stormy2084
New Member
Hello,
My wife's 2006 L322 with ~222,000 miles on it recently stopped moving. I don't know the history of the vehicle as I bought it at 180K miles as-is with no paperwork. At the time it had the original transmission pan, which I did replace and refilled just as a precaution. Everything has been fine for about 40K miles until recently when it started to feel like the transmission was occasionally slipping. A couple of weeks ago it backed out of the garage but had to rev a bit higher than usual. Then going forward it did the same thing. I pulled around to the front of the house to where my shop is, and it wouldn't move any further. I tried all the gears, manual shift mode, low 4wd, and nothing would work. Leaving it overnight, I tried again the next day and was able to get it to engage enough to drive it onto my lift.
Doing some research, it seemed to be either a bad torque converter, transmission, or less likely a bad transfer case. I don't have enough experience to determine which of these was the problem, but I knew I had a good donor vehicle. That's another 2006 with ~165K miles on it that hasn't shown any signs of trouble with the drivetrain. I decided that rather than diagnosing the problem, I'd just swap over the entire transmission/torque converter/transfer case in one shot. Note that I wasn't getting any errors related to the transmission on my scan tool.
Removing the first one from the donor took me about 12 hours. The second removal from the keeper truck took about 6 - you learn a lot of things quickly. Also, I could never have done this without a lift. With both transmissions out I swapped the electronics inside the transmissions to avoid having to reprogram later as I'm not sure if my scan tool has that feature. Installing again took another 12 hours. The worst was when I got the new transmission pan all mounted up and torqued to spec I realized I had forgotten to put the filter back in! Anyhow, I got it all back together and filled it (I use Liqui Moly Top Tec 1800). I followed the proper filling procedure by filling, plugging, shifting, running it up to proper temp, and topping off until I get a drip. After all this, I finally put the truck on the ground to see what it would do. Low and behold it moved forwards and back. I made sure all codes were cleared and reset the adaptive transmission and went for a test drive. Things seemed fine for about a half-mile when all of a sudden it felt like things were slipping again. I tried reverse, but same thing - poor engagement. If I revved it some it would kind of go. It felt like it was low on transmission fluid. I tried putting it into 4 Low and with that I was able to limp home if I kept the rpm's low.
I parked just outside my shop to open the garage door (my opener is broken!) and when I opened the door to get out, it started rolling backwards! I jumped back in and rolled backward five feet in park before I put on the parking brake. I was able to limp it on to the lift and first checked the transmission fluid level. It seemed to be right where it should be (temp was around 135 at the time). Next I re-examined the shift linkage. It was very gummed up originally, but I had serviced it when I did the swap and it moves freely and I set it by the book. I also noticed I occasionally get a little grind going from neutral to park. I have tried adjusting the shift linkage a couple of times, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I'm feeling rather beat up after all this and could use some help on where to go from here. How would you diagnose the issue?
My wife's 2006 L322 with ~222,000 miles on it recently stopped moving. I don't know the history of the vehicle as I bought it at 180K miles as-is with no paperwork. At the time it had the original transmission pan, which I did replace and refilled just as a precaution. Everything has been fine for about 40K miles until recently when it started to feel like the transmission was occasionally slipping. A couple of weeks ago it backed out of the garage but had to rev a bit higher than usual. Then going forward it did the same thing. I pulled around to the front of the house to where my shop is, and it wouldn't move any further. I tried all the gears, manual shift mode, low 4wd, and nothing would work. Leaving it overnight, I tried again the next day and was able to get it to engage enough to drive it onto my lift.
Doing some research, it seemed to be either a bad torque converter, transmission, or less likely a bad transfer case. I don't have enough experience to determine which of these was the problem, but I knew I had a good donor vehicle. That's another 2006 with ~165K miles on it that hasn't shown any signs of trouble with the drivetrain. I decided that rather than diagnosing the problem, I'd just swap over the entire transmission/torque converter/transfer case in one shot. Note that I wasn't getting any errors related to the transmission on my scan tool.
Removing the first one from the donor took me about 12 hours. The second removal from the keeper truck took about 6 - you learn a lot of things quickly. Also, I could never have done this without a lift. With both transmissions out I swapped the electronics inside the transmissions to avoid having to reprogram later as I'm not sure if my scan tool has that feature. Installing again took another 12 hours. The worst was when I got the new transmission pan all mounted up and torqued to spec I realized I had forgotten to put the filter back in! Anyhow, I got it all back together and filled it (I use Liqui Moly Top Tec 1800). I followed the proper filling procedure by filling, plugging, shifting, running it up to proper temp, and topping off until I get a drip. After all this, I finally put the truck on the ground to see what it would do. Low and behold it moved forwards and back. I made sure all codes were cleared and reset the adaptive transmission and went for a test drive. Things seemed fine for about a half-mile when all of a sudden it felt like things were slipping again. I tried reverse, but same thing - poor engagement. If I revved it some it would kind of go. It felt like it was low on transmission fluid. I tried putting it into 4 Low and with that I was able to limp home if I kept the rpm's low.
I parked just outside my shop to open the garage door (my opener is broken!) and when I opened the door to get out, it started rolling backwards! I jumped back in and rolled backward five feet in park before I put on the parking brake. I was able to limp it on to the lift and first checked the transmission fluid level. It seemed to be right where it should be (temp was around 135 at the time). Next I re-examined the shift linkage. It was very gummed up originally, but I had serviced it when I did the swap and it moves freely and I set it by the book. I also noticed I occasionally get a little grind going from neutral to park. I have tried adjusting the shift linkage a couple of times, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I'm feeling rather beat up after all this and could use some help on where to go from here. How would you diagnose the issue?
