I have been having some shifting issues with the 5r55e transmission in my 2004 4.0 sohc ford ranger. The symptom was when I got up to highway speeds the od light would start to flash and then when getting off the highway the the vehicle will shift hard around 20 mph, after shutting off will shift ok till I get back on the highway. I took it to a shop and they said "Found fluid correct and fair condition, faults in system torque converter clutch system stuck off causing unit into fail safe mode." They said I needed a new transmission but I dont have the money for one right now so I did some research and found it could the tcc solenoid, epc solenoid, or the valve body gasket causing this issue. So I replaced all of those as well as a new filter and when going to start it back up there was no reverse or drive it was just a free rev and when doing so I heard some metal grinding not very loud as well as a burning smell. My truck has 117k miles on it and have already had two people say I just blew my trans is this the case or what is happening here?

 

Torque Converter is more than likely fried. Had the same thing happen to mine, same code and symptoms. I had to replace the transmission.

 

See if you can pull a code and find out what is exactly wrong. Transmission removal isn't hard, but it is labor intensive. Trans/t-case have come out of my vehicle 3x now, by my own hand(s) (w/ no one assisting me). Not hard to do at all, but labor intensive. Torque converter, if it is the problem, won't require you to drop the transmission, but you will have to unbolt it from the motor and move it back. If you have a fluid leak in the bell housing from the front seal, it may get a little interesting from there. Bottom line, if your pan wasn't packed with clutch material when you dropped it, or pieces of broken bands or parts of spacers, or gears, then you should be good. Let me know if you have questions. As I said, it isn't hard and if you have basic mechanical skills and hand-tools, you can do this job.