The linkage works, moves freely, and everything is normal to the tranny. The truck only starts in P or N, as it should. The engine RPM changes and fluctuates as you go through the gears, as you would expect. HOWEVER: The truck is always in forward gear. When you start the engine, it lurches forward and tries to drive away when engine starts. It will drive forward in any gear selector position. Even in R, it will drive forward. When going from N to D, it will try to/or actually stall the engine, even though it never truely leaves forward gear. This all happenend suddenly. Worked right when I left, drove it 2 miles to my destination, and I noticed the symptoms when I was parking.
Sounds to me like you have a stuck valve in the valve body, directing the fluid flow only to apply the forward clutches.Any tranny guys can chime in at any time.
It sounds to me like the arm isn't engaging the little valve in the valve body that slides in and out. I'm no transmission guy, but that would be my first hunch until pulling it apart and inspecting further.
The E4OD is a fragile transmission at best. It sounds like you are in need of a rebuild. This tranny has no performance potential so i know just enough to stay away from it. I don't know anyone who has had one that didn't have to replace or repair it. Most likely you have developed a pump leak and the Converter clutch is locking up. That will cause a stall condition. You seem to have multiple problems as that won't cause all your symptoms.
I thought the same thing... However I have 4 of these trannys in service, so I have seen that problem, along with many others. They are a pain in the buttocks, but they are what I got. Anyway, when the converter locked up on my PSD van, the thing couldn't stop without stalling. In this case, we are looking at a drop in RPM, with an inconsistent stall. It puzzles me that it stalls in R much more frequently than D. Does the converter even lock at all in R? In other words, it can idle, brakes on, in gear, which is opposite of a locked converter. So I have been shying away from that diagnosis. It is funny that it is in forward gear, no matter the selection, but it still changes RPM and acts differently when you change the selector. ??? Still moves and drives forward, but the 'attitude' of the engine changes detent to detent. Maybe the computer is adjusting for the detent position, and is oblivious to the tranny being stuck in forward gear...
I haven't had terrible problems with them, considering I run 4 of them. They have high miles and do heavy towing almost every day. I have one PSD 350 van with 220k miles, and another with 155k, both are on their first and stock tranny. I have one PSD 350 van that lost 2nd gear and got rebuilt at 180k. Another PSD 350 van... it went 210k before the converter went south. The F150 with 5.0 went out at about 150k. We recently replaced it with a fresh rebuilt E4OD, and this is the tranny acting up now. It is fresh (6-8 mos), but we got it second hand from the owner that had it built, so we have no warranty claim. It had a new converter and towing shift kit installed along with the rebuild. As many miles as we have on our E4ODs, and the weight load they carry, I suppose we haven't done too bad. They do get a bad wrap.
