4.4L 6 speed auto maintenance

[williamx5]

Good day all!!

I know I have to finish the motor part of my project, but I was getting the Trans failsafe message and I couldn't go far from the house without it taking hold. Limping back home in third gear is not all that much fun... So, I decided to tear into the issue a little... The shifter doo-hicky thing that tells the Trans computer what gear it's in, is not like all the others before it... I searched for the part and now know why it isn't avail... It is literally apart of the valve body inside the trans... This one is hall effect with a magnet slider (so it seems)... So, here is the story...

Here she is!! In all her high stance due to me filling the suspension manually by jumpering the air control coils and manually operating the air pump... BUT, it's not sitting on the bump stops!!! And, to my surprise, all the air bags are holding!!



Here is the color of the trans fluid at 164160 exact miles... I know that because I just changed the first oil fill after initial start...







There is ALWAYS one that doesn't cooperate!!!



Dirty pan...



Original filter... I know that cause it has a date on it...



Don't let this seal stay in the trans... It does sometimes... Mine almost did...



And the fun stuff!! With the fluid looking this bad, I wanted to clean out the valve body... I'm one of those that feel the risk is worth it have clean oil in there... But, I clean out the crap that will otherwise ruin the trans if left alone...



Gotta pull that little leaver down to release the electrical connector extension housing...



There are ten Torx 40's (seven long and three short) to drop the valve body... The other torx bolts are 27's...





These are the main long seven... The other three are in the black plastic electrical housing...





Think this is the reason I would loose my gear when it heated up... This was all over my selector slider piece...



All clean...



Oh, that thingy you pull down to release the connector extension won't go back up unless the extension piece is in place first...



You take these out and the electrical part comes off the valve body... you can't take it apart... I kinda tried, but it wasn't worth the risk of breaking it...





Pull these out (27's also) to get the solenoids out...





The middle yellow one doesn't have any removable valves behind it... Yep, I pulled all them out too...



Initial separation was very dirty!! Poor lighting... My apologies!!



So, here are the check valves for this one... and the two spring plungers... There are other plugs along the side that I didn't circle... I have a pic of them too...



Here are the valves for the shorter half (top half as it sits in the trans)...

Three on one side... Two on the other...





Skip that third spot... Nothing there...



exploded view...



This is the other side... The last one gave me problems... (There is ALWAYS one!!!)





ONLY ODD ONE!!!





All back together...





Not in yet... Ran out of time... Gotta work tomorrow... I need to get the fluid, gasket, and filter... Was looking up the specs on the correct fluid, but I can't get a good straight answer from the posts I was reading... AFT2? Dex VI? Semi syn? Full syn??

Well that is it for now... I really hope this fixes my fail safe program!! If not, I will be stuck buying a valve body... Or dig into the electrical plastics...

Cheers!!