Tranny went out today! Some ??? for the 4R70W experts!

['03BlkMM]

Okay so I drove home last night from work and parked the car in the garage, no problems whatsoever. I didn't even get on it, probably never got over 2000 rpm's on the 10 mi trip home.

I get up this morning and head out for work. I start the car and it doesn't do its normal 1500 rpm warm-up. It revs to 1500 then immediately loads down to 1100 rpms. Its also making a "whirring" noise. I put it in rev and all it does is lightly engage but will not move. If I put it in Neutral it will start to creep forward when I give it the gas. If I put it in Park it does the same thing, creeps forward if I give it the gas. In all gear positions the motor is loaded down which says the trans is engaged somehow.

Anybody got any ideas? Valve body? Solenoid? Pump? I'm scratching my head on this one...:(

[David Morton]

Sounds like a pump failure to me.

[juno]

I have to ask the obvious, what is the level and condition of the fluid?
What does it do in neutral?
What does the shifter feel like when moving it?

[Smokie]

Okay so I drove home last night from work and parked the car in the garage, no problems whatsoever. I didn't even get on it, probably never got over 2000 rpm's on the 10 mi trip home.

I get up this morning and head out for work. I start the car and it doesn't do its normal 1500 rpm warm-up. It revs to 1500 then immediately loads down to 1100 rpms. Its also making a "whirring" noise. I put it in rev and all it does is lightly engage but will not move. If I put it in Neutral it will start to creep forward when I give it the gas. If I put it in Park it does the same thing, creeps forward if I give it the gas. In all gear positions the motor is loaded down which says the trans is engaged somehow.

Anybody got any ideas? Valve body? Solenoid? Pump? I'm scratching my head on this one...:(

Not an expert...usually tranny's give you a little hint that something is wrong before major flop...usually. Try disconnecting battery negative cable for about 20 minutes, reconnect and start see what happens. If you don't return to normal...you do need an expert.

[SergntMac]

I'm no expert, but I'll suggest loose shift linkage? Your problem sounds like how my #3 MM was behaving just after I got it home from the used car lot, and my L/M wrench adjusted the shift linkage the next day and it all went away. Just an idea, best wishes.

['03BlkMM]

I have to ask the obvious, what is the level and condition of the fluid?
What does it do in neutral?
What does the shifter feel like when moving it?


The fluid level was good. I flushed the trans and changed the filter at 18k mi and its got 30k mi on it now. I just pulled the front trans cooler line and started up the car and drained the pan. The fluid is a bit darker than new fluid but its definitely not burnt, also there are no particulates or garbage in it. The flow out of the cooler line into my pail was pretty strong at least as good as it was the last time I dropped the pan for the filter change.

One more thing, just before the flow out of the cooler line stopped the trans started knocking intermittently and fairly loudly. I turned the engine off immediately once that started. Just based on the noise it looks like I'll be dropping the trans for sure.

In neutral the car would creep forward and the engine still seemed loaded down. The shifter feels normal when moving it thru the gears.

Any and all ideas are welcome! I'm not a trans expert but I will be tearing into this to see what I can find. I haven't done any trans repairs in probably 15 yrs and that was on TH-350's/400's. I have the 4R70W trans videos downloaded on my laptop from the sticky at the top of this forum. Also is there a good manual or online source to reference on the 4R70W?

[MitchB]

First thing I would do is verify shift linkage and range sensor is adjusted properly. These are the first things to check going by the Ford factory 4R70W manual.

Mitch

['03BlkMM]

First thing I would do is verify shift linkage and range sensor is adjusted properly. These are the first things to check going by the Ford factory 4R70W manual.

Mitch

Yes, I definitely will check it.
Hopefully its just a linkage problem, but after hearing the knocking noises it was making I'm losing hope of it being an easy fix.

[mtnh]

The knock could be the pump running dry. I heard that noise once while flushing a tranny a quart at a time stright from bottle to pump and back down to an open catch pan.

['03BlkMM]

This thread sounds very similar to my problems.

http://www.mercurymarauder.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2964&highlight=transmission+died

['03BlkMM]

A quick update. Looks like the trans TCC solenoid is staying on all the time, This is with the gear selector in any position. SS1/SS2 are also on with the gear selector in Park but they are switching to the proper states when I move the gear selector to 1 and 2. So I believe they are operating properly. SS1's coil has a high resistance reading of 50 ohms, SS2 is 25 ohms. According to the 4R70W article these should be 20-30 ohms so I may need to replace them. But I do believe that the TCC staying on all the time is my problem.

