August 2004 Archives - Transmission Digest
Good Vibrations: 4T60-E Differential Problems

A customer comes into your shop in a GM vehicle with a 4T60-E transmission that’s making a lot of noise no matter what speed the car is going but is quiet as long as there’s no wheel movement, or possibly no movement at all. You do the basic diagnostics, pull the pan and discover that the pan is full of metal, and upon disassembly you find the differential parking-gear bearing is blown. Or, even worse, a unit you just repaired a couple of months ago comes back with one of these problems.

Advanced Clutch Diagnostics

Clutch replacement is a common shop repair that is a profitable and relatively simple job if you follow proper inspection and installation procedures. About 50% of all manual-transmission failures or wear-related problems begin with a worn or damaged clutch.

August 2004 Issue

Allison World Transmissions are fully computer-controlled transmissions that come in three truck models and four bus models. The model designations are AD, MD and HD, and each is rated for different gross vehicle weights (GVW).

Morning Sickness – Well, Sort Of

At ATSG we have received several calls on the 5R55N/W/S transmission in the new Lincoln LS, Jaguar, Ford Explorer or Mountaineer concerning a complaint of delayed or no engagement. The condition occurs most often during first morning startup, under extreme cold-temperature conditions, and the transmission may engage if the throttle is snapped wide open.

What Is a Rebuilt Transmission?

A silly question to be asking people who have been in the transmission rebuilding business for so long, isn’t it? It does, however, seem to get a lot of different replies. If you ask 100 rebuilders you might get 10 different interpretations. That could be why some states have adopted regulations for the minimum standards to which a transmission can be rebuilt and still be called a rebuilt, reconditioned, overhauled or remanufactured transmission. The words all mean the same thing in these states because the lawmakers didn’t want shops to get around the regulation by calling the rebuilt something else.

It’s an Inside Job

The 2003-and-up Audi A4 and the 2002-and-up A6 with a 1.8- or 3.0-liter engine use a continuously variable automatic transmission known as the Multitronic® 01J (see Figure 1) and also referred to as the VL300. The core of this article is not that this transmission is a CVT. The focus is on what’s inside the transmission other than the drive- and driven-pulley set.