AOD to 4r70w swap in an 86 Bronco

I got a question about the shift linkage that I grafted together.

Here's the AOD arm. I took the whole assembly out and cut the shaft off of it so that I retained the metal circle there at the top. That way I could tell where the center was to compare it with the 4r70w one.


This is the the 4r70w arm. Instead of a hole at both ends, it has that weird pin, so I had to cut and weld.


Here's the right stuff! It's just tacked in the picture, but that was the length and size it stayed, and it's in use now.


The dimensions I had to consider:

1. center-to-center length of the AOD arm. (Lefthand green line) It was shorter than the 4r70W one, so the whole assembly needed to be shorter
2. distance of the linkage-side eye from the transmission to where the linkage should connect. (right-hand green line)

Thanks Brad,
I’ve pulled some of those arms over time as seen here


I honestly don’t remember each arms original donor except that of the two that are the same, one of them was attached to the ‘95 4R70W that I’ve rebuilt. The only difference in those two is that I disengaged the pin from the one. FYI, the c/c hole dim is 2.5” and the face to face offset is 7/8”.
What I’m most interested in figuring out is which bracket I need to find to support the transmission side of the bell crank shaft.

I pulled this off of an ‘85 F159 w/ 4.9 and an automatic, but me being the idiot that I often am, I forgot to identify which auto it was. I have to imagine that it was either an AOD or a C6.

And this is the bracket that was attached to the 4R70W and is used to secure the shift cable.

I’m trying to decide if I want to use the 80-86 bell crank connection between the steering column and the tranny or the newer cable system.

Oops!
I guess I got too excited to hit that “ post message” button, I should have continued to say that this bracket
does not marry well with my tranny. Only one of the two attachment points lines up and the pivot point grommet would end up being located in the wrong spot for the bell crack rod. I guess in came off of a C6 as the AOD and 4R70W cases are very similar. So I’m looking for help as to which bracket you used to attach your bell crank to your tranny.

pretty sure this older bracket is for c6. one of the points that I look at which I have not heard you mention is each transmission has its own "range of throw" of the lever. this must match the range of throw of the shifter and the transfer bar assembly. I am doing the same thing right now and have three different transfer assemblies that have different length levers. if this does not get correct then the trans may not go to park or first gear following the shifter.

I remember going through all of this. My 4R70W is from a 2wd 1996 F150 and I too cut the original shift lever and welded a new end on it. I’m using an aftermarket B&M shifter that has its own detent positions so I had to match it perfectly. I made a bracket for the cable end and modified the shift lever to fit copying pictures from the instructions. Luckily for me it seems to have worked fine on the first try:)

Hey, Mat! The "throw" is the lefthand green line on my drawing. the 4r70w lever was slightly longer than the AOD one, so I had to make sure to keep the AOD length, since the attached lever on the column shift apparatus did not change.

Luckily the detents in the column and the shift positions in the 4r70w line up. I take this to mean that the detents in the AOD and in the 4r70w are the same.

the problem I have right now is the clocking. If the default AOD clocking is 8 o'clock, then the 4r70w is at 6. Luckily the column shifter has some adjustment to it. Unfortunately, that makes the column side of the linkage max out before it can swing the trans-side arm to the 1st gear position. The truck was sitting outside and it was raining today, so I couldn't get the pictures I wanted. But when I can get under there without getting muddy, I'll take pics to explain what I mean.

The solutions are either to lengthen the rod between the two arms so that the column side doesn't max out before the trans side. Or I could cut and reclock the trans-side arm to closely match the original AOD angle. I think the rod will be cheaper.

I was able to find someone else's pic of the linkage.


You can see how that upper arm is at the same angle as the lower arm. With mine, the lower arm and upper are at different angles. I would just cut that rod and add whatever length was needed to bring them back to the same angle again.

If you notice in my picture above where I have the three shift arms that attach to the mlps, one of them has the oblong hole at a different “clocking” than the other two. Perhaps Gary or someone else that has a decoder ring can tell us in which applications those engineering numbers were used.

