Transmission whine in E-350

You know, I just avoid the tow mode for that very reason. I prefer to manually shift my automatic. When it is tow mode, it screams and jerks and revs up whey high for me.

I can shift from D on down and accomplish the same thing, it seems to me, without it sounding like its going to explode and jerking so badly.

We just came back from 1500 miles and much of it was in the Rockies. We only crossed one pass going and coming that was almost 10,000 and I was towing a Jeep. I just like controlling the tranny myself. Color me old fashion, stupid what ever. I have done that for thirty years, never had transmission problem and have no brake or control problems. To each his own method. Done it on Fords, two Chevys and a Dodge.

Paul

ggardne2 wrote:
I suspect you are getting coast gear noise out of the low planetary set. The 5R110 (and for that matter all of the Simpson gear set based 3, 4, and 5 speeds that Ford made) were not known for quiet gear sets. When you are going down hill with the transmission being back-driven in a manual gear state you have very little torque on the gear sets and as a result do not get full contact across the gear face. The meshing errors caused by this condition cause gear whine. If you are in auto mode the low carrier over-runs on a coast down so you don't get the gear noise. Other than being a bit annoying, the gear whine doesn't hurt anything and is considered "typical" for this transmission.

Thanks. I drove back home today and hit a long 9% grade. It seems to be loudest in 2nd gear not first. It's a shrill gear whine like bands slipping in the older transmissions when the fluid was low. Guess I won't worry about it. Thanks again.

I suspect you are getting coast gear noise out of the low planetary set. The 5R110 (and for that matter all of the Simpson gear set based 3, 4, and 5 speeds that Ford made) were not known for quiet gear sets. When you are going down hill with the transmission being back-driven in a manual gear state you have very little torque on the gear sets and as a result do not get full contact across the gear face. The meshing errors caused by this condition cause gear whine. If you are in auto mode the low carrier over-runs on a coast down so you don't get the gear noise. Other than being a bit annoying, the gear whine doesn't hurt anything and is considered "typical" for this transmission.

If its staying under 5,000 RPM you have nothing to worry about at all.

It was mostly going down with tow mode on between 25-3000rpms.

Which drive mode were you in when you went into 1st gear (i.e. power on going up grade or power-off going down grade) and at what engine RPM?