Well, I'm not as far as I'd like to be -- as usual. But I thought I'd post some pics of some of what I've done. These will be updated from time to time.

Keep the chatter to a mininum if you would until the end of the rebuild? It will help keep my posts together and make it easier for folks who might need some of the information in here to find it -- or not, lol. I know people like to comment around here.

I'm using an ATSG (Automatic Transmission Service Group) manual for this which has great pics. The factory CD's I have are all line drawings, but the procedures are virtually the same -- in most cases even the same wording. ATSG's are a licensed variant of the factory manual. Worth having IMO.

Because of this, I'm not going to post every step -- get the manual. Where I found inconsistencies though, I'll let you know.

Okay, first pics are just the beginning with the tranny in an engine stand. I used 2.5" (70mm long) M12 standard thread bolts to go into the threaded bellhousing holes, and some 4" long 1/2" SAE bolts to go through the available holes.

Also, some views of the valve body assembly before removal. In the last one you can see the reverse servo piston has been removed.

 

lookin good John...

make sure your hands are clean or you are using rubber gloves to keep dirt out of the transmission!

 

So a few more pics of disassembly. [NO, STEPHANIE, NO DISASSEMBLE! Shut up, Johnny Five]

First is the DTR sensor -- Digital Transmission Ranger Sensor. It just uses two small 10mm head bolts to remove, but the nylon center bushing that slides on the shaft may make it feel like it needs something else removed. You just need to pry gently from behind and keep shaking it to get it to slide. Clean and lube the shaft it has to slide over before beginning.

DON'T try to spin it on the shaft to break it loose. It's keyed to that shaft with very thin keyways that would be easy to strip. I has to come straight off.

Next pic is the reverse servo piston bore. This is a sore spot with these transmissions sometimes as it has a tendency towards leaky o-rings. Aftermarket and other kits from Ford address this. Mine is not a real problem, but it never engaged as fast as I thought it should. My first automatic Ranger had a very annoying long delay to go into reverse.

Third pic is the housing with the VB (valve body) removed. Although the photography makes it look brownish, it's not -- it's a nice rich red. I'm tremendously pleased with the apparent fluid condition, lack of metal or sludge in the pan, and the extremely thin film of fine metal wear that was on the magnet. Amsoil ATF has been in the truck the last 60K and at 90K the insides are a thing of beauty.

One thing about the manual is it mentions removing 17 VB screws of a certain length to get the pan out, 4 of another length, and 3 of a third length. My tranny had 16 screws of that one length, but the other counts were correct.

Fourth pic is the tranny racked on the stand from the other end, with the valve body removed. This requires some M10 standard thread bolts 2.5" long to accomplish. I'll tilt the whole stand over on it's back when I need to go "straight down" on the entry end later.

 

Rubber gloves are really only needed if you are not disassembling everything as I am. Once you clean and go to reinstall everything -- it's very important.

Okay, next round of pics.

The ExplorerForum transmission articles I linked in prevous postings were adamant about using plastic bags and tags to identify parts. The first pic is some of them at one point in the disassembly. It's a very good practice.

Next pic is the pump/bellhousing "snout" that the OD drum rides on. On previous models there were no roller bearings. This is one of the improvements of the 5R series over previous models. Even many 4R models did not have this because the OD was not used as heavily as it is now. The OD is used to create a gear we now call 2nd between the original 1st and 2nd gears in the A4LD and 4R series. Because of this the OD parts are heavier duty in the 5R series and other things were beefed up also.

Note the black plastic thrust washer on the housing.

The third pic shows one of two types of roller bearing thrust washers used in these designs. These were one of the main changes coming out of the A4LD that make this tranny better as thrust washer wear eventually caused a great deal of clearance and excess wear metals. This accounts for much of the relative longevity of the 4R/5R's over the A4LD in general.

Pics 4 and 5 show a different type that has the rollers sandwiched between thin alloy plates.l Very thin indeed for a roller bearing.

