1990 Ranger XLT Transmission Questions

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What to do: My 16 YO son and I are working to put my 1990 Ford Ranger XLT with 81,000 miles back on the road after it sat for three years in the driveway. It went out of commission after the automatic transmission died in 2001, again.

The automatic transmission was re-built for abour $1100 at 65,000 miles. It went bad again after only 15,000 miles. And, a rebutable shop did the work.

What is the best option now? Should we remove the transmission and try installing used transmissions for a few years? Should we have the transmission re-built again?

I wish we had a manual transmission to deal with. That's cheap and easy to fix.

Your thoughts, appreciated. Are problems for these Ford A4LD automatic transmissions common?

[freeclimber]

The truck is pretty worthless. I wouldn't spend much money to put it on the road. Spend a couple grand and buy a reliable used car.

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Well, I was unable to find a used transmission. So, I rebuilt the A4LD. It was pretty easy. And, it only cost $35 for the rebuild manual, $70 for the rebuild kit, $115 for the torque converter, $7 for a clutch washer, and $10 for transmission fluid. That's a total of about $237.

And, to get my facts straight, the first rebuild was at 43,700 miles and, now the second rebuild is at 81,000 miles. I guess I can't expect much better than 35-40,000 on a rebuild.

And, Thanks to this great site for all the information and confidence to do the job!

[freeclimber]

How involved was the rebuild? Did it require any specialty tools? I'm impressed, since I've never known someone to rebuild their own auto trans.

[[email protected]]

It was real easy for someone who has done rear and front -wheel-drive clutches before. No special tools were needed. The hardest part, of course, was removing the bell housing bolts. Long arms and numble fingers helped with that.

The re-build manual was pretty good. All instructions in that manual and the chilton's repair manual were correct. For a little off-the-cuff advise I found some help from my old 1972 Chilton's repair manual.