Finished the 200 to 250 engine swap. Got it running good. Everything hooked up except the kickdown. (Can't figure that out yet.) Drove it up and down the drive first (it's a long country driveway). Let the daughter take it up and down the road, was a little sluggish in shifting, but smoothed out. Daughter very excited. She took it to work, parked it. Went out at lunch, no reverse. I told her I'd be over to check it out after I got off work. Unfortunately, my F250 wouldn't start! Compressor locked up, no workie. Borrowed a truck, sent my truck to the shop, got mav out of the parking lot, followed her home. By the time she got home, 3rd was gone. I was positive I did something wrong somewhere, but now we have to get this tranny rebuilt. Quoted $650 & up. I'm rather sick. I still need a picture of what the kickdown should look like, and I guess at least one more person telling me I didn't break the transmission! Rhonda
you didn't break it... a lot of us run without the kickdown, just pull it into 2nd when ready to pass... was it working with the other motor? is the fluid level OK? Frank
PaulS posted what was wrong when you lost 3rd and reverse at the same time, I want to say a servo was leaking but I'm not sure. If you go thru his post, I'm sure you could find it.
First and reverse are both controlled by the direct clutch. Since reverse went out first you probably didn't replace the reverse servo piston when you rebuilt it. It can be replaced in the car but that won't affect third gear. That might be a problem with the apply piston seals in the clutch pack - did you pull the pistons out after removing the clutches and steels? It could also be the sealing rings on the stator shaft. If they are the wrong ones or broken on installation it can cause your no high gear problem too. Unfortunately both require the removal and tear-down of the C4 to fix. I wish I had better news.
If the rain holds off tomorrow, we're going to pull the transmission and take it in for rebuild. It worked fine with the other motor for the 6 or 7 months she drove it. When we first got it running, the transmission was "sluggish" I guess you could say, but it smoothed out. When we did the engine swap, we drained it, and replaced the filter. I'd never seen transmission fluid so nasty looking. Very dark, and smelled "bad". Can't explain it any better, sorry. For all I know, it had never been changed. Filter was pretty well clogged, too. Guess I should have just had it rebuilt when the whole thing was apart. Don't really want to leave the kickdown off. I've read all the stuff back and forth on that, and we've decided to put it back. Just need to get the right parts. Rhonda
Update I checked all around for $$ to get the transmisison rebuilt. Got wildly varying amounts. Also checked $$ with us pulling it, or the shop doing it. Some would only rebuilt if they did the other work, some didn't care. One shop accused me of personally screwing up the transmission. He asked who replaced the motor. I said I did, with my son's help. He said, no, I mean who really did it? I assured him I did. He proceeded to tell me women had no business doing anything like that, they don't know what they're doing, and I'm the cause. First off, I was sure he must have been right (I wondered if something I had done could have caused this) Then, I just got mad. What a jerk. My husband does not want us to pull the transmission. Something about living on a hill, gravel driveways, and such So, a little more money, but I guess we'll do it that way. Rhonda
