October 2007 Archives - Transmission Digest
Double Trouble

Electronic failure can be very similar to a mechanical failure in that when one thing goes wrong, it can cause another part to fail. If you are not careful, you could make a repair that doesn’t fix the original cause of the failure, leading to a repeat failure after repairs.

Priority Customers

In business, as in life, the 80-20 rules always seem to apply – things like how 80% of your aggravation comes from 20% of your employees and 80% of your profits come from about 20% of your customers. Now, I don’t know how aggravating your employees really are (the little dears), but I do know the part about the customers to be true. Although you may have lots of them, the ones who spend the most money with the fewest hassles and consistently help you to pay your bills are only about 20% of the total. If you’ve ever muttered the words, “Gee, if only I had more customers like her,” then you know what I mean.

October 2007 Issue

Issue Summary:

At the beginning of the 2005 model year, an electronically controlled actuator replaced the throttle-valve cable on Dodge trucks with the 5.9-liter diesel and 48RE transmission.

After overhaul, an Aisin Seiki 450-43LE exhibits deteriorating shift quality and slips badly in reverse after the truck is driven a mile or two.

During the 2005 model year, Ford redesigned the low/reverse-clutch retaining snap ring for both diesel and gas applications.

2000-and-up Ford vehicles equipped with the AX4S, AX4N or 4F50N may be difficult to fill with fluid.

Torque-Converter Forensics

When a torque converter fails, the results are quite often catastrophic. It may be difficult to determine which component failed first and even more difficult to determine the root cause of the failure. Each failure should be viewed as an opportunity to learn, and a failure that is caught before the catastrophic stage should be viewed as a golden opportunity.

What a Drag

The ATSG tech line frequently receives calls related to engine stall or even a partial-stalling condition that could be easily mistaken for an engine-performance problem in 1995 and later Audi/VW vehicles with the 01M transmission.

Advanced Manual-Transmission Diagnostics

In last month’s article we started this series on manual-transmission diagnostics. We continue here with a more-advanced discussion. We covered the absolute need for all technicians to understand the theory of operations and power flow of the units they are working on so they can successfully diagnose problems. The topic addressed in this month’s article is shift problems, their causes and fixes. The next chapter will deal with diagnosing noises, and we will close the series with advanced electronic and function diagnosis of electronic and active transfer cases.