feralcoder

I'm not certain, but I think it's in the rear of the tranny. I parked against a brick wall so the sound would bounce back to me, and it sounds pretty forward under the car. TY, GD, I came to the right place to learn! I'm looking forward to seeing what's going on in there. @idosubaru, mine's the H6 w/ VTD. How reliable / long-term a fix is it to smooth the grooves? Would I gain much reliability or life by going with new drums?

I have been working through a torque bind issue myself, and have tried a couple of things along the way which have had some effects, which might be educational for some. They certainly have been for me. BACKGROUND: I upgraded all my suspension bushings to polyurethane, but not my diff carrier and subframe bushings. I also gave a little 1" lift via King springs and put on larger tires (215/70R16, +1.78" diameter). After this work I started experiencing torque bind. I assume that the increased resistance to flex and rotation made evident a problem that was already brewing but not yet apparent. While figuring out what my problem was (starting with the assumption that it was low-grade wheel hop), I drove about 800 miles with little degradation - the problem only evidenced when accelerating from a stop, and especially while cornering from a stop. Then, while driving around the steep hills of Tacoma, WA, with many stoplight turns onto uphills, the problem worsened considerably. I then drove the car home, another 800 miles, without too much more degradation, and I started figuring out what was going on. After research, my expectation was that I have a failing transfer clutch or solenoid, neither of which I've yet tried to address. I have tried other things with my ATF, though, which have had some effect. MY WORK: I started with some fresh ATF, and discovered very dark fluid. Not black, but pretty ugly. I'd made a couple of trailer hauls out to a storage unit over a couple mountain passes, and now wish I'd checked the ATF each time. Live and learn. A single drain and fill didn't change anything for me. I'd read another person alleviated their torque bind with a SeaFoam Trans Tune cleanup, so I drained a bit of fluid, added a can of Trans Tune, then got my hot fill level to full again. This made an immediate great improvement, within 1/2 mile of driving. Unfortunately, it quickly degraded back to what it was before, maybe a little bit better. Was the improvement because the Trans Tune thinned the oil and it now had better pressure through a failing solenoid / valve-body? Was it due to cleaning of the clutch plates or valve body? I have no idea, curious to hear opinions there. I added a 2oz tube of LubeGard Shudder Fix, for science, and that made no difference. I then performed another drain-fill, the fluid was still pretty ugly, not sure how much of that was due to the Trans Tune cleanup vs the leftover from the original abused ATF. No noticeable improvement to my problem. Also, after another 50 miles my tranny was making a loud metal-metal clunk when switching between D-R and R-D. After those 2 drain-fills and the Trans Tune cleanup, I did one more drain-fill and changed the external screw-on filter. This did improve things quite a bit, but there is still a shudder on acceleration from stop, maybe not quite as bad as right after my suspension and wheel work. Also, the D-R / R-D clunk has mostly gone away. I WONDER: I have one hypothesis: The Trans-Tune improved things, either by cleaning my transfer clutch pack or solenoids or valve body, or by viscosity change. Or maybe friction modification? Dunno. But then debris was freed and accumulated in the filter, decreasing pressure and degrading valve body and/or transfer clutch function. I'm guessing. I have some reason to believe some of the problem was pressure related, based on the improvement after changing the filter. Is this a sane conclusion? For the problem which remains, I'm curious how much is related to the transfer solenoid and/or fluid pressure, vs transfer clutch? I can't test with the FWD fuse, because my car doesn't have one - VTD involves a planetary front-rear coupling which can't be disengaged, even though it still has the rear transfer clutch. There's also a locking clutch which locks the center diff, establishing a 'solid' linkage between front and rear. All the posts I see on torque bind talk about the transfer clutch and its solenoid, usually in a 4EAT context, but could the locking clutch and solenoid also be responsible for torque-bind-like symptoms? FUTURE WORK: After I buy another 2005 3.0 L.L.Bean I'll pull out this tranny and look inside, hoping to find a clearly worn transfer clutch. Maybe I'll go deeper. I've never been inside a tranny, despite years in the SF Bay Area (*ahem*) so I will be posting my findings for feedback when I do. Worst case, this car becomes spare parts, and I'm OK with that, I made the 200K club.

Right, my link couldn't have existed when bheinen74 asked, but it applies now. I posted more for the benefit of future googlers - I assume most of the original people in the conversation have moved on. The question of where to find the "Duty C Solenoid" in a 5EAT was one of the reasons I searched out this manual in the first place, it wasn't definitively doc'd in the forum threads I'd found. But it is now, here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fk7uAWBo-YQSK4YAlJ7pLhfBOX0MMsCY/view When that link goes stale, search for 5EAT.pdf, maybe, that's how I found it. On page 50 you'll find the Transfer Solenoid documented, that's performing the function of the old "Duty C", and now lives in the valve body.