So due to the fact the the computer supplies a ground for the solenoid to activate there has to either be a short in the harness or the computer is bad and is holding the TCC solenoid on all the time.

I have searched high and low and cannot find any harness that is rubbed thru anywhere. Anyone have any more ideas on anything to check?

[MitchB]

A quick update. Looks like the trans TCC solenoid is staying on all the time, This is with the gear selector in any position. SS1/SS2 are also on with the gear selector in Park but they are switching to the proper states when I move the gear selector to 1 and 2. So I believe they are operating properly. SS1's coil has a high resistance reading of 50 ohms, SS2 is 25 ohms. According to the 4R70W article these should be 20-30 ohms so I may need to replace them. But I do believe that the TCC staying on all the time is my problem.

So due to the fact the the computer supplies a ground for the solenoid to activate there has to either be a short in the harness or the computer is bad and is holding the TCC solenoid on all the time.

I have searched high and low and cannot find any harness that is rubbed thru anywhere. Anyone have any more ideas on anything to check?

If your TCC solenoid were 'on' and you were able to achieve gear engagement, the engine would stall. Just doing a harness check, the best thing to do is check the circuitry right at the EEC harness connector (pin checks). Don't forget to check the individual circuitry in question to vehicle ground. Next, go to the trans harness connector and continue checking there. There is a seperate trans harness that plugs into the EEC main harness? Check as much as you can leaving as much intact as possible. Then start breaking the system down into individual componants.

Mitch

['03BlkMM]

If your TCC solenoid were 'on' and you were able to achieve gear engagement, the engine would stall. Just doing a harness check, the best thing to do is check the circuitry right at the EEC harness connector (pin checks). Don't forget to check the individual circuitry in question to vehicle ground. Next, go to the trans harness connector and continue checking there. There is a seperate trans harness that plugs into the EEC main harness? Check as much as you can leaving as much intact as possible. Then start breaking the system down into individual componants.

Mitch

Mitch,
Thx for the tips.
I'm going on the assumption that the clutch in the TQ conv is activated when the TCC solenoid is energized. I have ohmed out the harness to ground from the black solenoid connector assy in the trans pan and from the harness where it attaches to the trans. All of that checks good, nothing is shorted to the chassis or to the return pin in the harness!

Also, The engine is loading down when I start the car but it doesn't stall. It also doesn't stall when I put it into gear. But it does try to engage as I can hear and feel it klunk when I put it in gear.

[TripleTransAm]

I have searched high and low and cannot find any harness that is rubbed thru anywhere. Anyone have any more ideas on anything to check?


When I first reported my sliced harness incident back in May 2003, I was surprised to find that 9 months prior, someone had reported the same harness being sliced but with transmission-related symptoms. My failure involved the PCM power wire being shorted and blowing the fuse, but there are so many wires in that harness that luck dictates what your symptoms would be should any wire be grounded.

The harness in question is the one on the driver's side that should be routed down below the head from somewhere behind the engine heading somewhere up front along the driver's side of the engine bay, I think. In my cases, the harness is routed ABOVE the driver's side head (I say cases, because my second MM suffers from the same misrouting as my first! These guys just don't learn!). No doubt this is because of the garden variety CVs and Marquis' have plenty of room in the engine bay due to their narrower head spread on the 2V engines, so on the tighter Marauder engine bay, routing the harness above the head is bad news because it comes in VERY close proximity to one of the cowl/firewall brackets with sharp edges.

Normal engine movement (like shifting in/out of gear, acceleration, engine braking, whatever makes the engine rock on its motor mounts) might get the harness rubbing on the sharp edge of the bracket, and eventually whatever unlucky wire happens to be the first one to touch the bracket once the insulation wears away, that's the bugger that shorts and <you roll the dice> that's the symptom you suffer. In my case, it was total PCM failure, in that other case, it was random Tranny downshifting to 2nd gear at 80-90 mph, for others it may be some other totally wild and exciting new problem to deal with. Car and Driver was WAY off to ever think these cars were boring...

So because the bracket is fairly sharp, it can take an equally sharp eye to detect insulation damage in some cases. You sometimes REALLY have to flex the wire good to see if the insulation has been compromised. And even if it looks like the harness isn't CURRENTLY shorting against the bracket, just note that if the insulation is worn on two wires close to each other within the harness, nothing is stopping them from shorting to each other, with equally wild and random possibilities.

[thePunisher]

does it have any forward gears????

['03BlkMM]

No, it engages when the forward gears are selected but if I give it the gas it only creeps forward like its binding or locked.

I have not had much time to mess with it today. If I can't get anywhere with it this weekend I'll have to take it to be checked out on Monday.