blown transmission

[mrbmw1]

Guys this is my second time my tranny has gone completely out in two seperate 94 540i's. I was driving herad the clunk noise and it wnt to limp mode stopped turned off the car reset and it did it again but wouldnt go into gear any more any suggestions & has anyone ever done the conversion to manual on this car

[632 Regal]

contact Kirt for the valve body upgrade kit, these are famous for causing problems.

[Tiger]

yep, I agree.

[tim s]

i am very happy with my rebuilt tranny. how many miles are on your blown tranny? my tranny had 180,000mi. when the valve body started causing problems, so at that point i decided to buy the rebuilt unit.
tim s.

[charlie]

what is this clunk noise you speak of? Is this the same tranyy as in a 1995 540? I have 85K on mine, seems fine. Is this an upgrade I should perform as preventitive (the valve body balls)?

[Tiger]

The clunk noise may possibly means alot of thing... the worse thing is broken band and that would necessitate rebuild. 5HP30 is used on all V8 including yours. When you start to feel something is wrong with your tranny... such as it feels so hard to accelerate... like with parking brake on... stop immediately.

It is preventive if you change your transmission fluid now... since you only got 85K miles. Most problem start to happen at about 110K or so with original fluid. The checkball problem is very common on early tranny such as ours so you can do this at the same time as tranny fluid change to make it more economical...

[632 Regal]

which takes dextron III and not the pricey stuff the hp30s take.

the ball thing only applies to the hp30



The clunk noise may possibly means alot of thing... the worse thing is broken band and that would necessitate rebuild. 5HP30 is used on all V8 including yours. When you start to feel something is wrong with your tranny... such as it feels so hard to accelerate... like with parking brake on... stop immediately.

It is preventive if you change your transmission fluid now... since you only got 85K miles. Most problem start to happen at about 110K or so with original fluid. The checkball problem is very common on early tranny such as ours so you can do this at the same time as tranny fluid change to make it more economical...

[Tiger]

I was like "WTF!"... the V8... yes I should have said 4.0 only.

[SharkmanBMW]

Guys this is my second time my tranny has gone completely out in two seperate 94 540i's. I was driving herad the clunk noise and it wnt to limp mode stopped turned off the car reset and it did it again but wouldnt go into gear any more any suggestions & has anyone ever done the conversion to manual on this car
.
.
.
simply changing the valve check balls,
usual symptoms are slipping in reverse, that is when you can change the your balls or "rebuild the valve body"

the balls are teflon and wear down and then supposedly get stuck in the wrong place!
my 540 would crawl forward if you revved it in neutral, would slip in reverse intermittently and also when cold would roll fine forward at idle, but when you gave a little pedal - it felt like you were putting brakes and not gas!!

call Kirt - he saved me in the nick of time! his # is below
this was his response in a similar post...
"If you have NO reverse it may be too late to just do the v/b. You will know by dropping the pan and looking for big chunks of aluminuim from the reverse imput drum. Good luck finding a "certified" ZF trans builder/shop they have no certifications avaliable from ZF. If you want any more questions answered go ahead and give me a call today (Monday) (616)748-5735 direct to me.Good luck"

[tim s]

Full Name: Kirt Koeller
Job Title: ZF Transmission Expert
Company: Auto Sports Unlimited

Business: (800) 624-3876 ex 5735
Business 2: (616) 748-5735

Kirt Koeller [transroom@asumi.org]
E-mail: europetransman@hotmail.com
http://www.autosportsunlimited.com/

tim s.