Welp, There goes my weekend. Need advice. (1 Viewer)

[2001Oda]

Hey all, few quick things

This afternoon I decided to finally swap "Solenoid E" from the p0770 code. Dropped the pan and found a substantial amount of metal in the bottom of the pan on the magnets. Now, I am unsure the service history on my rig, but the pan looked as though the fluid has been switched fairly often, as there is no varnish or stains on the inside of the pan. I inspected what I could see from the underside (which isn't much) of the transmission and didn't see anything out of place. The filter looked like it may be the original as it was full of gunk. Now the curious thing is the truck runs fine. I had gotten the CEL showing p0770 about 5 months ago, and I found that the transmission speed sensor may to be blame, I switched that and cleared the code and haven't had any issues since about 3 days ago when it came back. The only "symptom" that it was having that in the morning, it would be slow to shift from 1st to 2nd (about 4k rpm) but if I let her warm up it was a non issue. But no clunks, leaks, skipped shifts or anything else that would clue me into a transmission issue. Could these be a result from the pan never being dropped? it has 179k miles on it. Or did I just catch this time bomb before it exploded?

Thanks all.

 

[LongHaulCruiser]

Was the transmission working well before this was discovered? Your mileage is pretty low for it to be going out. I wonder if they just had the fluid and not the filter changed? There are shortcut ways of changing the fluid and not the filter, and this may have occurred. If it seems like you don't have a problem, you may not.

 

[Skidoo]

That is a lot of metal and some of it is pretty good size. Doesn't seem good. I pulled my pan at 130K and there was not much metal and it was fine particles. You say it runs fine, so clean it, put a new filter in. Oh and be real careful with those pan bolts, DO NOT exceed the torque spec. One sneeze and you will strip the threads in the transmission. Maybe you have a lot of miles to go.
Mine has been popping the P0770 code for years, I have a Scangauge so I just clear it and it may not come back for 10K miles or be back in a couple of hundred.

 

[MaineiacMoose]

That sure looks like some big pieces for normal wear. Looks to be a fair bit of copper as well. I guess it's really up to you. Keep running it and keep an eye out for a good used one to put in and risk sitting beside the road somewhere. Or throw some money at it with a cannon and have it inspected/repaired. If it were me and it was working ok I would run it to failure and find a good used one.
Just my opinion.