Auto Repair: Fix Transmission Shift Problem Ford 5R55E Explorer more - 1AAuto.com

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Ford used the 5R55E in many rear and 4 wheel Drive applications. It is a good transmission but is susceptible to the valve body gasket "blowing out." The symptom of this in our vehicle was that the transmission missed second gear under acceleration but found a higher gear when we let off the gas pedal. This is an easy problem to diagnose and only requires basic tools. Pull your transmission pan down, remove your valve body and see if either the gasket between the plate and transmission is damaged (as on our Explorer) or the gasket between the plate and valve body is damaged. If they are then you have an inexpensive rewarding fix. If they aren't you can put your transmission together and know you may have a more expensive problem. This transmission was used in Ford Aerostar, Ranger, Explorer, Thunderbird, Mustang Mazda B-Series pickup, Mercury Mountaineer, Lincoln LS and Jaguar S-Type. This problem is more common to the mid to late 90s models. Torque specifications for the valve body to transmission bolts are 6-8 foot lbs or 70-90 Inch lbs. The bolts that hold the transmission pan on are 10 foot lbs.

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hi I'm I great I'm one of the owners of
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I want to help you save time and money
repairing and maintaining your vehicle
I'm going to use my 20-plus years
experience restoring and repairing cars
and trucks like this to show you the
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the right parts installed correctly
that's going to save you time and money
thank you and enjoy the video in this
video we're going to show you how to fix
a common problem with for automatic
transmissions in the mid and late
nineties it's replacing the valve body
gaskets and the symptom basically is the
transmission will just have trouble
shifting it will not shift and then if
you let off the gas it will finally go
into gear and that's usually a symptom
that the valve body gasket needs to be
replaced tools you'll need are pretty
basic
jack and jack stands if you need to jack
up your car sometimes on these explorers
like this vehicle you don't even really
to jack it up
8 10 13 millimeter sockets you need a
cleaning solvent to clean up the
transmission pan
automatic transmission fluid and a
screwdriver to help you line up the
gasket and pan at the end you're going
to want to go up underneath and you're
going to pull down your transmission pan
which is this pain right here and here
is your cross number
catalytic converter your engines up here
sooo transmission pan and there's about
15 volts it around the perimeter
you want to remove all the bolts except
for probably two of the back ones and
then you loosen up those back one's and
start prying down the front so that you
can control how much oil comes out
yeah
ok so i still have the rear to whether
the rear bolt tight and now you can see
I'm actually loosening up this front one
and I'm starting to get drips all around
the front of the pan
I've got a kind of a nice wide catch pan
here
certainly work
ever in his work the screwdriver and now
you can see it's really starting to pour
out just let it drain like that off
ok what you can see here is I just place
the jack under your light we just to
help me out i'm going to do bolts off
yeah
I just drop the pan down and dumping the
rest of the fluid that's in the pan into
my catch basin is your filter right here
there's an eight millimeter bolt right
here
ok not a clean job but your transmission
really appreciate you for it
look at that ball right hand down here
okay now you're entertaining write out
some more fluid
ok we'll look at it here now is the
valve body that's the front of the
vehicle and what we want to do is just
unplug this five electrical leads and
they all just kind of pull off pretty
easily you can a little bit actually
- 6:00
and pull this right down and out of the
way so now you're going to remove all
these 10 millimeter bolts
we don't need to remove this natural
finish one here that's holding this
bracket
ok these bolts are different sizes and
you don't need to move this remove this
natural one here either
they're different lengths so what I
suggest you do is lay yourself out a
nice clean spot in your work area and as
you take each bolt out kind of put it in
the area that it goes into the valve
body that way to keep track of which
bolts go where
and now you little fast forward you can
see I have them all laid out the way
they're supposed to be
ok so you also remove the four bolts to
hold this servo cover up and it comes
down today
you need to take this last bolt out here
you know kind of a mess
newsboy little bolt again be ready to
get a little Willy bringing the valve
body down
ok and now we can see right here is our
problem
okay this whole thing is a gasket and
right here the gaskets missing
it's been blown out and that is a common
problem on these cars and that's what
caused the shifting problems
ok while its training and just want to
kind of pull your lower body gasket up
and off
try and pull it as whole as you can see
it again
that's right your problem right there
ok so here we have our valve audio and
we're going to take this cover off its
t30 Torx bolts
take it straight up and off
you want to pull your gasket right up at
all at this point if you chose to you
could clean out your valve body
I don't because there's lots of small
parts in there that you have to make
sure that go back in so I just keep it
flat
pull the gasket off and then put the new
gasket on because most of the time
there's not enough dirt in there to make
a difference in once you put the new
fluid in it gets cleaned out pretty well
but if you did clean it out you want to
make sure that you do it with something
like a penetrating oil that's the last
modification to it and also make sure
you get all the parts back into the
right spots
put your gas paper down and it is
important that this gets lined up
correctly
r . in the other thing we can do
yeah
you want to make sure you tighten these
bolts up correctly
it's not a lot it's only about six foot
pounds because it's about 70 inch pounds
to actually have to listen very
carefully to the to the wrench to hear
the click
now what I've done is I've put my middle
one through one of my side ones through
and white cuckold for this transmission
. you don't have to worry about it being
perfectly clean but I put those through
and then I put the gasket on the kind of
stuff that my valve body and put up the
little pizza making sure that on this
side
shifter the place up over the wires
sure that gets into we're in the go
carefully start leaving bolts not only
press it up in there just trying to
kinda feel and get that bolt started
something here until we know we got it
started at the transmission correctly we
don't want to pinch the gap it
ok let's started shifters kind of lined
up there
this built-in goes to the gasket right
can get him started it helps those a
little bit easier
I can just slowly when I just kind of
start with my bolts and work my way out
till they're all it crispy want to make
sure this hole here is open so that the
whole your filter goes into is push up
and tighten all these now starting in
the middle
you want to talk these 28 foot pounds
the torque spec is I think 70 to 90 2
inch pounds which works out to be six
and a half to nine foot pounds so you
want to talk about a I talked about
eight foot pounds i worked from the
center and then after I did from the
center out working a regular my way
around I then just went side to side and
recheck them and there is one bolt
that's underneath this detent for on the
side so you want to work that bolt and
then put this bolt on last and now here
I am putting on the servo motor cover
which is the four bolts and a new gasket
should come with the gaskets for the
valve body so you put those four bolts
on and again talk talk those 28 foot
pounds
ok so now we can put our wiring click
backup and in love our connections back
in
yeah
ok
and just double check them out
ok so i am going to speed through put
your filter and pan back on if you want
to see this in regular speed
just check out our other videos for the
ford explorer training service and you
know we hope this helps you out if
you're having some shifting problems
with your explorer or of mid to late
nineties Ford automatic transmission it
can be a blown valve body gasket the
worst she can do is take it apart and
find out that it's not a bomb valve body
gasket and then you put it back together
and do whatever you need to do with car
or if you find that it's one of these
gaskets then you can fix it yourself and
be back on the road for pretty cheap
money
ok and once your pans all on then you're
going to want
fill up your transmission you dipstick
has a little grid here that shows you
you know where full is and what you want
to do is you probably put about three
quarts in and then start it up and let
it get warm and fill it until it's in
the middle or towards the top of that
grid and you want to use American five
type
automatic transmission fluid in this
ford explorer
if you're doing a different type of car
make sure you use the correct fluid for
whatever vehicle you're working on
we hope this helps you out brought to
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