1969 F250 4x4 Highboy 7/9 rubicon

[motzingg]

AH this thread with dead pictures is like trying to watch porn on dial-up!

[1971ford]

hahahaha.

Photobucket dropped their bandwith limit HUGE. Screw them! I better start using another photo site.

Have made huge progress on the beast
Too busy taking it on test drives to give much of an update though

[CrypticRacer13]

AH this thread with dead pictures is like trying to watch porn on dial-up!

[1971ford]

been driving it for the last 5 hours around town. Too tired now to post much details but this truck is WAY TOO MUCH FUN!
Won't shift into third though. Going to hopefully track that issue down tomorrow. Played with linkage for hours hoping it would trigger 3rd gear but no dice. I feel like it's the valve body.

[sargentrs]

Congrats on being able to drive her! She looks great.

[popeyes71]

I bet she is fun to drive! But I can guarantee she is going to be even more fun to drive out on the trail wheeling!

[69SCJ]

Looks killer from every angle!

I loved driving my truck around without a hood for a couple weeks after building the 390.

[CrypticRacer13]

You going to be home on the 25th? Ill be heading home from up north. I think a pit stop is in order to see it done!

[1971ford]

thanks guys!

It's funny with the hood off (took it off because it is so haggard looking and doing body work on it for paint), i can see people trying to look up into the engine bay from their trucks to see what's in it all the time. Getting A LOT of smiles, points and "badass truck"'s.

Still busting my a$$ trying to get 3rd gear.
Dropped the valve body. pressure checked the clutch packs. Both check out to be good. Which should mean the valve body is at fault. So i tore the valve body apart. It's clean. Put it back together, back in the truck, no 3rd gear.
Transmission shop said to drop it again and bring it over and he will completely go thru it himself and make damn sure it's not the problem because he thinks it is. I HOPE SO!
So dropping it again now (so much fun.)

hopefully tomorrow I have 3rd when it goes back in. If not the transmission is getting dropped. (even more fun).

[smokey3215]

Could be a cross leak causing it to not go in third

[1971ford]

Cross leak where.

If the front clutch pack is holding pressure (as it is), then the two sealing rings on the pump shaft are doing their job and should be sending the pressure through the hole in between them to engage that clutch pack and give me third gear. but apparently something else is wrong, because third gear isn't there. Only thing i can figure is it has to be before the point of pressure going into that hole which would mean the valve body isn't sending pressure there.
Lets just hope the transmission shop finds a stuck check valve that i happened to not see


Damn hydraulic transmissions. knew I shoulda done a 5 speed manual

[averagef250]

2-3 upshift is done with the rear band and 1st gear clutch.

Shim OD correctly? They do weird **** when OD is too tight (like it always is with aftermarket clutches).

Dodge trannies have lots of test ports. Run a 300 PSI gauge into the cab on some hose and that will tell you where to look.

[smokey3215]

Cross leak in valvebody I usuall take a file and run it over it. Also make shure your pistons are moving freely and I have seen a band that is adjusted to tight will not let it go in third. Just some things.

[averagef250]

Ryan, if you do anymore tranny work in the future it would greatly benefit you to stick with an organized process for disassembly and reassembly. Tranny parts all over a tailgate are going to kill you when you put it back together.

A long clean workbench where you can take parts out and lay them exactly as removed. Clean, inspect and replace wear parts in one assembly at a time then put it in the case.

Also, it might sound like bad practice, but I never disassemble valve bodies unless there's an obvious/known problem and at that point I send it to a shop that can dyno it because it's a waste of my time to guess at what the problem might be.

If you need to surface a valve body part without the proper machines a file can do more harm than good. If you have a surface plate that would be preferred, but the next best thing is a piece glass on a flat benchtop. Glue sandpaper to the glass and stroke the valve body across it with some water, cleaner or solvent to keep the paper from loading up.

Billet parts for the Dodge autos are totally unnecessary until you reach the torque to break the shafts. Stock clutches, a solid band strut and assembly by a good builder and those trannies are tougher than pretty much anything else out there including the Allison 1000's.

I only mention this because using fancy anodized billet crap in some of the Dodge autos I assembled was the root cause of many problems. Those parts don't solve any problems.

Georend builds them with all stock parts except for the valve body seperator plates which they design and laser cut. They build their own converters using real steel converter shells, not the chinese cast "billet lookalike" shells most everyone else uses. Beyond that it's just assembling it properly, with exacting clearances and stock parts.

[1971ford]

Dropped the valve body and had the transmission shop tear it down completely, clean and check for any issues at all. Unfortunately... it's in great shape.


Dropping the transmission this weekend. really sucks but it is what it is. Having the transmission shop fully rebuild it again so i can put it in the truck and just be done with this BS.