OK, guys, I'm a mid 50's widow woman, you know - the kind that has no business with 2 diesel trucks but I have them. A 1997 F250 4 door 2wd short bed 7.3 (210K miles, trans. rebuilt at 50K!) and a 1997 F350 4 door 4wd long bed 7.3, both purchased used. I know very little about vehicles, just enough to be dangerous. Brothers try to help me but they have their own lives to lead & can't hold my hand all the time. The F350 was purchased about 2 yrs. ago with 140K miles, fluids all replaced at that time except transmission - it looked good, we didn't know the history of changes so were afraid to change because of varnish build up, etc., and yes, I have read the pros & cons of changing, did a little research on here first but can't find my problem addressed. My F350 now has 180,000 miles.

Driving the truck the other night and thankfully only about a mile from home when I heard a loud noise like an air hammer rapid noise or a jake brake noise .......then the transmission went into limp mode. I let off accelerator of course when I heard the noise, saw the trans. light on, pushed overdrive button to turn off overdrive & drove slowly the rest of the way home. Truck ran fine, trans. worked o.k., turned off of highway & started down my driveway, it shifted from 1st, then 2nd...didn't need any more than that to get in carport. Put in park, then shifted back to drive, to 1, to 2, put in reverse & all locked in just fine. Haven't been home long enough since then to take to the shop, will do that today to run codes & see what is up.
History - about 3 mos. ago that light came on, I pulled over, checked fluid & it was low, added 1 qt. to fill, no burn smell, fluid looks good, no more problems for a month or so. Then late April we pulled a travel trailer about 500 miles, first 50 miles was through big hills up & down. It seemed to be a really hard pull - I have pulled trailers a LOT (gooseneck livestock) and haven't noticed that much pulling trouble before but this was a bumper pull trailer so I thought maybe it was the difference, and I turned off the overdrive in those hills. Stopped in first town, noticed a smell like you smell when cutting metal with a torch or skill saw (been around that smell so recognized as apparently hot metal smell) but there was a semi parked right next to us & I thought it was something coming from his truck. Got back on our way, and about 20 miles down the road the trouble light at end of gear shift lever came on. We stopped, checked fluids, all o.k., no burn smell to truck or to trans. fluid, disconnected batteries to kill the light and see if it came back on again after we started back up but it didn't, rest of trip was uneventful, no trans. problems. No other problems until last Friday night, not pulling a trailer, fairly cool night (Texas), this problem happens.
I know until I get the codes we don't know for sure, but my main question - was the noise I heard the transmission tearing up? I am probably looking at a rebuild or replacement......? Any other possibilities? My friend said his work truck, 7.3 PS diesel, had a similar problem and it was a computer problem, cost about $ 400 to fix.....that would be a blessing if it was that cheap but I fear the worst. I really don't need a big repair bill, but who does?
One other note, after reading in the forum about trans. coolers & cooling through the radiator, etc. - to my knowledge this truck does not have an added cooler.....the radiator was replaced last year so it has fresh antifreeze & water, levels were fine on it.
Any info, hand holding, help would be appreciated. And I don't know about vehicles but ask me just about anything about a boer or angora goat & I'm good with those questions!!

 

It's in the past, but I would have changed the trans fluid. New fluid might have prevented your problem. Old fluid can't lubricate as well as new fluid. Your failure sounds like a lube failure.

When the OD OFF light flashed the thing to do is get the codes read. Clearing the codes by disconnecting the batteries doesn't help find out what's wrong, it just insures that a minor failure turns into a rebuild/replacement. Often the light flashes because a code was stored for something that could be fixed very inexpensively. Ignoring the problem usually leads to a total trans failure. Low trans fluid won't make the light flash until it is just about out of fluid.

I think you are looking at a rebuild or replacement. You will need a transmission pro to diagnose it. I can't give a definite answer from this distance.

 

Yeah, I didn't quite know what to do about the fluid - one person, as we have seen debated here on the forum, will tell you if it hasn't been changed regularly don't change it, others will tell you change it regardless......and I just didn't know what to do. If it isn't burned or off color leave it alone, don't mess with it. If, If, If.......but it is too late for that answer now, as you said - that is in the past. Honestly, I stay so busy with livestock, my other business, goat shows & other travel and miles just kept adding up before I realized I hadn't addressed the trans. fluid change issue, too. I have too many irons in the fire every day - with no one else to handle any of the daily issues of running the household, paying the bills, feeding the livestock, taking care of my other business, I stay too busy.
I have the truck at a transmission shop now to see what the codes tell us. When I drove it in yesterday evening (about a 7 mile trip) it worked o.k. through 1, 2 & 3, of course with the hard shift because it is in limp mode, I tried turning the automatic overdrive "on" but it doesn't seem to shift out of 3rd into overdrive. I live on a major highway so I had to run between 45 & 50 mph to town, rpm's were about 2000 to 2200 depending on speed. Didn't want to push anything any further than I had to, although I'm sure the damage is already done. We'll see what happens from here.
Thanks for your opinion, and I do understand it is hard to diagnose from a distance & without knowing the codes. I'll try to update as I know something. Since I have the other truck I told the guy there is no rush with mine - I hate to rush someone when they are working for people who only have 1 vehicle and I have a backup. With 2 older trucks like this I figure it is better to keep both of them - what I could get for either one of these trucks to sell them wouldn't be near what they are worth to me as a backup vehicle, and I'm sure my mechanic doesn't mind either

 

Now that I have recovered I thought I would update the posting so this would be resolved. As you said, I was looking at a rebuild or replacement transmission. We did read the codes the first time they came on and they indicated slippage. The second time the codes came on we were on the road, pulling a travel trailer about 8 hrs. away from home and didn't have much to lose at that point so just cleared the codes and kept going.......we made the rest of the trip just fine, drove the truck another month or so before anything happened. I was driving home one night and got about half mile from my driveway on a major state highway and the truck made a loud noise and scared me to death, kept on rolling and made it to my drive, drove it to town the next day (my Dad followed me in case of total breakdown but no problems) and of course the transmission was gone. As I had said before, I had no idea of the previous care & maintenance on this truck, had only had it about 40K miles myself but anyway, I opted for the already re-built bolt up transmission, had it replaced for just under $ 3k and everything is wonderful. It hurts to have to do that, but on the other hand buying a truck for $ 8K versus buying a new one for $40K makes it a little less painful!
If I can ever afford to do it I want to make some modifications to this truck for some other things but overall it is a work horse, wonderful truck, just really bad fuel economy, about 10-12 mpg. I can live with that considering what this truck can do........a 4WD F350 7.3 is just hard to beat!
Thanks for the time in answering my issues at the time, now I just need to figure out how to clean the EGR valve on my fiancee's F150 - I saw a procedure outlined on FTE somewhere, just have to find it!