When I went to class yesterday morning, I noticed that my truck was up-shifting a couple hundred rpm later than normal. But other than that drove fine. When I left class a couple hours later, instead of up-shifting from 2nd to 3rd, the rpms just shot up like I hit neutral, and I lost all acceleration. I blipped the throttle a few times and eventually got it to grab again, until I got over 2000 rpms, then it let go again. Limped into a nearby parking lot to check my fluid. It was full, red, and didn't smell burnt. By now the fluid was hot and it was a struggle to get any movement forward or reverse. I'm pretty sure it's the converter and not the whole trans. Either way I'm covered because I have a spare 904 with converter, but it'd be easier just to slide the trans back a little to get the converter swapped. More to follow if I ever get time to work on it.

 

If you let it sit and cool completely does it operate normally for a while and then act up again?

Drop the pan and see what is in it before you make any decision on what needs done. When a converter goes they usually put a lot of stuff in the pan. That stuff will be in the cooler lines and the cooler so that a flush is a minimum if you find stuff in the pan. Personally I would replace the converter and trans and flush the cooler and lines.

 

If I let it cool, I can put it in gear and move it around. Can't really get into 2nd gear or anything, it lets go before then. But when it's hot it's nearly impossible to move at all.

I've heard that about the converter leaving bits and pieces throughout the tranny before. Are there any tricks to getting the crossmember off the frame? There are a couple bolts on each side that I just don't see how you'd get to. I know there has to be a way, someone assembled the thing 22 years ago. If I can get that out, replacing the whole trans won't really be any harder than just the converter.

 

on my 91 i think there was 8 nuts and bolts that held the cross member to the frame.

 

I am not sure about the D cross member but on each side mine has 3 nuts/bolts to each frame and 2 nuts/bolts on each diagonal support bracket. They are all easily accessible.

The converter on my wife's Explorer just went out and it would run OK until the fluid warmed up and all the friction disk material from the converter that had settled in the pan would then clog the filter and starve the trans pump and it would start to slip and not shift properly.

 

Yes, that pretty much describes what mine is doing. Shame too, just replaced the shift shaft seal, new filter, and fluid about a month ago.

 

I've had a lot of old timers tell me that if you buy a newer car, change the trans fluid religiously, but if you suddenly come in possession of an older car with an unknown history, that you better not touch that pan unless it keels over on its own.

 

I've heard that too. I guess the theory behind it is all the "crap" floating around in the old fluid is somehow taking up all the slop between worn out parts or something lol. The fluid that was in it actually looked and smelled fine, but since I had to remove the valve body to get to the seal I needed to change, figured I'd do a filter and fluid change while in there. Since school started in August, I've been putting more interstate miles on it, maybe more than the old converter could keep up with? Oh well, either way, tomorrow I'm dropping the pan to see what it looks like in there, and either changing the converter or the whole tranny. My only hope now is that if I change the whole trans, the '71 spare 904 I have will match up to the '89 318. I don't see why not, I don't think mounts would be any different. Figure a 904 is a 904 is a904.

 

Ok, I'm now sporting a 904 from a '71 Satellite. Putting this tranny side by side with my original, the only difference is there's no place for the blue wire to hook up to, which I believe is for the locking tq converter. This trans feels like it has a longer 1st gear, but 2 and 3 seem closer to each other. RPM in 3rd are within 100 rpm of the old tranny. The converter never locked til over 55 on it, so I'm thinking atleast around town, my mileage should be about the same.

Also, bought a new tranny mount at Advance Auto, and the stupid studs on it were metric, and of course, they don't supply metric nuts, just fyi for anyone needing a new mount.