A440F on its last legs, H55F definitely happening (1 Viewer)

[Spook50]

Dropped the pan on my tranny today and pulled the pickup screen assembly. When I rinsed it out there was a bunch of chewed up clutch material that came out of it. Looked like used up dip that someone had spat out. I suspect, given how my shifting has felt for the last couple weeks, that this is from my clutch packs (and maybe from the lockup clutch in the torque converter). What I'm curious about though, is if it's all from my overheat a couple weeks ago, or slow buildup over the 10-12 years that it's been since I cleaned the pickup screen. The screen itself was pretty well clogged up too with buildup. If I had known it was that bad, I would've just ordered a new screen rather than take the time to clean this one out. I'm betting this was a contributor to my overheat though, since it makes sense to me that a clogged up screen would slow down fluid flow, especially through the cooling circuit. I'll be driving from Spokane to Wenatchee in four weeks to meet some friends for Oktoberfest, and there are a couple big hills in both directions, so we'll see how my transmission does there. I'm going to be calling @torfab this week to schedule the H55F swap and a couple other mods that I want them to do at the same time. Hoping for the March/April timeframe since that'll be right after I get my tax return. It'll all depend on their available time and how long it'll take them to source the parts I need though.

Made it 302K miles so far. Will probably be at 310K miles before she's totally retired. Just hope I can make it through winter....

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Subscribing, and will just say, that the H55f will wake up your 3FE. It will be better in every way, except in heavy traffic when you'll have to shift it yourself!

If you can, swap to a manual shift transfer case too, or modify your existing case for manual shift.

H55f was the best thing I've ever done to my FJ60 and now FJ62.

 

[Spook50]

Subscribing, and will just say, that the H55f will wake up your 3FE. It will be better in every way, except in heavy traffic when you'll have to shift it yourself!

If you can, swap to a manual shift transfer case too, or modify your existing case for manual shift.

H55f was the best thing I've ever done to my FJ60 and now FJ62.

That's on the list. My ex wife threw away the box that I had the Valley Hybrids twin stick kit in when she vacated my house (and her subhuman degenerate brother stole a bunch of my tools), but I still have the H55F and attached tcase, pedal bucket with brake and clutch pedals, flywheel and new clutch in my shop. Will be doing the swap with a new twin stick kit, and hopefully at the same time a shackle reversal and FZJ80 rear axle swap with a Harrop E-locker.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

That's on the list. My ex wife threw away the box that I had the Valley Hybrids twin stick kit in when she vacated my house (and her subhuman degenerate brother stole a bunch of my tools), but I still have the H55F and attached tcase, pedal bucket with brake and clutch pedals, flywheel and new clutch in my shop. Will be doing the swap with a new twin stick kit, and hopefully at the same time a shackle reversal and FZJ80 rear axle swap with a Harrop E-locker.

Whoa! That is exactly my build. 80 rear axle swap nets good benefits, like disc brakes, wider stance and more wheel choices. Anyway, you'll like it. But reconsider the shackle reversal. It isn't needed or even desirable. Just scratch that off your build.

 

[Spook50]

Whoa! That is exactly my build. 80 rear axle swap nets good benefits, like disc brakes, wider stance and more wheel choices. Anyway, you'll like it. But reconsider the shackle reversal. It isn't needed or even desirable. Just scratch that off your build.

From the reading I've done a shackle reversal on a long wheel base is beneficial, especially when climbing over obstacles when off road. I don't do any high speed stuff, or any real rock crawling, but it isn't uncommon that I have to climb over a downed tree when on an old logging road.

 

[Spook50]

To add a couple pics of what I found. More buildup than what I expected on the magnets, though luckily no actual metal shavings.

The clutch material I flushed out of the pickup screen. The clumps that look like chewed up dip are what came out.

 

[cruisermatt]

looks like normal 300k miles auto transmission internals to me

 

[Spook50]

looks like normal 300k miles auto transmission internals to me

Though I've only pulled the pan a couple times in the past (and it's been 10-12 years since the last time I did it), I don't remember seeing any clutch material at all in the screen assembly. There was buildup on the magnets though, but again not as much as this time.

 

[SteveH]

Thanks for the pix - we rarely see pix of transmissions in the middle of dying, as it were.

