F53 E4OD transmission went out.

[GypsyR]

Oh yeah, you're the one with the EGR and TPS adjustments. Did those. I like the EGR thing but I think I want to revert the TPS adjustment, at least a little. With my driving style it has me trying to push the throttle right through the floorboards approaching hills too often. I got used to it well enough going through the Blue Ridge Mountains and it works, but decided I like the stock throttle response and kickdown timing better.

[GypsyR]

Out of a four day weekend I managed to get about two hours of transmission time in. Down to the crossmember, lines, and bellhousing bolts. On the passenger side is a big sheet metal heat shield under the frame rail. Ostensibly to keep exhaust heat away from the propane tank. I guess. However it does nothing to protect the wiring and propane line that run to the rear almost directly above the exhaust pipes. Those wires look OK but the plastic conduit that protects it is melted all over. Looks like hot tar in places. This is important at this point because it runs right over the bolts I need to put a closed end wrench on. And I can't because melted plastic is one them. One I got the other saved for later. I have to jam something up in there and try to chip the plastic off. Using an open end wrench is just and exercise in frustration. On the bottom I have to use an extension with a wobble on it and a deep socket. Once broken loose it has to be wrenched down the undercoating on the threads. Leading one to say things like "OMG, how long IS this bolt?" Power tools just fling the extensions and such away. If it were up on a lift and I had second set of hands it wouldn't even be an issue. But as-is I got sick of undercoat crumbs in my eyes about the time it started getting. So when I get back to that last bolt I'll be sticking my jack under there and seeing about vehicle height versus access.

Off-topic, I observed where my frame was cut and lengthened about two feet around the middle. I didn't know Newmar stretched the frame.

Kicking around the idea of a metal heat shield over those wires after the transmission comes out. I've been thinking of adding some heat deflecting shields around the engine "doghouse" also. We get a little heat coming through on the driver's side in summer. I have some aluminum that might do. Have to think about how to fasten it. I hate rattles. Any around the doghouse would need to be removable for engine service.

[GypsyR]

A little more work and showers of grit in the face. The crossmember. These old Fords have a three piece crossmember. Two upper pieces that are held in by bolts dropped into the top of the framerail and then the body is put on. Meaning these bolts can't be removed. Nor can you get a socket on the top of them, only a wrench. Plus the frame is in the way of the nut so you have to do something wobbly with a universal, deep socket , and extension. Trick is to just loosen the bolts enough to slide the main crossmember out from under the. The bolts are always rusty or undercoated so you don't want to run the nuts all the way off them anyway.
So I did that and the crossmember wouldn't move. ? After wriggling around and being SURE the upper supports were loose enough I found there is a tab on the passenger side for the big exhaust heat shield. Someone had welded this tab to the crossmember. That would be fine except they also welded it with a big fat bead to the frame. Doh! No room to get in there with a saw or grinder. I got a big prybar and found I had enough room to pry the crossmember upwards about two inches after fiddling the transmission mount out and supporting the transmission on a jack. Then I pried it back down. About the time I was getting of prying up and down the weld finally gave and out came the crossmember.

Pretty sure I need to jack the coach up some more but I'm getting a bit hinky about the height of it already. Raised it another two inches and slid my motorcycle jack under as all I have left are three bellhousing bolts and a recalcitrant main electrical plug. No go. Unlike a transmission style floor with horizontal lifting cylinder, the motorcycle version has a cylinder that stands up at the rear of it. From the side as I had planned the cylinder hits the leaf spring. From the rear a crossmember and from the front the suspension I-beam.
Plan B. I've pulled transmissions out by balancing them shakily on a floor jack. But an E4OD is a lot bigger and heavier than those. I recall seeing plate adapters that would fit the hold for the jacking plate pin on standard floor jacks so I went shopping. THe local stores likely to carry such things had nothing listed. I could buy a whole jack but not a plate. Bah.
So I pulled the plate on my big jack and looked at the pin. Then I scrounged around the steel bin and found a threaded flange that looked useful. It had a pin but it was fairly shallow and a tad too large in diameter. Great! I love an opportunity to fire up the lathe. The hole in the jack was actually stepped even the the plate for it had a simple pin. Since I was turning anyway I figured I'd face the flange down and cut it with the flange too. Success. Fits snug enough I almost have to tap it in with a hammer. perfect.

