I Rebuilt my 5-45 RFE...tranny Shops?

[Scottneh]

Hi everyone, new to the forum but oooohhh baby i got a good one!

My 2004 Ram 1500 SLT Hemi 4x4 finally died with 217000 miles...I bought her new and ive driven her in all weather, wheeled in the desert, shot guns from the bed, had special times in the back seat...ALLOT. All with the original transmisaion fluid. Well at 217k she overheated, dropped a few valve seats and that was it! There was only one thing left to do...get the torque wrench out rebuild it all and spend a ghazilllin dollars on a $2000 truck.

I used an Enginetech kit for the hemi with a factory rebuild manual (not that hanes garbage)..worked great, all parts were correct and it started right up on the first try. A word from the wise, 1) have the block crank, cam and heads cleaned and ground by a rwal engine shop...$600 was ell worth it, 2) get a cam bearing tool, $80 and it will keep you from wanting to hang yourself, 3) use a flash light to line up the oil passage with the hole on the cam bearings and ladtly 4) have a Shaprie on hand and mark 90 degrees on main bearing bolts...ok on t9 the real topic.

I rebuilt my 5-45 RFE too, used a kit off Amazon with all new seals, bearings, bushings and fiber and steel plates. Put in a new torque converter as well. Did the transfer case too ill get to that later. Using a factory rebuild manual the whole tranny came apart and went back together with no real issues. Youll need a special tool or make a tool to remove the plate springs that hold the pistons in...they suck and so do their retainers but it can be done. Pay close attention to how tjings come out, take lots of pictures and use tie wraps to hold all the pieces together when they are apart so you dont lose any.

Tranny lessons learned, 1) if you have parts left over you missed something. 2) the pistons in the transm8ssion core are really deceptive, you need about 20 psi to push them out, 3) markf with a sharpie a straight line on the tranny fluid pump gears and put them back in with that line, 4) buy a reman (or new) valve body and solenoid pack...i should have and did after $1700 at the tranny shop. Just get the valve body and solenoid pack and stop whinning, yes its an extra $700 but it beats paying a shop to do it later...i know cuz i did. The valve bodies wear out and you get tranny codes

When you have rebuilt it all and your ready to drive...DONT!!! Have it towed to a reputible tranny shop to have the transmission controller reprogrammed...less that $100.

So heres my forum question. Has anyone heard of a transmission shop putting contaminated fluid in your pan to get you to pay them to put in a reman? Heres the scenario....after i rebuilt mine i had it programmed and started test driving put 200 miles on it with no issues then i started gettin P700 and P800 codes. Took it too the shop with about 300miles on it at this point, they dropped the pan and suggested replacing the solenoid pack...i did. On the way home i threw the same codes, took it back. At this point i had done some research and figured the issue was the valve body. The tranny had about 30 more miles on it by the time i got it back to the shop, after a few weeks they got to it and dropped the pan again, this time there was a bunch of sludge and metalics in the fluid and i mean allot. I asked if there was anything in the fluid the first time the had it and they said no. So in 30 miles the transmission deveopled as much sludge as it had after 217000 mikes...my opinion is BOOOOLSHIZER, especially after they were pushing me to spen $3000 on putting in a reman. Now one note, i replaced the bushings in the tranny core, two were slightly mus alighed and i had to open them up a few thousants with a Dremmel...yes BAD! But not the end of the world. Now with a new valve body it ran very well excep for a bit of gear whine in 1st and a slight shudder when shifting 2 to 3 while powering up a hill.

Question: any thoughts on the source of the sludge...my tranny or the shop "finding" sludge all of a sudden.

Ok, NP241 transfer case...pretty easy just dont remove the oil pump housing or you will have to machine an alighnment tool with a +/- 0.001" tolerance...i know cuz i did.

THANKS EVERYONE

 

[nikwho]

...So heres my forum question. Has anyone heard of a transmission shop putting contaminated fluid in your pan to get you to pay them to put in a reman?
...

YES! Not JUST contaminated fluid, but they cut my flat trans filter in half and wanted to show me a huge (think #2 pencil lead, about 1/4" long, coming out of a transmission, I think that's huge) a hard of metal in the otherwise clean filter! Truck had maybe 40 miles on a transmission service, then sat for a few weeks. The filter and fluid that had come out previously was dirty and old, but no metal shards! They told me that my transmission was "burnt up" and it needed to be replaced, then went on to quote me $4,700 to replace it after telling me that "people don't really rebuild these transmissions... You just have to replace it with a Jasper!" I told them to put it back together, charge me for a service (they had done nothing other than drain it, and stuck a piece of metal in the filter) and let me know when to pick it up. They told me that it likely wouldn't drive a mile, let alone get me home. Told me it had to be towed. All along (reading AFTER I had it towed in) I was suspicious that I had installed the spin on filter too loose. Then, after 40 miles, I left on a work trip (wildland fire on the other side of the country) for a little over three weeks, so the truck sat. When I got home, the truck wouldn't push itself and got an error code for low line pressure. So after they tried to hustle me for $5,000, I had then service it and I drove it home. About a month later I pulled my 7,500 pounds worth of truck/trailer/tools with the same truck down the mountain from Flagstaff, AZ, where I live at 7,000', down to sea level, then back up to about 4,000' to the Tucson drag strip. Then, after a weekend of fun, pulled it all home, in 4WD, through a blizzard! Definitely a workout for my transmission. The truck performed flawlessly. That was two years and 30,000 miles ago. Transmission is still going strong. Especially for having the owner of the transmission shop tell me that my truck probably wouldn't make it home. I'm still a little bitter about that!

I'm going to save a link to your thread, as my 2008 5.7/545-rfe has 185,000 miles and I love the truck so much, that I'll likely end up rebuilding both the engine and transmission and would like to archive your lessons learned!

Thanks,
Nik

 

[ST-8]

Damn. 100 dollars for a quick learn that’s steep.

 

[Redtruck-VA]

Unfortunately there is an abundant amount of thieves in the auto industry, starting with the dealer. Note, John Cope @ CRT Transmissions is a deadbeat who owes me money for damages his valvebody caused to a custom built torque converter.