In the words of the immortal John Wayne....

" That oughta fix his wagon!!!! "


Let us know how it works out

 

Going back in is always the harder part...

 

A word of warning before you reassemble - if heat caused your seal to fail, it also very likely melted and deformed the converter drainback valve in the pump, which is plastic from the factory. You may want to pull the pump while you have the trans out and replace the drainback valve with a metal one.

Symptoms of a bad drainback valve will be the trans will not engage on first startup until the truck runs for a while. This is because the bad valve is letting fluid drain out of the converter overnight and so the pump has to fill the converter up before the trans will go into gear.

 

Couple of things before you put it back in....

I'll prefix this by saying my truck does not have an E4OD, it has a C6, so I don't want to send you in the wrong direction. But...

My truck was doing exactly the same thing. The tranmission shop told me that they would replace the front seal only if I wanted them to, but that frequently when the front transmission seal goes (and remember I'm talking C6...maybe E40D is a different story) that the bushing in the transmission oil pump is worn and that I'd take out a new seal in just a few weeks. Now, because the C6 is so cheap to rebuild, I elected to have the whole tranny rebuilt rather than just have it repaired. My bill was around $900.00, including R&R time. An E4OD will be a lot more money, so a fix (if necessary) will likely be the cheapest way to go. What I'd do, is call a few tranny shops and tell them the story and see what their thought are. I'd sure hate to see you put the tranny back in her truck and have it leak in a few weeks.

One other thing I'll share with you, and I learned this from the school of hard knocks too. Is your GF's truck a 4X4? If so, I would also take the transfer case out and either take the front cover off yourself or take it in and have it inspected. (Low cost to inspect). There's a tang that fits in a groove for the oil pump in the transfer case. If the groove in the tranfer case is worn, the tang for the oil pump will slip out and flip the oil pump around in the case and the gears will starve for oil. That's an expensive repair if that happens. If you catch it early enough, a new front case is about $350.00; sometimes they can even be repaired.

Just thought I'd share this with you before you work your butt off putting that transmission back in. Don't let me freak you out. Maybe the stuff I told you about the transmission only applies to the C6, but a few phone calls probobly won't hurt and it might save you some grief.

Good luck!!!