Now for something to hold the bottom of the transmission to the flange. Scrap bin offered an ugly square shape of angle iron from a new motorcycle's shipping crate. Also and extra spring plate for a motorcycle trailer I am building. Welded the two together with a notch and little added flange to mate the bottom of the pan's odd shape. Since I had the other transmission in the floor I had to just roll it over for test fitting upside down. Found a big bolt and bolted it to the flange. Ugly and crude? Yes indeed. But I plan to use it only twice and back in the scrap pile it goes. Probably keep the flange part though. It will be really nice if I was able to judge the balance point of the transmission halfway well but we'll see.



With an interruption or two it was getting late. I bought some Forest Green paint yesterday for a little Mini Cooper model I've been wanting to get painted for like two years. So I did that. Forest green is NOT British Racing Green but it'll have to do. No hobby shops carry the color I really want. I'm not thrilled but at least the assembly of it can move forward now. If I can ever find the time.

[GypsyR]

Well the thingie on the jack didn't work as well as I would have liked but it kept the transmission from falling off. I had to use a ratchet strap and a come-along to get the transmission pulled back away from the engine and down. Then used the come-along hooked to the jack and then to the frame to brute force drag the jack out from under the transmission. Then with my plywood "floor" under there I was able to slide the transmission sideways out from under the coach. AFTER I jacked the coach up higher than I was happy about. The top of the bellhousing just slid between the (freaking is I bump my head on this thing ONE more time) driver's side jack and the rear of the front leaf spring mount. Then I popped converter out and hand trucked it into the warm and dry garage.


These transmissions hold a lot of fluid. I pumped about seven quarts out of it before pulling the pan. The pan was pretty clean but I saw a dusting of aluminum powder on top of the filter. Making my bet what the issue was even more likely. After pulling the pump the input shaft is supposed to slide out by hand. It came out firmly attached to the front planet. Yep. And after knocking that apart we see what I suspected to have happened. I win the bet.

Though stuck together upon disassembly, obviously the planet's splined area split wide open in two places and allowed the input shaft to spin. That made the aluminum dust I spotted. Now why it chose to do so loping along a nice and reasonably flat interstate rather than straining up and down the Blue Ridge Mountains a few weeks earlier.....Not complaining about that though.

So now it's scattered its bits in an orderly fashion across the garage floor (actually on some clean chipboard) and everything looks to be very healthy and reflective of the under 40K miles on the coach. If I were someone else I might be sensible and just replace the planet and slap it back together. But no.....gotta do it all the hard and expensive way. Because frankly I never want to fool with this transmission again.

Next I'll haul the empty shell to work to wash it during lunch. When I find time then I'll spread out the donor diesel transmission and start figuring out what I need to use out of it. Then I can make a more definitive shopping list of what I need and want new. I've already noted my badass six pinion low planet assembly takes different clutches than my gas E4OD by looking at the inner splines. Will the diesel clutches match or will I need to order a set to match the later model planet? Can I actually order one rebuild kit for one of my two transmissions or will I have to mix and match? Don't know all that yet. Seems easiest to just lay everything out and then see. Trying to do it by reference material is a headache.

[House Husband]

Good job..............I was patently waiting for the "I jacked the coach up higher than I was happy about". I had the same experience.
I elected to remove the ZF emergency brake before removing the tranny and reinstall the brake after the tranny was in. Less total weight to fool with.
Now go see if you can get your finger nails clean..........GRIN.

Richard

[GypsyR]

I had the balance point sort of figured in my head with the brake countering the torque converter a bit. i wasn't worried about the weight coming down. Later on when gravity is no longer my friend I will be leaving it until later.

I can't put it back on the jack under there by myself. Luckily I have a sasquatch teenage grandson who stands ready to help. I haven't used him yet because quite frankly I'm not happy about being under the ten ton thing myself, I'd really prefer not to have him under there. Needs must do though.

Having second thoughts about the low stall HD converter though. As otherwise healthy as this transmission is I'm sure the one I have is in good shape. All I might gain with the other one is maybe that low RPM "shiver" taking off plus some overkill durability. Not sure that's actually worth $500 to me. Not like the coach is ever going cross country or anything. Thinking on it. Might depend some on how much all the other goodies add up to. Most of those are remedies to known points of failure, like the one that failed and started all this.

Ummm, my fingernails haven't been truly clean since like junior high I think. For the first 35 years of her life my wife says she doesn't ever remember her machinist father not having gray hands and blackish fingernails. So I got in there pretty good. My version of clean hands is to not focus on what they looks like, just know that I did in fact wash and scrub them.

