700R4 Transmission, Chapter 3

It's not over till it's over, I always say... Here is what happened on the latest "Lost 4th gear again".. This is the story that "one thing leads to another....but it all turned out OK in the end.......

This is what started it all. Over the time frame of a few months, my 3-4 shift point gradually increased from a perfect 45 mph up to about 60, then it never would go into 4th. I got on a forum, threw out the question, and some guy said that maybe the "bore hole" that the governor rotates in is worn, and I should check to see if it's over 0.80 inches by getting some small bore caliper gauges and check it. So I did, but that was before I pulled the governor and saw this. BUT then SMART ME, I decided to check the bore anyway. MISTAKE ! In any case Sonnax was kind enough to send me a new one even though this one was out of warranty
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This is what I have to work with............NO ROOM to do hardly anything and barely room to get the cover off and get the governor out.
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Another angle
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So, I bought these. One is missing because it got stuck in the bore [more on this below] and the other is because I took it apart to see how they worked, and once apart, they are just about impossible to reassemble without some sort of jig.
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So, I took his suggestion and began to take a measurement. He didn't say anything like "watch out and don't spring the gauge open with either of the gauge pins facing down"" but guess what, I sprung the gauge, and one of the pins went into a hole in the bottom of the bore. SHIT ! and would no come out no matter what.... NOW what do I do..... I contacted him again and asked where the two passages go to.... so he sent me a video..
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So he sends this video, but DID NOT MENTION the fact that one of the holes has a restrictor plug in it and the pin could not go into the valve body NOR did he say that the other hole has a tiny filter screen in it, making it impossible that it could end up in the valve body. Had I known that anything dropped into either hole CANNOT get into the valve body, I would have shifted to what I finally did to get the pin out. However, it was a good excuse to pull the pan and discover a few things, and change the fluid and filter.....
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First attempt at using a tiny magnet to fish out the pin. Didn't work.
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This is the spring loaded small bore micrometer gauge disassembled, when you unscrew the long internal pin and let the other pins SPRING out and go flying across the room.
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So I bought this little WiFi borascope, however you spell it, and it's very cool. It has it's own WiFi transmitter in it, so it hooks to your phone via WiFi and then you can take real time videos and pictures with no wires connected ... it has a hook, a ninety degree mirror, and a tiny magnet (not very strong and won't go around a corner very well).
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First try with a small magnet epoxied to the end of a key chain connector. ...........WAAAAY too large
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These holes are a lot smaller than they look... about 1/4" or smaller.
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First attempt .. multiple magnets to make it strong .... but too big.
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This one is the one that worked.. ground down the epoxy to make it very small. Epoxied to the end of a key chain cable.
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Three generations of "grabbers" to get the pin out of the governor hole. The red one on the right is the one that worked to get the pin out.
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VIDEO -----After I pulled the pan and valve body, THIS is what I saw... the restrictor in one hole and a screen in the other......grrrrrrr
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Looking into the governor hole where the intersecting passages enter.
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This is what I dreaded .. pulling the pan and valve body and getting the check balls back in the correct place (stuck in the upper positions with Vaseline to reassemble). you can see the 3 check balls if you look closely.
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When I pulled the pan, this was stuck to one of the 4 magnets I had epoxied in the bottom of the pan. That's the remains of the "anti-chatter" spring that is stuck sideways between the outer case and one of the assemblies inside....
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The other parts of the spring...........cannot put back in without complete disassembly ...........so she's not going to have it ....and/but I can tell no difference in any "chatter" of the transmission... not going to worry about it.
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This was also in the bottom of the pan.. but it must have been stuck somewhere when I assembled it. The only O-ring this size is the one that goes to the converter lock-up solenoid that is in the case. Not going to worry about this one either..........
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Hopefully, this ferrous grindings/material came from the spring that came apart and got stuck somewhere before falling into the pan... pan washed out but bad ass magnets hard to clean without a stronger magnet to pull the material off of the big magnet..
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Ready to go back together.
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Valve body is out......
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Putting the valve body back in... I swear it must weigh 100 pounds or more, and getting it lined up is VERY difficult if you are an old man, so I devised a "valve body lifting device" that I could manipulate the position while holding it up. Worked like a charm. Two 2x4's tie-wrapped to the jack and valve body balanced on the 2x4's.
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VIDEO ! ! -----This felt soooooo good to get it out. and everything is now back to normal ! ! ! !
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