dayne808

hi i'm new to the site and i bought my first diesel truck about a week ago. it's an ex. cab longbed and it has 276,000 miles. the motor is still very strong, but the tranny won't shift out of first gear. even if i manual shift it. i don't know the history of the truck other than the fact that they kept it in good shape. i also heard that the E4OD trannies are crap. can anyone shed some light or if anyone has had the same problem? thanks. i'll post some pics later when i get them uploaded

v8motorcyclema

Generally, yes, the E40D's are crap unless you keep that oil less than 200 degrees all the time.

I'm not 100% sure if the E40D's are the same but I know the older C6's were shifted by the position of the VRV of the side of the injection pump. Moving the valve forward or backward changed the shift points. If that didn't work, I used to replace the solenoid on the side of the tranny. If that didn't work, I put a new tranny in as it wasn't worth fighting it! Call me a quitter....ha!

dayne808

we dropped the pan the other night, there was some shavings in the fluid but a friend that was helping me said it didn't look too bad. we tried to swap in some used solenoids but the plug was different (they were from a E350 van w/the E40D trans) so i just changed the fluid/filter cleaned the solenoid assembly, now it kinda shifts 1st to 2nd. actually at first i thought it was stuck in 1st gear, but it was stuck in 2nd. it takes off in 2nd for a split second, then downshifts to first. then it shifts to 2nd gear and that's it. then it stays in 2nd. i don't think it's the trans. solenoids maybe? maybe the trans computer? if there's anything else i should look for let me know. thanks

dayne808

update!!!!! i reset the ecu (disconnected the batteries) and it shifted into 3rd
gear! still no 4th though... any thoughts?

v8motorcyclema

I know for a fact the trans gets its shift points from a unit attached to the injector pump. Now, whether that is electronic or vaccum based I'm not sure of.