[GypsyR]

Tore down the donor diesel for a looksee. It's been sitting quite a long time, there's a bit of surface rust on some bits. I bet is had a rough 3-4 shift as the snap ring that holds the overdrive return spring was out of its slot. Not a bad thing as I had missed or forgotten that they are prone to doing so. No big deal, just add one of the new and improved snap rings to the shopping list. Banner kit, selected clutches since I have to mix and match, and a couple of thrust washer. Plus the aftermarket upgrade bits. Compiling a list and probably will make an order Monday. Still haven't decided on whether to upgrade to that pricy converter. The fact that I apparently also have to see about my radiator is hanging over me a bit.

Anyway. Part of the new kit will be a new shifter shaft seal. To replace it you have to pull the shifter shaft. On these Ford decide to use a roll pin to do so. Fine, except it's tiny and recessed. If there's a way to grab it I don't know about it. My method is to take a small 1/8" carbide grinding bit in a Dremel hobby tool and grind down the aluminum around it. Then I can grab it with a small pair of electronics work type wire cutters and pull it on out. It's not in there all that tight it's just that as-is you can't grab it with anything.
The unmolested diesel one.

Mine, which I have clearanced around and removed. And foolishly picture sideways for some reason.

The pin, hole, and amount of material removed are quite small, that's as close as my phone will focus.

A slight annoyance was the washer at work I used was at end of life on it's fluid cycle and due to be changed. Which means that though it cleaned the case it turned it sort of mottled black. If I had known I would have just washed it in the yard with purple power and a pressure washer. Now the diesel donor transmission actually looks better than the unit I am going to use. Doh!

[subford]

There is a tool for that.



/

[GypsyR]

I should have known. If there was some esoteric factory Ford tool out there, Subford would know about it. I've never seen the Ford manual for E4OD's only the ATSG one and it makes no mention of the roll pin.

Seriously, that must surely be a one-trick pony tool. For the life of me I can't imagine another use for it. IE, I will not be trying to hunt one down to buy. It takes like 60 seconds with a Dremel to work around not having it. Neat to know it exists though. I imagine it to be a scaled down version of the puller I use with mandrels to remove flywheel dowel pins.

[GypsyR]

There's an aftermarket tool from Fitzall that's essentially a hollow ream-style drill bit that mills away some material from around the roll pin. Basically the same thing that I do with a Dremel bit. Different ways to skin that cat.

So I went to fit my overkill six pinion rear planet. The reverse clutch piston is retained by the inner sprag race that the low/reverse sprag and drum revolves around and the planet fits into the drum.
The race is a fairly solid cylinder of steel held to the case from the rear by five bolts and must be oriented correctly because there is a fluid feed hole through it. Problem is the transmission is very long. So you have to hold the hub in the correct position inside while trying to start a bolt from the outside rear. To do that either takes two people or the long arms of a gibbon. I had neither. So I put a bolt in and put a deep socket on top of it. Then lifted the case so it was almost standing on end and holding the socket against the bolt. Holding it like that I reached in and put the hub on the bolt. Then I reached down and turned the socket with my fingers. With just a little jiggling I managed to catch the threads. Then it was easy to start a second bolt and it was all but done.

That done I could slide the new drum with the sprag in it over the hub. Or not. It fell over the hub with a ton of extra room. It should be a tight fit that has to be twisted on. Full stop. Sure enough, the later transmission that donated the planet set uses a larger diameter hub. Doh! Buddy that gave me the planet set didn't give me the hub. Because I imagine it's still bolted into the case and who knows where that might be, he never had it. They do sell new/used ones though.

[77Travco]

Following this thread for learning and entertainment value... Good job so far.

[GypsyR]

We'll see how good a job it is if it actually works when done!

Actually a day behind on posting here. Here's the tail of the case with all the hub bolts stuck in place.

And here's the view like two feet down into the case where you can see the hub refusing to be in the correct postion. With my red mark on it where the oil feed hole HAS to line up. That's the original and too small one.


