I have about 5 sitting around the shop, including yours lol
Grinding noise: A442F Transmission Failure (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter WCBlueSky
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- Thread starter
- #23
I opened up the tranny pan and there was tons of metal on the magnets, including some larger chips and lots of "glitter". I just cleaned the magnets recently (see Help me identify metal in transmission pan) so this was all from one trip. I'm tempted to take apart the transmission and see what failed.
I got another transmission from the local pick-n-pull, hope it works. There was zero glitter or metal chips on the magnets on the replacement tranny which is a good sign.
I got another transmission from the local pick-n-pull, hope it works. There was zero glitter or metal chips on the magnets on the replacement tranny which is a good sign.
- Thread starter
- #25
Today we dropped the transmission. I couldn't resist opening it up to see what failed, turns out it was the rear planetary gear on the output shaft. The planetary pinion gear mounts were wallowed out and had tons of play and one of the needle bearings totally failed. This led to chipping of the gear teeth and it got so hot that it discolored the metal. Still plenty of friction material in the clutches though. Here is a video I made:
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- Thread starter
- #26
Here you can see the metal discoloration from getting so hot.
- Thread starter
- #27
No idea what caused it to fail though. All the other bearings and gears looked great.
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Great job chasing that down.
- Thread starter
- #31
This is what I know from the CARFAX maintenance report: I bought the vehicle last November, the PO had the transmission flushed at Brake Masters last September. I called Brake Masters and they said they used Valvoline Maxlife ATF, so that is I what I added as well. The transmission fluid was also changed in 2014 and 2004. The odometer has 220k miles on it.
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Uh, yes.'94 is that bus tranny everyone says is stronger than the weak A343.
- Thread starter
- #33
I tend to agree, in searching the forum I could find very few problems with the A442F, mostly solenoid issues. I only found this post which had a similar problem with tons of metal shavings and trouble with a planetary gear: REBUILD A442F HYDRO HDJ81.
SUMMIT CRUISERS
SILVER Star
Just a thought. How about shifting the transfer case in neutral, then go through all the gears in the transmission. Wouldn’t that completely eliminate the transfer case? If no noise, then transfer case. IMHO transfer case is suspect more than the bus transmission.
FIFY
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- Thread starter
- #37
Hahaha!
Could be, who knows...
- Thread starter
- #39
Finally a happy ending: I swapped in a transmission from the local salvage yard, which just happened to have a '94 LC. It was a ton of work, but I took it for a test drive tonight and it works great!
