Chronicling the demise of an automatic transmission

[joekitch]

I'm aiming to do a manual swap sooner rather than later, and my transmission is on its way out the door. I plan to drive on this transmission until it completely dies, and when i'll begin the swap.

I'll take this rare opportunity to chronicle the death throes of a ZF 5HP24
I will answer the question; just how bad can it get?



Early january:
On the first really cold morning of the season (like 6 degrees), i was driving to work when the transmission started to shift very harshly and i got a lot of TRANS FAILSAFE PROG instances, it even went into limp mode a few times. I put the car on ice until i could clear out the garage enough to work on it.

2/1:
mileage 131,190
Did a transmission fluid/filter change, found all this in the pan, lots of silver metallic paste. The previous owner did a fluid change at about 115k miles

IMG_20160201_225642.jpg

After the change i did a test drive and it was shifting very smoothly


2/2:
On the way to work, got an SES light, pulled the single code; P0741: Torque Converter Clutch Circuit Performance or Stuck Off
along with that i did a carly for bmw scan and found these two codes
Transmission Control:
Transmission / Getriebe GS20
:Transition jump
Code: 0031

Excessive converter clutch slippage
Code: 0030



2/3:
While driving home from work i noticed that while coming to a stop, right as the transmission goes into first gear, there would be a quick lurch, as if i had stabbed the brakes for a split second.
Also the RPMs were higher than they should be, i was sitting at 4k rpms at 40 miles an hour.
Trying to shift using steptronic didn't do much, it would forcibly downshift into lower gears regardless of what i did to upshift.
Also it took more throttle than usual to get it going from a stop, as if it was in one gear higher than it needed to be.



2/7:
in the morning on a cold start i was greeted with this....interesting sound...coming from the bottom end, not the top or front of the engine.



I'm almost certain this is the torque converter being dramatic

[joekitch]

2/12:
after a relatively long drive (30+ miles total) filled with a lot of high RPMS at low speeds and whining noises coming from the torque converter, possibly friction sounds...

i came home to park on the street and noticed the car could no longer hold itself on a hill while in drive with my foot off the accelerator, it'd just roll backwards.
also, a decent bit of oil was leaking out from the area in front of the transmission, at this point i believe the dead TC somehow accelerated the failure of the rear main seal.
once the car was cooled down it stopped dripping oil as fast though.

going to buy a $100 used transmission from a guy in pembroke tomorrow, with 130k on it, it'll tide me over until the manual swap in summer.
this is probably where the chronicle stops as i'm not comfortable driving the car anymore at this point.