tranny pooped on the way home!!!

[GRU]

well, just got back from a nice weekend camping trip with the new-to-me camper. towed real nice, was rather enjoyable to tow. on the way home i downshifted for some compression braking and it let out a god awful growl when i put it in 4th. then it started doing it in any gear any time i let off the throttle. as long as i had power to it it was fine. ease off the power and it got angry. then i go to park the camper and i have no freaking reverse!!!just the angry growling noise. so now im making angry growling noises as i towed it over to my mechanic buddy's house. this thing has spent too much time on my fathers trailer. he said reverse is the common maledy of these transmissions. i guess i have to wait to hear the damage. i had to rob the wheels off my flatbed to put on the camper cuz its tires are shot and i cant really afford new ones. now i need major tranny work too!!! the wifes pregnant and hardly working... my hours may get cut at work again... this is not cool. i guess its good i only went 40 miles from home instead of 320 to go see mel like i had originally planned...

 

[Mat J]

man that sucks how many miles were on it?

 

[icanfixall]

I look at it this way.. You didn't kill an E4OD trans so it wont be as expensive to repair a ZF trans. Also if it "let go" like you said then you were just driving on borrowed time anyway. Now you will have a great trans and truck to match... Plus the repairs are way cheaper than $600.00 per month for a newer truck... Aren't they....... The payments can't be skipped any month but repairs can....

 

[91f2504x4]

It sounds like at the bare minimum you will need a full rebuild kit. If any of the slider gears are bad, which they go bad from grinding then you will have to replace them too. if you can't rebuild it yourself, you are better off to just exchange your trans for a rebuilt one. The transmission shop here wants $2200 just to rebuild a ZF trans, even after I told them, that you can buy a rebuilt one for less than $1200 with a 2-3 year warranty, they didn't seem to care. It seems like it is most common for these trans to start popping out/grinding in reverse and then it moves on to 3rd or 4th and then sometimes 1st gear as well. Lots of times this is due to a worn slave cylinder not fully depressing the clutch and putting lots of wear on the synchros. I just fixed Reverse in mine not very long ago, and 4th gear is now giving me trouble just as you stated, it was fine before but after a little more driving, my 4th gear has started acting just as you described, it will feel like it goes into 4th and then when you let the clutch out it will just grind. If I match rpms perfect it will drop in sometimes and do just fine but mine won't lock into 4th with a load on the truck. For now I just skip 4th gear and go on to 5th but I want to fix it before long. I just hate to drop the transmission again, if I would have known 4th was going to do this crap I would have totally rebuilt the stupid thing the last time I had it apart, but now I have come to learn that at the first sign of trouble, it is best to go ahead and fully rebuild these ZF transmissions, they are just not built heavy enough in my opinion.

 

[Diesel JD]

Makes me really glad I went with a T18 for my manual swap rather than one of these ZF5. I know no OD but I'm trying to remedy that...

 

[Agnem]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about that. Hopefully the repair will not be too painfull.

 

[GRU]

well i thank God that my mechanic buddy truly is a good friend and will only charge me for parts we help each other out alot. though with this i might really be in his debt for awhile. yes it is much better than melting down an E4OD. i hated those trannies 16 yrs ago behind a 302. and gary youre absolutely right. i was thinking that today that its still cheaper than a truck payment. just really horrible timing. is it ever good timing?? btw i think it has 118,000 miles. or 218,000, or 318,000... who the hell knows with these damn 5 place odometers. its funny... toyota put 6 place odometers in, guess they knew people would put more than 5 figures on them!! let the flaming begin...

 

[91f2504x4]

well i thank God that my mechanic buddy truly is a good friend and will only charge me for parts we help each other out alot. though with this i might really be in his debt for awhile. yes it is much better than melting down an E4OD. i hated those trannies 16 yrs ago behind a 302. and gary youre absolutely right. i was thinking that today that its still cheaper than a truck payment. just really horrible timing. is it ever good timing?? btw i think it has 118,000 miles. or 218,000, or 318,000... who the hell knows with these damn 5 place odometers. its funny... toyota put 6 place odometers in, guess they knew people would put more than 5 figures on them!! let the flaming begin...

You might get off fairly cheap then, if all you need is a rebuild kit with synchros, they can be had for just a hair over $300. Hopefully all the slider gears are good and the "dogs" aren't wore on any of them, because from what I can tell those critters cost anywhere from $75 to $150 a piece.

 

[GRU]

the suspense is killing me. he probably wont touch it til thursday or friday...