 

Finally some pics of the internals that are before the center support. Basically, 3 sub-assemblies: The OD and coast clutch assembly; the OD planet assembly; and the OD ring gear and shaft assembly.

Pic 1: OD and coast clutch drum.
Pic 2: All three assemblies in order.
Pic 3: The output shaft on the OD ring gear assembly.
Pic 4: Looking into the tranny at the OD drum before removal.
Pic 5: A view of the planet assembly after drum removal.

That's all for now. I'll bring up some of the other pics and post them later. I'll be quite behind in this posting, but I'll get it all in eventually.

 

SOOOO glad I have a manual in everything I own...well, except that stupid slave cylinder on the Ranger....


John, you got me on the wrong week! I got home yesterday and got your message....I meant LAST week I was home and available for Mon/Tue. Oh well, maybe next time!

 

Yes, but you didn't disassemble or rebuild anything or install a shift kit or take as many pics as I have, lol.

Besides...I'm old and slow, lol...

Aren't you a certified mechanic or something? I'm a hack, lol. I also have a regrettable tendency to take everything apart and examine it all closely -- not conducive to getting it done quickly.

I do believe you did it that quickly, though. I can see how it could easily be done. But with 90K on the clock, I think this is better.

 

What happened to it, Mark? I don't think I heard that story?

 

Now I will send you mine and see if you really know what your doing. Then I will let everyone know how good your work is! lol

What I am going to do is buy another tranny give it to my good friend to rebuild then swap them so the down time is just a couple hours. Then fix the other tranny and try to get as much money back.

 

Makes sense. Man this is not for the faint-hearted, lol.

Work and other things have broken in and taken some time from my vacation so I'm quite behind, but I'll get some of the pics up. There'll be some more but I didn't photograph everything. Tranny is going back in on Saturday.

First up is a view into the tranny with the entire overdrive and coast clutch assembly removed -- the first complete section of components. The only remaining piece from that is the pin and bracket overdrive actuator lever assembly which you can see in the upper right. On the upper left portion of the center section divider you can see the hole where the turbine speed sensor (TSS) was mounted.

Next up is the center section pieces from an A4LD and the one from my 5R together. One of the big differences in later trannies is the proliferation of needle bearings where there were previously sleeve type bearings. Pretty dramatic to see the difference in design.

Finally here's a view of ring and planetary gear assembly. The inner teeth of the ring engage the planets, and the other teeth engage the serrated edges of the clutch disks.

And a view of a different planetary from the center area of the transmisison.

 

Okay, here's where I get to the heart of the matter -- replacing the output shaft.

Here's looking in at the reverse section of the tranny -- the intermediate section is completely removed. You can see the output shaft projecting into the trans. There's a snap ring that has to be removed to get it out. It's a pain even with a good tool.

Next up, here's the two shafts side by side so you can see that the output shaft is quite a bit shorter for a 4x4 and there was no chance of adapting the 4x2 shaft without a lot of custom work to mount the t-case.

And here's the tranny with the new shaft in place.

 

And this is it for this round.

Some clutches about to be rebuilt in the first pic.

Second pic, the retaining rings have been removed and the clutch steels and frictions have been taken out. New frictions are soaking in fresh transmission fluid prior to assembly.

The clutches get darker brown after they've been soaked a bit, and even darker after they've been used. But there was no sign of burning in any of them and they old ones were just a few thousandths thinner than the brand new ones. Notice the spiral grooving on the plates that are a later design feature.

I didn't even take apart the pistons inside these drums to do the seals. The visible rubber everywhere in the trans was in great shape so I decided to leave well enough alone on this. There is the possibility of tearing the lip seals of these during reassebly without special protectors I don't have, so I erred on the side of caution. I'm not worried about them due to how good a shape the insides were.

 

Well, there's always something to keep you guessing. In this case it's the valve body.

