made and that they hardly ever come back.

Bob Bendtsen Of Bendtsens transmission told me that the E4OD, built and operated correctly, is easily capable of 27,000lb GCVW.

Mine is going behind my balanced and ported 292 Y-block and into my 55 F-600. (pics in my gallery) It'll be controlled with a Baumann Engr TCS


If you're going to haul a big load with your truck ensure that you have a good cooler. i

I'm also going to put a larger cast pan on mine and a temp gage.


Cheers,



Rick

 

Thanks for the replys guys.
I have factory tow package and it includes an external cooler. I'm guessing since the tc is blue this trans has probably been worked on. I'm pretty easy on stuff if I have a load on it. Mark, what do you think about using 4 wheel low, with the front hubs disengaged? Is that ok to do with a load??? That way you have more 2 wheel drive reduction.

 

4x2 low is a good way to back a trailer. It GREATLY reduces the load on the transmission.

 

So it won't hurt the transfer case with the hubs disengaged, so it is effectively in 2 wheel low????

 

If you are at max engine power trying to pull something in 4x2 low you could damage something. Don't put the pedal to the floor in 4x2 low.

 

My owner's manual even sugest putting the transfercase in low but with the hubs unlocked so as to make it easier to back up or pull up a steep boat ramp

 

Sounds good.

Hey Mark, I've always wondered why the transmissions in the Ford taurus doesn't seem to last too long. What is the main reason for early failures in them? I know alot of newer transmissions that use al valve bodys seem to have wear failures of them, is that an issue with the E4OD and the trans used in the taurus's?

 

I'm not going into why the Taurus trans had a lot of early failures. I will say that it isn't from an aluminum valve body.