[johnpro]

Well if you've been keeping up with the saga of my son's C4, we've found the problem and found the low-reverse apply strut. The apply strut was laying in the drain pan that was under the car. Along with it was part of the low-reverse band ... the part the apply strut pushes against.

So, there's our problem. Tranny is now on the garage floor with the bell housing, pump, and tail shaft off of it. Tommorrow I'll go over to the local Transtar shop and get a rebuild kit. Hopefully it will be back on the road in time for our club's show on the 24th. It'll go in as a work in progress, and park next to my '66 and daughter's '69.

 

[sharkmouth]

I've never rebuilt an auto....

PM me with your thoughts and experiences please

 

[rlsteel]

Hi John someone correct me if I am wrong (getting old) didnt they make a bolt together band so you did not have to take a c-4 apart for this problem? Robert

 

[camachinist]

didnt they make a bolt together band so you did not have to take a c-4 apart for this problem?

I think you might be alluding to a thin flex band for the intermediate position which can be replaced with the trans together...IME, not as strong or durable as a solid band. I haven't seen the band you describe, for the low-reverse position (but I definitely haven't seen everything *G*)

Generally, the low-reverse band is pretty durable...I've never had one fail in any of my trannies...

Lastly, if something is important as a band fails, I'm loathe to just stick the thing back together; the engineer in me wants to take it apart completely and check for FOD.

 

[camachinist]

Glad you found the actuator...hope it's OK...

Remember...clean, clean, clean....everything needs to be clean...


Did I say clean?? *G*

 

[GypsyR]

When I bought an 86 Mustang for son in law, the C5 in it didn't have reverse (bargain car). I drove it home, we pulled the tranny and found the reverse band broken. The trans seemed quite healthy otherwise. I happened to have a C4 with a busted case laying around, so lacking any other entertainment we tore it down. After some fiddling some, we found the C4 band(healthy) would fit the C5. Since we had 0$ in this repair project so far and being lacking in good sense, we reassembled the C5. Put it back in and it's still working just fine.
I'm not recommending this method of repair to anyone, but this particular adventure could mean that a broken band does not necessarily mean the tranny is completely bad. A "freshening up" rebuild may well be all you need.
BTW, after this success I was hoping to pull the same stunt with a sick A4LD that had a broken OD band. WRONG. The band in this particular tranny broke because the whole tranny was worn completely out. Even the rebuilder shook his head, said it wasn't even fit for a core and pronounced it DOA. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

 

[JohnZ]

IHMO if you have an A4LD - you loose, especially if it's in a Ranger.

 

[johnpro]

C4 and C5 are essentially the same trannies with just an extra timing module in the C5, so it's not surprising that the bands interchanged.

We contemplated yanking the C4 out of my sporstroof project, since it's slated for an AOD, but figured I'd rather have the stronger '70 tranny that's currently in my son's car, and I decided it would be faster/easier to rebuild the current one than to yank the other.

The tranny only has about 25k miles on it since it was rebuilt, but since it wasn't rebuilt by me, I can't say that it was done right, since this is the second problem we've had.

I want to just rebuild it and know it's good to go for a while.

 

[johnpro]

I don't have much tranny exeperience, and have never rebuilt one. Most of my experience was with my AOD in my '66, but futzed with that one so much, they no longer had that mystique about them.

This will be my first rebuild. I've done a lot of reading over the last few months about trannies, so think I'm up to the challenge.

I'll post my results when I'm done (and of course any problems along the way /forums/images/icons/wink.gif).

 

[johnpro]

The apply strut (actuator) is fine. I guess it and the broken piece off the band fell into the drain pan as I pulled the valve body. I dropped a bolt at the same time into the pan, so didn't realize 3 things hit the pan at the same time *LOL*.

Thanks, as always, for your guidance and expertise. I'm sure to have lots more questions for you and others as I undertake my first tranny rebuild /forums/images/icons/wink.gif.

 

[johnpro]

Like Pat said, I don't think so for the low-reverse band. There's ZERO room to work on that band, because there's not much clearance between the band and the top/sides of the case. I don't see how you'd even be able to work something up in there. There's only one way to get something into that area of the case ... through the front.

 

[DAVZ289]

I would agree that it is way too hard to put the reverse band in the tranny without taking some stuff out first. I had a hard time sliding the reverse band in there with the tranny taken apart....My best piece of advice for you is to make sure you have a pair of snap ring pliers. It will only make you severly mad when you get to that point and you dont have them...You should do fine on the rebuild, I didn't find it difficult on the first time at all, and it even all worked right. Then I started trying to get tricky with things and that's where it went downhill...I hope Pat is right about the reverse bands being strong. Since I got into that lockdown problem, I have found the occasionaly pieces of kevlar lying in the bottom of the pan....

Good luck!

Dave