Volitan

Greetings,
I have a problem with the trans in my Aerostar. It is a 96 4.0 E-AWD with about 120k on a rebuilt tranny. It won't shift into OD. All other shifting is normal/fine. If it is going down hill it will "release" and the engine speed will go down to what sounds/feels like idle, but as soon as the throttle is picked back up the engine speed comes back up to what is higher than normal from before the major issue that was found and repaired.
What was that major issue you might ask?? Well...
Check this picture out!!
[IMG]ftp://66.213.241.171/FTP/img2.jpg[/IMG]

Don't know how it happened but this is the flex-plate/flywheel. It has tears it in radiating out from the center bolt hole ring. It failed after a few days of barely working. Replaced it by pulling tranny, transfer case, both drive shafts and various fluid lines, electrical connections, etc. When we put it all back together it was checked for fluid levels, driven gingerly around the block and taken to Jiffy Lube for a full service.

Currently it drives great. Shifting is better than it has been for months prior to failure.

I suspect the poor design of the bolt hole strengthing plate that was spot welded on weakened the main steal of the flex-plate/flywheel and the tears resulted.

So, can anybody suggest, given the above information, where I might start troubleshooting the lack of OD?

I am concerned that we couldn't get the torque converter off the input shaft of the tranny. The failure of the flex-plate/flywheel re****ed in about a 3/4" deflection of the torque converter back into the bell housing space which I assume transferred to the tranny input shaft. I have no idea what kind of damage that might have caused but the driveability is OK at this point. I put about 50 miles on it yesterday after the tranny service. That mileage includes 3 seperate sessions with 2 being full cool down and warm up and 1 being just a short stop inbetween resulting in only partial cool down.

any help would be greatly appreciated!!

p.s. I hope the picture comes through. It didn't in preview mode. :(

__________________
Martin from PDX
No speed limit on the water folks!!