The one with the different clocking is the one for the cars that "pull" the shift lever of the transmission into gear rather than "push" like the AOD does.

I went out to the garage and looked at a couple different installations last night and then laid awake sorting out design and explanations. hopefully I can clear up what I was trying to convey in regard to "range of throw".  by this I'm referring to the arc of movement more in degrees as opposed to length of radius referring to the lever and its relative leverage. you are almost there with your comment on how the levers are clocked. take the mustang or t bird and the console shift. the shifter is on a horizontal plane so being clocked at 12 in the center of the range of throw provides the best leverage to operate the selector. in trucks/vans with column shift, the "cable" is mounted on a horizontal plane also and comes from the front, so the same lever is clocked at 6.
now we take this lever and put in a vehicle with a bell crank that is at a 30-degree slope and the center line of the range of throw needs to be about 7:30. if the rod is just lengthened then the center line of the range of throw is not correct. leverage is best at right angles. 90 degrees. before and after that the leverage is diminishing whether pushing or pulling. if you start at 90 in park then the bell crank may be running out of leverage before you are able to get down to 1st gear. the detent plate inside the trans has a range of throw of approx. 45 degrees. so, the lever has the same. so, splitting this, the degrees of travel for and aft will have a minimal reduction in leverage. at the point over an arc of 180 degrees of travel leverage goes from 0 (basically locked) to best at 90 then diminishing back to zero at 180. I only use the 180 example to explain the diminishing leverage.

OK, I see what you mean. There is a bolt on the bell crank assembly under my bronco that you can loosen up and slide up or down to change the clocking of that arm to match the one on the transmission. The problem with the 4r70w arm clocking is that it was the "cable" type and its angle is made for that. Lengthening the rod should still work because I can then adjust that nut/slider thing back to its position before and then it won't run out of "throw" before the transmission reaches the "1" position as it does now.

Hey Nickelplate,

I think you suggested previously that I start with pouring 9 quarts of Mercon in the transmission? I shall get zero points for following instructions, because I tried to put 10 quarts in and about 1/4 of the way into the 10th quart the transmission overflowed and I ended up with fluid on the floor! Start with 9!

I bought a case of the exact same Mercon V fluid that you used. I have 11 quarts in it now, but I started with dry trans and filter, new cooling lines and new radiator. It's showing on the dipstick now, but still not showing full/hot (I haven't had it up to temperature yet).

I noticed on the Quick4 display when I shift through my gears, it only reads "1's" after N. So for PRND21 is reads P, R, N, 1, 1, 1. Not sure what is up with that, but I'll try it again after I reload the normal profile map.

Using the Shiftware software...you just open up a calibration (in my case, the Early 4R70W Normal) as I think my 1996 trans is considered "early". Then open settings, and make whatever changes I want like gear ratio and tire diameter, etc, and then save it with a new name, or a Rev1 name? And then write it to the controller? Is that how it works?

When you're making changes in the Shiftware software, the changes are in the calibration map that you have open, correct? And now changes are made IN the Quick4 controller until you write TO the controller? Do I have this correct?

When you did you TPS calibration, did you do that using the Quick4 controller display, or did you do that in the Shiftware software?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Hey, Rembrant.

Yeah, I had 2 quarts in the TC and 9 in the trans before starting it. After I was able to start it and run it through all the shift positions for about 30 sec, I could add the rest of the fluid.

The PRN111 thing, I think, is when you have the "manual shifting" enabled instead of the Auto. I believe it will stay in "1" unless the engine is running. https://www.usshift.com/downloads/Q4-4R70WmanualG2.pdf Page 22 for those options.

The process I followed to get the right configuration written to the transmission:
Load the "late 4r70w with OEM RPM" profile.
click the gear icon and set all my settings
exit settings
write to controller (all tables)
unplug USB
Go to the controller itself and follow the TPS procedure
Save and exit.

