VERY Slow up hills and tell me about Torque Converters.

**timax** · 11th August 2019, 01:03 PM

Ok , long story....
I have a TD5 Defender with a ZF4HP22 and transfer box from a Discovery. With the taller wheels of the Defender it has always been a bit slow on hills as can be expected. Engine is standard tune with no cat , EGR delete,silicone intercooler hoses , new air filter and new VDO MAF. Seems to rev well suggesting to me its getting good fuel pressure and we have no faults on the nanocom.
3 years ago a hose blew off the cooler and cooked the transmission.
Graeme Cooper (respected in Sydney) suggested i take it to NV automotive in Rushcutters bay for a rebuild.
Around $6k latter we were back on the road although still with a loud grinding rattle that i always thought was a cracked flexplate. Hmmm , must be loose internals of the center muffler....no... changed that.....flex pipe bellow turbo?....no changed that also.
So fast forward 3 years and we lost drive not far from home and took the car back to NV for yet another rebuild.
Cheaper this time for some reason and they said it may have lost some oil from where the kickdown cable enters the transmission because of how close the exhaust is and they made up a small heat shield. I never noticed a leak but that was the verdict.
Guess what.......NO rattle any more so it was the flexplate all along and it was not changed 3 years ago??
Around town the power deliver seems ok ish but with a bit of grinding initially and some clunking gear changes and now with a sluggish feel around 80kph. I hadn't taken it on a long run though until recently and was amazed as to the total lack of torque. Along the flat i can get up to 110kph eventually but even the slightest hill and im back to 80kph with it revving madly in 3rd. Today we went up to Gosford and so tackled a few hills that usually see me dropping down to 80 ish. For example to those who know the road....the hill on the expressway from the Hawkesbury River Northbound had us at an indicated 50kph on the GPS!!! with foot pushing through the floor.

I had big trucks either overtaking or sitting right on my tail.

Now, i used to race a PRB clubman and an Alfa GTV6 and have rebuilt gearboxes and engines etc for years so i know which end of a spanner to grab hold of but i have no idea about Auto's or diesels . My mate i was visiting has a race RX3 with some of Alan Moffits RX7 group A parts on it so he is similar. When were were having a think about what it could be he suggested the Torque Converter. Having a bit of a read here and also on the Ashcroft site people talk about fitting a larger one to a modified engine. Could it be that my new transmission has a converter that is too big for the standard engines power band? Does the above story sound like that could be the reason for the terrible performance or is there something else i havn't thought of yet?
Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated.

**Markf** · 11th August 2019, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by timax

Ok , long story....
[deletia]

Around town the power deliver seems ok ish but with a bit of grinding initially and some clunking gear changes with a sluggish feel around 80kph.

[deletia]

And that, to me at least and probably wrongly, indicates that there are transmission/TC issues which should be checked out pronto.

**redmond** · 11th August 2019, 05:27 PM

check intercooler and piping for holes and leaks

**ian4002000** · 11th August 2019, 06:44 PM

Have you checked the tranny is full of fluid ?
It sound like the tranny is dead again and unlikely to come back to life.
I would suggest replacing the tranny again and cleaning out the auto cooler, I would also change the transfer box back to a lower geared defender one which your old defender transfer box should work.
I would add one of those temperature alarms to the engine and gearbox and find out what temperature the trans is running at.
If high temps are encountered you will need to increase the trans cooler and or air flow.

Best of luck

Ian
Bittern

**timax** · 12th August 2019, 05:59 AM

Originally Posted by ian4002000

Have you checked the tranny is full of fluid ?
It sound like the tranny is dead again and unlikely to come back to life.

Best of luck

Ian
Bittern

Well the tranny is only 4 or 5 weeks old so im guessing it has fluid in it and having driven one without fluid i can tell you that it would not move a millimeter.
So are you suggesting though that the symptoms of no power on a hill could be the transmission?
In a manual you would just change down a gear and all would be fine but this is like it has no torque and cant hold a gear as it goes up hill.

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 12th August 2019, 06:12 AM

4HP22's must lockup. Continued driving in an unlocked state WILL cook it.
was it locking-up up the highway hill?
LR designed this box as a sort of help-to-spool thing,, thats why its designed not to lock in 4th till some rediculous speed is reached.
Custom torque converters lockup much quicker and carry more fluid.
How did you reach the conclusion a lack of drive and a heat shield meant a cracked flex plate?
Did it say flex plate on the bill?
lots of cracked flex plates around here,, not many heat shields built to fix it..

When it lost drive the second time NV blamed loss of fluid?
a slow Loss of fluid will show firstly as reluctance to move in reverse when cold. ??

lots of questions...
need some TD5 experts to chime in.....

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 12th August 2019, 06:14 AM

connect a gizmo to it and read the errors.

**FisherX** · 12th August 2019, 10:02 AM

I haven't used the Nanocom but am I reading the Turbo Press right? Is that your boost? and read in KPa? So 0.22 KPa is F all, like a 1/3 of a psi. And if it's reading 22KPa that's only 3 psi, so still F all.

So I'd be saying the readout is more than likely not in KPa but rather Bar. So 1.00 on the readout would equal 1 Bar = to 14.5psi. So under full engine load on it should be reading about 1.20 on the gauge so = to 17.5 psi.

Is this right Nanocom guys?

So if you are not getting the boost pressure you deserve that would definitely make for a sluggish driving experience.

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 12th August 2019, 12:23 PM

yea, kpa... so no boost.

and some Amigoes!!

**rick130** · 12th August 2019, 04:03 PM

The readout is Bar, not kPa, regardless of what the screen says.
I was recording mine yesterday, peaked at 1.15, so yep, you are losing a lot of boost somewhere.
Check your hoses for internal delamination if you haven't already done so.

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