[lowROLLERchevy]

car:
ford taurus sho - gen 2 - 3.2l w/ autotragic tranny

mileage:
10k miles on the car since everything was installed

mods:
the indestructible doug louis slushbox (ford rebuild+ shift kit + bulletproof TC + misc shims and alterations)
67mm turbo w/ high quality supporting mods
12psi, with the occasional 15psi+
no engine internals besides 3.0 cams

how it worked before:
first and second gear never really felt "positive" even when we cranked up the line pressure up .... they always seamed to slip a bit, but we could never be sure

3rd gear ... in 3rd gear the car pulled like a freight train ...for the first 8k miles, then 3rd gear started missing

once a week or so the car would "miss" 3rd gear, and we couldn't get a straight answer on what it could be

electrical ? solenoid problem ? clutch pack ?

but slow down, put it in second, stick it back in 3rd, and away you go in 3rd again

that is, until the last time the car was beat on ... on a highway on ramp we were making a hard pull to catch up with the rather fast traffic on the highway ... it was a downhill slope and alex was using 3/ throttle

first... second ... neutral with muffled scary noises .... 3rd gear refuses to re-engage like previous times

we drive home another 200+ miles using 1,2 and 4 ... they give us zero problem

so now the trans is apart on the bench, as shipping alone to and from FPS is $500

yay for a spotless 1st gear



2nd gear: 2 hot spots visible, 2more on the flip side


close up of one of the hot spot sections ... notice how localized they are, i believe this is important


other 2nd gear hot spot, again very localized


3rd gear: notice again that all the hot spots are localized, but this time the clutches are annihilated (clutches in front in the first pic, plates in the back)

notice how one clutch disk seams to have survived unscathed ???
same with one of the steel plates ...

[lowROLLERchevy]

what is this part you ask ?
i don't know, because i wasn't there for the tear down, but it sure is plugged with trash !

the bearing side doesn't look to pretty either







now for the inner basket that all the clutches ride on

the garbage you seat sitting in there is sheet metal scraps of some sort, melted plastic, and those rectangular metal blocks... which I'm pretty sure ARE supposed to be rectangular









and oh yea ... taurus with a tranny leak !

[Crosley]

first;

it is not an ATX trans..... it should be a AX4N

these are common failures for the tranny... lubrication problems with wear and tear.

The rollers every where are the roller clutch. That is what happens when they get hot from lack of lube.

these trannys can suffer from soft 1-2 shifts , poor line rise , high line loss of lube, planet failure with mileage on them

[lowROLLERchevy]

yes, its an ax4n ... the sho Automatic TransaXle

the transgo kit was supposed to take care of the lub problems, apparently it didnt

i was hoping those werent roller bearings, i wasnt sure because every last one is equaly squared off

i realy want to take this tranny from his garage in the middle of the night and scrap it, then force my budy to do a MTX swap ....

oh yea, turns out that apparently doug louis, the guy who owns FPS, never makes it back from a track day in his SHO w/ his SHO still driving

HE CANT EVEN KEEP HIS OWN TRANNY'S TOGETHER!

[Crosley]

the ATX trans is a 3 speed . light duty transaxle.... stoopid feeling shifts due to Ford's design which was also used in the AOD design for 3rd gear.

Most lube problems come from worn bushings

[lowROLLERchevy]

hmmm, didnt realize that ford actualy used "atx" to name one of its transmissions

ive always used a/t & m/t to describe rwd transmissions and atx / mtx to describe fwd transmissions

[lowROLLERchevy]

Originally Posted by Crosley

..... it should be a AX4n

correction for both you and i ...ax4s

slight bit different

[Crosley]

Originally Posted by lowROLLERchevy

correction for both you and i ...ax4s

slight bit different

I looked in the books.

it shows an AX4S/H something to do with the SHO vehicle.

Since I have not worked on front wheel drive stuff in yrs I am a bit rusted up.

I was never impressed with the SHO vehicles. They never had a tranny that would hold up to the engine IF you turned the wick up.