I think it's not actually THAT finicky on the process, but the TPS procedue has to be run at least once from the controller itself before it pays attention to your TPS settings from ShiftWare.

To answer your question about where the settings actually are: From my experience, here is how it works. You load your map from your hard drive, all the settings and changes are in the file. Then you "write to controller" and only THEN are they in the controller. I think this is how i works because I made some changes and didn't "write to controller" and they were not in the controller when I checked again. I don't think there is any way to actually get the settings from your controller. you have to save a custom map file after writing to controller, so when you want to make changes, you have something on the hard drive to retrieve your settings from.

I have a contact at US Shift that I can ask all this stuff to sometime this week, maybe. Just to get the right of it.

I actually called them yesterday myself. He said if I want to load a tune from a laptop and use the values IN that tune that I still need to go into the controller and use the reset and use tune values option. Anyway no biggie I’ll play with it more this week after I get the engine issues sorted out. Thanks man.

Oh wait…

You said to use the Late 4R70W OEM tune? I thought the SBF versions of the 4R70W transmissions were the “early” versions no? My 4R70W came out of a 1996 F150. What year is yours? I thought any of them before 1998 were considered “early”?

Mine's a 2001. The "late" or "early" will be determined by how many pins the solenoid connector has. That will be on page 14 and 15 of the manual.

They actually had the SBF pattern available up til like 2013 in the 4r75w. The 4.2L engine available in some trucks has the SBF pattern. So you can't rely on that to tell you whether it's early or late.

Nickelplate wrote

Mine's a 2001. The "late" or "early" will be determined by how many pins the solenoid connector has. That will be on page 14 and 15 of the manual.

They actually had the SBF pattern available up til like 2013 in the 4r75w. The 4.2L engine available in some trucks has the SBF pattern. So you can't rely on that to tell you whether it's early or late.

Right right...they determine Early as 1992-1997, and Late as 1998-up. I just assumed you were using a 1992-1997 4R70W trans out of a pickup or Bronco, same as me. I know the 5.0 was available in the Explorer up until at least 2001, but production dropped way off after 1996/1997 when they stopped using them in trucks and Broncos, etc. I'm also aware of the 4.2L having the old Essex V6 pattern (SBF) but it would be less likely than the older ones. I just guessed on what you were using based on the numbers and I was wrong.

I probably would have gotten the "early" one if I had a used one and did a rebuild myself.

I actually wanted a 4r75w for the added sensor and increased slip detection. But those are really rare in my bolt pattern.

Hey Nickelplate,

How's that 4R70W working?

I finally got to do some proper shakedown runs with mine yesterday afternoon and it seems to be working well. It was a used transmission with 145k miles on it, so I didn't know what to expect. All I really did was change the fluid and pan gasket/filter, install a new rear seal, and a new output shaft speed sensor. It seems to shift nicely...good firm shift 1-2, and then I can barely feel it shift into 3rd. I find that it goes into OD a little too quickly, and it lurches a bit...not sure what/why yet...maybe that's the torque converter locking up? I don't know...I might see if I can smooth that out a bit. Otherwise all is well so far.

What are you seeing for regular temps cruising down the road? Mine went up to 154F yesterday, but according to what I can find online that seems to be somewhat normal. A friend of mine also has a 4R70W in a classic car, and he says the Quick4 will start putting out warnings at 160F (I think). I'm going to check and confirm with him today.

Mine is shifting pretty firmly 1-2, but everything else is almost unnoticeable. I do still have a slight "clunk" on downshifts out of OD while stopping, but like you said I'm betting its the TC.

As far as temperature, 154 is great. Mine runs anywhere between 120 and 160, because I have a large cooler added. The "160 warnings" that your friend is seeing might actually be related to it being too cold for some diagnostic it's doing. The default "temperature warning" value in the quick4 is 230F so you're nowhere near the danger zone.