I bought a shift kit from Transgo but it looks like it's not needed. Been doing some research and here's some of the information from the "Transmisison Authorities" over on ExplorerForum:

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/...d.php?t=140987

As it turns out, the Transgo kit is largely unneeded. Ford got tired of burn clutches and what not and actually came up with a kit of their own which is superior in some ways to the aftermarket kits. Sometime after 2002 they started building them into some of the transmissions.

Mine is a late build 2002 (August of 2002) and it has it already. I'll post pics of how to tell. You can save yourself a lot of work scraping bonded gaskets off the separator plate if you look for the signs before you take the VB apart! I'll get some pics of how to tell later.

Anyway, here's some more of the assembly pics.

First pic is the housing, looking down into it with the overdrive band assembled and ready for the pump/bellhousing assembled. Notice the pins threaded into the mounting holes for the bellhousing. These came with that tranny toolset I got and make fitting the two together a snap.

Second pic is the pump snout with new light green sealing rings on it. You can't tell, but there's a huge square-cut rubber o-ring that surround the outer edge of the mating surface. Also, there is a black plastic washer on the center snout called the number 1 pump thrust washer.

Third pic shows the bell housing to transmission housing bolts with two of the old o-rings sitting there. You are told to use new bolts, but really what they are selling you is a bolt "assembly" with an o-ring already on it. Most rebuild kits just give you the o-rings to replace and you can reuse the bolts. They are torqued to less than 40 ft-lbs and are not stressed and there's no reason not to reuse them.

Fourth pic is my original bolts fitted with new o-rings. Yes, there are only seven -- I'd already threaded one into the housing.

 

A couple of pics of the servos. Pic one shows the piston in the housing. Actually, it's easier to push the back of the piston into the cap and reinsert it as a unit, but this is just for illustration. Second pic is the servo's buttoned up and the bell housing reattached.

 

Here's where the fun started, the valve body.

Here it is "intact" in the first pic.

In the second pic the separator plate has been removed. The separator plate has the gaskets bonded to it and they are going to be a pain to replace.

Also, there was an immediate contradiction in that the EPC relief valve and limit circuit screen were both missing. I about had a cow. It turns out that's normal if the Ford fix has been applied -- but I didn't know what to look for. I didn't need to open this thing up but now I'm committed, lol. I'll redo the o-rings on the solenoids and what not anyway, and put the metal (instead of fiber) lube orifice from the Transgo kit in place. Oh well...wasted money but not a lot at least. I'll show you the external sign of how you can tell you have the kit in a later post.

Third pic shows the VB with a couple of the solenoids removed. There are 4 identical Bosch black ones, and two that are unique -- one is the EPC (electronic pressure control) solenoid, and the other is the TCC (torque converter clutch) solenoid.

 

Well, nobody has the later model separator plate in stock around here, so it looks like I'll be scraping gaskets tonight. I was hoping to avoid that as a new plate with bonded gaskets is only $30. Oh well. It can be redone without dropping the tranny if I need to. Valve bodies are pretty easy in terms of auto tranny jobs -- you can get at them without taking the transmission apart!

That will be how I spend my Friday night: spraying toxic gasket remover and going scrape-scrape-scrape, lol.

 

nice job so far John.....i admire your asperations with this....i would never have the go-nads to do this

 

It's not testicular fortitude, lol -- I'm brain damaged from my years as an addict and I don't know any better...

 

i hear ya....

 

But thanks though.

 

I'd have gotten some today if anyone had any, lol.

Well NAPA and Permatex to the rescue. The can of stuff below is the shiz-nagle-floogle-mojo-workin'est stuff I have ever used. It's nasty though. I sprayed it on one side of the plate when I got home and didn't try to get the gasket off until about 2 hours later and once started, it just PEELED off leaving just a few scattered islands of paper. I've got the other side soaking now.

If you need to remove these or any other gaskets, this is the stuff. Definitely an outdoor or use in a well-ventilated area product. The chem mix in these could get to you, lol.