When the SHO engine was turned around for a rear wheel drive , then they could run hard.

regardless of which tranny it is....... broke is broke. Lube problems , planet failure destroyed these transaxles

[airworld2]

both transmission's suffer from lube problems and shifting trouble's
this was never a good choice for horse power or heavy duty use, but with good spring choice for accumulator's you be able to make chirps shifting at every start and will have an adverse affect on final drive shaft i.e. that puppy will snap like glass...I like Superior shift kits for this unit and a little trial and many errors will teach you, many bad mistakes here...

[pmeisel]

Originally Posted by lowROLLERchevy

hmmm, didnt realize that ford actualy used "atx" to name one of its transmissions

ive always used a/t & m/t to describe rwd transmissions and atx / mtx to describe fwd transmissions

Ford's "very original" code name for its first small car autl transaxle was the ATX, I guess that was all they could think of. At the time they never believed the would do a bigger one.

The original Taurus transaxle was codenamed AXOD, but when they started getting global in design sharing, they started to rename everything.... e.g. the old AOD became the 4R70W, the 4 speed electronic version of the old C6 became the 4R100-something-or-other, etc.

I don't stay up with it any more, now that I don't work with them I play more with Jeeps and GM stuff.

[lowROLLERchevy]

Originally Posted by airworld2

both transmission's suffer from lube problems and shifting trouble's
this was never a good choice for horse power or heavy duty use, but with good spring choice for accumulator's you be able to make chirps shifting at every start and will have an adverse affect on final drive shaft i.e. that puppy will snap like glass...I like Superior shift kits for this unit and a little trial and many errors will teach you, many bad mistakes here...

we can already chirpevery gear. just have to add a bit ofline pressure using the tuning software

the tranny actualy did decent, previously he was blowing a trans every year on stock hp, now this transmission lasted a year with more then double the old hp

actualy, probably closer to triple considering the power "under the curve" thanks to thee turbo

and probably someplace around 4 times the power under the curve when we ran those high boost (17psi) runs

this tranny did pretty good considering its a 3600 pound car that broke into the 12's at the dragstrip

while its at the tranny shop im going to talk to the shops owner, see if maybe we can get creative and supply the lubrication that the clutches need .... basicly redo fords work ...

[scrot]

Would you say in general that Ford has the crappiest transmissions?
We have an Aerostar van with the A4LD p.o.s. transmission that had a sprag and planetary gear failure AMONG OTHERS.

[lowROLLERchevy]

i think so

i had a ford autotragic massacare itself behind its 2.3l powerplant

80hp managed to shear the 1"+ input shaft while i puttered up the driveway ... and the entire crack was fresh, it wasnt already 1/2 broke or anything ...

[airworld2]

Originally Posted by lowROLLERchevy

we can already chirpevery gear. just have to add a bit ofline pressure using the tuning software

the tranny actualy did decent, previously he was blowing a trans every year on stock hp, now this transmission lasted a year with more then double the old hp

actualy, probably closer to triple considering the power "under the curve" thanks to thee turbo

and probably someplace around 4 times the power under the curve when we ran those high boost (17psi) runs

this tranny did pretty good considering its a 3600 pound car that broke into the 12's at the dragstrip

while its at the tranny shop im going to talk to the shops owner, see if maybe we can get creative and supply the lubrication that the clutches need .... basicly redo fords work ...

ok lets see if I have this right your looking for help and when you get a general opinion then you tell someone like me with as many years in
transmission repair as you have on this earth that it working in a manner as to shifting firm but you pictures show clutch failure from slipping. then what are you here looking for??? this transmission was weak to say it kindly add turbo and god knows what else what do expect???? and ford makes many good transmission's these where never meant to your horse power range..

[airworld2]

to add a bit more this unit will stretch the drive chain and break it with too much torque after all its chain drive, they have that trouble as well as others mentioned. I don't want to come off as an a## but opinion's are cheap...