Hello every,

I have a 1993 Ranger, 4.0 4x4 with the A4LD Transmission in it. Here is a little background story to put things into context :

Ive had the truck for about a year now, it currently has roughly 150k on it. Everything was going well. A few months ago, it had a lag going into 'Drive'. Eventually that lag got worse and the only way it would engage the Drive gear is if i revved the engine a little bit, then it would finally engage. After revving and getting it into drive, it never had any issues. Never slipped, never popped out of drive. Nothing. The only issue was getting it into drive.

A few days ago i left for work and it no longer engaged drive. Doesnt matter how high i revved the engine it just wont go into drive. Reverse works like a charm, but NONE of my drive gears (OD,D,2,1) will engage.

I pulled the transmission pan off to look at things and the fluid was really dirty. So i changed the filter (since i heard a clogged filter can cause this issue) and put some fresh fluid in. Issue remained.
I then took the pan back off and pulled the valve body to see if the gasket was torn. The gaskets were fine, but i replaced them anyways. While looking at the valve body, i did notice some built up gunk on certain parts of the gasket (not sure the technical term, but it was a dark gray paste). I cleaned off the entire valve body and made sure no ***** or springs fell out or were misplaced. The piston that came out with the valve body was caked in the dark gray paste as well. I cleaned everything the best that i could and put it all back together. While the valve body was out I did test the resistance through the two solenoids that were attached. Once measured at 29 ohms and the other 27. Specs i found online said these were within range so i did not replace them.

After putting everything back together, The problem remains... NO drive gears. Reverse works just fine, nothing else does.

My question is, Does anyone have an idea what this may be? a vacuum issue? and issue with the transmission pump? an issue with the forward clutches? Unfortunately, being a full time college student, i dont have much money and would like to fix this myself, BUT if i must ill figure out a way to bring it to a shop.

Thanks in advance for any information.

- Mike