 

[Spook50]

Got my 62 buttoned up last night with a fresh fill of Schaeffer's All-Trans. Was careful not to overfill. Didn't put way too much in last time but it was still over the limit. Drove it 20 miles into work this morning and now it's behaving just fine. I ended up pulling and replacing a cooling line that was getting slightly pinched, so hopefully that also freed up some fluid flow through the system. Outside temp this morning was about 5 degrees cooler than it was on Saturday, and my tranny ran about 20 degrees cooler than the last couple weeks. So definitely better. Still doing the H55F swap in spring though.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

From the reading I've done a shackle reversal on a long wheel base is beneficial, especially when climbing over obstacles when off road. I don't do any high speed stuff, or any real rock crawling, but it isn't uncommon that I have to climb over a downed tree when on an old logging road.

Keep reading because there are some very good reasons not to do it too, among them the need to run a long travel driveshaft and much more nose dive when braking. It also makes it harder to level the truck front to back since you'll be adding proportionately more lift to the front of the truck. I've done a SR on my FJ40 and would not do another.

Glad your tranny is working better.

 

[Spook50]

Ooooooohhhhh, I had forgotten about the issue nose diving during hard braking. Yeah that could be a deal breaker right there given how much time I do spend on the highway. The driveshaft was going to need to be modified anyway to accommodate the H55F swap (though I think they could just swap in late 60 series shafts IIRC) so that wasn't a concern.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Ooooooohhhhh, I had forgotten about the issue nose diving during hard braking. Yeah that could be a deal breaker right there given how much time I do spend on the highway. The driveshaft was going to need to be modified anyway to accommodate the H55F swap (though I think they could just swap in late 60 series shafts IIRC) so that wasn't a concern.

You can swap in late 60 shafts but you'll still want a longer travel spline. With SR, the front axle when loaded up, both moves up and back at the same time. With a normal set up, it moves up but further away kind of balancing out the relative movement of the driveshaft and you can get by with less travel. You can have a long travel set up installed by a good drive shaft shop for an extra $200 roughly.

So I'd recommend you do your H55f conversion and get it working right, then worry about whether you want a shackle reversal, but trust me you won't need it.

 

[NearJetties]

Do the new torfab rear suspension kit with the 80 axle! Can’t imagine a better time.

 

[too tall]

You can swap in late 60 shafts but you'll still want a longer travel spline. With SR, the front axle when loaded up, both moves up and back at the same time. With a normal set up, it moves up but further away kind of balancing out the relative movement of the driveshaft and you can get by with less travel. You can have a long travel set up installed by a good drive shaft shop for an extra $200 roughly.

So I'd recommend you do your H55f conversion and get it working right, then worry about whether you want a shackle reversal, but trust me you won't need it.

Where I live, we use blacktop ( asphalt ) . With the enormous load all of the logging trucks carry around here , the highways develop a two track depression. With bigger more aggressive tires I have found that my truck used to try to climb out of the ruts at speed , causing oscillation between the humps. Also could be described as unintentional wander.
I reversed the shackles on my SOA60 and it solved all of those issues. I also did not use the kit that angles the rear down below the frame. I added the sleeve like original toyota minitrucks had in order to keep the spring more level at ride height. My 60 does not "Nose dive" under braking. It also climbs waaaay better, far less chatter from the front when spinning the tires up hill. A lot of the roads in the US are concrete. That issue doesn't occur with concrete highways.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Where I live, we use blacktop ( asphalt ) . With the enormous load all of the logging trucks carry around here , the highways develop a two track depression. With bigger more aggressive tires I have found that my truck used to try to climb out of the ruts at speed , causing oscillation between the humps. Also could be described as unintentional wander.
I reversed the shackles on my SOA60 and it solved all of those issues.

Not apples to apples though, because you likely corrected the caster perfectly too. It's inadequate caster (think stock FJ60) that makes it wander in ruts like that. If caster is 3-4 degrees, it won't do that.

Funny, on my FJ62, after an OME lift, it wandered and darted really bad under hard braking. And that's with proper toe-in, new tires, new bushings. A 2 degree caster shim made it drive like a new truck.

So for Spook, I'll stand by my recommendation NOT to do a shackle reversal, but to shoot for 4 degrees of caster and see how it drives. If a flaw is detected then, consider a SR.

 

[Spook50]

Do the new torfab rear suspension kit with the 80 axle! Can’t imagine a better time.

Man if I could freely spend the money for that and 80 series front and rear setups, I would. As it is I would be looking at likely $15K out the door for locked axles, setup, the suspension, install, and the H55F conversion altogether. Just not in the cards right now. I got a potential trial for my custody battle in February that I need to keep in mind with my budget.

 

[NearJetties]

Fair, I’m great at spending other people’s money

good luck with the custody stuff

 

[Spook50]

Imagine a 6.2L LS3 with the Torfab suspension conversion and axles with lockers....

 

[89BIGBLUE]

Imagine a 6.2L LS3 with the Torfab suspension conversion and axles with lockers....

Drool...