So I called a guy that has transmissions. He has an empty case kept for sale. The big hotrod diesel trucks tend to break transmission cases. We look at it and lucky day, the hub and rear piston were left in it. He doesn't care about those parts and I grab the hub. Also the piston return spring that the hub pins on as it might have a different inner diameter.
Ran into one of my retired mentors while there. He laughed at me trying to get out of buying a converter. He said back in the mid-90's he was getting trucks barely out of warranty with damaged converters. If they weren't twisting the threaded studs that bolt to the flexplate they were burning up the too-small lockup clutches internally. Dammit. So now I have a multi-disk lockup, billet steel front, extra low stall converter on the way. Shop owner let me have the employee discount so that will ease the pain a bit. We'll see. Of course now I owe him a favor. Dammit. Again.

Back home I did the monkey dance all over trying to get the new hub mated correctly. Then the other bits fit correctly. The new return spring doesn't quite fit the reverse piston I am using but the original return spring looks like the diameter will work fine with the new hub. Thrust bearing at the rear fell out of place of course so I had to take the tailshaft and all back out, stick the bearing to the case better and retry. One other later brainfart and then I at least have the back 1/4 of the internals assembled. Have to stop and regroup here as this is where I seriously get into parts swapping parts that are related to me upgrading the the center support which has a roller bearing in it. But I have to be sure to use older style clutch frictions for proper shift feel later. This is where the diesel transmission starts donating parts and I need to have a plan of action. There's an upgrade kit they sell but all the parts are said to be different and so the procedures out there and written down don't exactly apply to a complete retrofit like I'm doing. I've seen about zero info on that so I have to step carefully.

Maybe there's a hot-to somewhere that tells all about how to retrofit the six pinion planet but I couldn't find one. So I was kind of winging that one. If there weren't setbacks and mistakes then I think the read would be pretty boring. Like the car building shows where they skip over all the inevitable problems that required some "adapt and overcome" which I always thought to be the best parts.

Seasonal stuff coming up quick so probably no further progress until next week.

[GypsyR]

A little progress. These beasts aren't for the faint-hearted. Big, heavy, fairly complex, and requiring a pretty spendy amount of tools. Luckily I'm able to borrow what I don't have.
There's a handle contraption that has no other use in the world but to allow you to lower the assembled direct and forward clutch assemblies as a unit down into the transmission. You can do the same job without it but you have to fiddle the clutches together while reaching down into the case. A nicety to have, especially since I second guessed myself on whether I had the rear sprag in right and nothing would do but I had to pull it all out again to have a look. Without the handle tool to assist in that I very well may have just crossed my fingers and gone with it. Here it is in action all ready to go back in. Again.


Another tool is to compress the intermediate clutch piston so you can put the snap ring back in. You can put the ring in without the special tool (I have) but I don't know of a method that doesn't involve much hair pulling, gnashing of teeth, and possibly a little bloodshed. IE, it ain't fun. Here it is in action. A thick steel disc on the back, a bolt through the middle and that steel popsicle stick type bar on top squashes it all together.

Also handy when you have to redo things. I bought the new improved circlip mentioned earlier but old mentor have me an old shift kit box which had an even better version in it. This one winds in as a thin double layer instead of just a single steel ring. Some performance pistons for engines use such clips for retaining piston wrist pins. Here's me winding that clip in.


Also the box had one more thing in it. A special seal for the direct clutch. The stock lip seal design is known to be a little weak and can "blow out". This one is solid without a lip and you have to flip it over inside out when you put it in. They even paint one side of it so you can be sure you got it inside out. Weird, yes, well... Old man would save the boxes of such things because the instructions in them could often be useful down the road. In this case he probably used the valve body bits only because the transmission wasn't fully disassembled. Here's the box. The snap ring and seal pictured on it.


Lunchbreak over, more later.

[GypsyR]

Another special and borrowed tool. The pump splits into two halves. When you bolt it back together you have to have the two lined back up or else. Fluid passages misaligned, bolt holes, you can even skew it so much the pump won't go back into the case. So you use this giant hose clamp across both halves, line up the bolt holes, and then bolt it back together.
Many older GM transmissions require the same treatment but the E4OD is particularly loosey-goosey. More modern pumps have pins or something and require no such thing.
Also you really have to torque the bolts correctly or risk distorting the halves. So a quality torque wrench is required.


I do own some tools. That's mine and it's set for 20.0 not 200. I'm actually ahead of myself as I haven't taken the '95 pump down but I was on a special tool roll. (In case some smart guy might read the casting number off that pump in the picture and say "wait a minute...") This wrench made me clench up when I bought it but it's been a good one. It does angles, so when a torque-to-yield bolt calls to be tightened 270 degrees you don't have to drag out the crayons and a protractor.