The first big trip after 13 years.

[Bart F-350]

so this is typical a case of overheating? I was under the impression that the E4OD was a good transmission? I have also a Dodge W200, with the 727, that has less issues.

 

[laserjock]

E4 CAN be a good trans but they do not like heat at all. A few mods and keep them cool and they are fairly solid. That said, there’s a reason you see a lot more auto to manual swaps than manual to auto swaps. Look look up the Log truck build on here. There is a good write up on a trans kit to install. It may even be in the tech articles.

 

[trackspeeder]

Well, I guess something more drastic is in place here now, and I guess that I need more as only a new filter.
I think that if you are aware of symptoms, and and have a indication, things doesn't necessarely have to turn out nasty.
Here is the proof that something in my observations went wrong; yesterday (more in the middle of the night) my E4OD puked out its guts, all over the street. and a small cloud of smoke as a "burp".
I was asked to help a friend out, he bought a caravan 6600Lbs, and asked me to get it.
we didn't really well prepare the route, so we didn't knew that we had to cross a pass with about 1001 curbs, and some serious grades.
earlier on the route, just before we arrived at the sellers place, the earlier "hunting" from about twohundred rpm's became more intensive. I thought that had to do with the tps and woud dissapear if I cleaned the contacts, or changed the thing. but not beeing in a position to do so, we continued.
so we hooked up with the beast, and off we got.
then there was this pass, we got over it, working the truck hard, when it fell back in speed and rev's I downshifted, so the engine wasn't lugging, and I was under the impression that with a bit more rpm's (up to 3000) everyting necessary would have had more cooling as well.
It's a 7.3 idi 4x4 ambulance package so normally they are executed from the factory with the heavy-duty coolers and all that!?!?? I guess that heavy duty here doesn't mean that much???
Ok, so far all went well, and we continued our route. I smelled a wiff of the brakes, but that was all, (I also downshifted on the decent, to help the brakes a bit).
Then we had more flat land to cross, but here I noticed that with accelerating, the gearbox stayed longer than normally in a lower gear, thereby revving the engine to about 3000Rpm. and we didn't smell anything, nor were we indicated a high temp. somwhere??? and at a certain moment I had to stop before entering another route, and there it was, we saw a small cloud of smoke in the headlights, and smelled hot trans oil, when I got out of the car all of the oil was leaking onto the road. and we were nailed!

My question, taking into consideration that this truck has stood still most part of it's life, ( I just passed the 10.000Miles and it's a '89).
I'm guessing and hoping that it's only a seal that gave up? due to old age and hardening of non usage?
What exactly has happened here?

Front pump seal has failed. This is very common. Heat is the most common cause of this failure. The second cause is a worn or damaged bushing.

 

[Bart F-350]

Ok, so to me it looks that apart from a lot of elbow grease the damage could be reasonable?
Thanks for the advise so far, if anyone has more, I welkom it.

 

[chillman88]

Ok, so to me it looks that apart from a lot of elbow grease the damage could be reasonable?
Thanks for the advise so far, if anyone has more, I welkom it.

It depends on how much fluid leaked out before you actually caught it. If it was mine I'd want to open it up and check it out or have a shop do it.

Truthfully though, I understand finances. If that isn't in the budget, replace the seal, fill her back up and see if that's all she needed. Won't be any farther behind if that's not all it was.

I don't remember but I'm sure you've been checking the fluid level right?

 

[Bart F-350]

The trans fluid was up to the max. on the dipstick, I don't think I lost too much during the travel, It was lost when I came to a halt just before entering a regional road in the middle of the night, there was only a bit of spray on the rear axle. I don't know how much was ditched on the road, and I shut off the engine right away, only when the tow truck came I restarted the engine to have steering and brakes while he winched my truck on the deck. (I hope that doesn't hurt the gearbox too much?)

 

[Bart F-350]

Well, In the meanwhile I've changed the pump seal for a new one, and replaced all the trans oil and filter, but when changing through the gears, it continued to make a silly wishwishwish sound, which I guess comes out of the convertor? This was shortly after I got my truck back home after the event.

now I have the trans out, and brought it to a shop to overhaul.
yesterday I got some news, they opened up the convertor, and it seems that it was burned, I guess the clutches, but I wasn't told the details.

To be continued.