OT - Long shot - F-150 EO4D transmission died. Magic cures?

This is a long shot, but over and over, I've seen you guys (and gals) on the board here answer OT questions like this when google comes up short.

I have a '95 F-150 4WD with the EO4D automatic (300 six). Took it down to my son's place, and reminded him to check the trans fluid every so often, as it leaks. I should have topped it off when I left it, but didn't, and he forgot to check…

Long story short, he was pulling a construction lift through the hilly part of South Illinois, and apparently it ran out of fluid, stranding them on the side of the road.

Eventually got it home, and currently (after topping it up), if I put it in drive immediately after starting up, about one out of five times, it will go in gear and move a bit before going back out of gear. The rest of the time, it won't engage at all.

I could of course pull and replace with a junkyard unit, but as I now have a '99 F-250 Powerstroke, the F-150 is supernumerary, and I really don't want to spend the money or time on that kind of project on a rusted out beater truck.

Anyone got any tricks up their sleeve I can try to rejuvenate the EO4D without replacing or rebuilding? I'm up for dropping the pan and fiddling with bits I can easily get to underneath if needed.

Otherwise, the truck is probably only going to bring $400 or so at the junkyard, and it still has a clean cab and smooth running 300 six (126K miles). Hate to essentially throw it away.

es

I think you are pretty well done with that tranny. Once they have been run that dry one or more clutch pack is gone and nothing short of a rebuild will revive it.

Rick

I agree it is toast, but you can try one cheap thing I know of, Lucas, that stuff is magic. 20.00 fix if it works, and you are only out 20.00 if it doesn t. (I am betting on the latter)

(quoted from post at 10:16:49 09/12/14) I think you are pretty well done with that tranny. Once they have been run that dry one or more clutch pack is gone and nothing short of a rebuild will revive it.

Rick

Click to expand...

Agreed.

EO4D are not hard to be had at reasonable prices. They went into lots of vehicles.

Running that dry would remove most if not all the clutch material from the discs/bands. The filter cannot possibly handle that much particulate and it is bypassed on through the valve body. Usually plugging every port in it. This could be what is causing your 20% in gear/out of gear issue.

You could try a full on flush and filter ($100) to find out, but I doubt their is anything left of the clutches.

I'm actually surprised they are not welded together...

id put the 100$ towards a junkyard unit on a truck that had superficial (total ) body damage and low miles...pull trany from that.

I agree about the Lucas trans treatment. I severely overheated an old (230,000 miles) Dodge Dakota trans and the solenoids were sticking, making the trans extremely erratic. Put the Lucas stuff in it as a long shot and within a week the thing was shifting and operating normally. OTOH, I also agree that the topic transmission is toast. Sorry.

I've seen my FIL f250 wouldn't move, put lucas and trans fluid in filled it up and it worked all day. Still goes and pulls a trailer all the time. Its what I would try given your situation.

There's several things that can make it stop moving that are
heat related. The accumulator body was to tight from the
factory and are known to stick. If they get hot they can do it.
Thats just an example. What you really need to do if you want
to know whats going on is to drop the pan and see whats in
there. Most likely the filter is floating around in there because
they usally fall off for some reason. If you pull the pan and
there's no debris in the bottom even if the fluid is dark you can
probably band aid somthing. Many people replace automatic
transmissions without proper diagnostics.

Thanks for the comments. I have a bottle of Lucas already, and will need to drop the pan to add it (had already filled the trans up with new fluid), so I'll take a look while I'm underneath. I had to replace the filter when I bought it, so I've done it before.

Will report back on the results.

es