Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Transmission and spedometer

1998 Ford Contour LX, 2.0, automatic transmission.
I was driving home the other day on the freeway at the normal 65 -70 mph for about 1 hour. I was just nearing my exit and started slowing down when my spedometer went to 0 and at the same time the transmission downshifted from overdrive to drive. It felt like someone hit the transmission with a sledge hammer. I exited the freeway and every shift felt the same - hard. the overdrive button on the shift lever was non operational and the speedometer was still dead the rest of the way home. The odometer wasn't working either (great for resale, bad for driving). I have read the other posts about hard shifting problems but none mention anything about the speedometer. Also I do not understand things such as TSS and most of the other abreviations associated with the responses posted. I guess that's why I am here asking all of you smart people for your help.
Thank You!
Dan

Vehicle Speed Sensor. Change it and you should be golden. Change it soon or you might cause more damage to the transmission. In addition, change the ATF.

Edit. ATF change.
http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tranny&Number=992476&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1

VSS change by unisys.

"VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor)

I had to change my VSS late this afternoon, so I thought I would walk you guys through the process on my Duratec/CD4E. It's really not all that bad, except unplugging the connector. My symptoms were pretty simple... Bouncing/in-accurate seedo and once that was bad enough, the tranny would not shift properly.

- Secure the vehicle, in the air, safely.

- Remove your air cleaner & tubing.

- Reach down, under the brake booster, and locate the VSS connector. You can actually see it better from the bottom, just no way to actually reach it from there. It will take some serious single handed twisting to disconnect this connection, but don't give up!

- From under the car, use a 5/16" wrench to remove the single bolt from the VSS retainer. * Note that this retainer looks like it is upside down, with a tab resting on the case of the tranny. Don't fret! This is normal, but be sure to replace the retainer in the same way that it was removed.

- Grasp the sensor body and lightly wiggle it out of it's location. Use gently force when wiggling, but apply steady pressure upwards. The sensor body should slide right out. Do not jerk upwards on the sensor, when removing it, or you will run the risk of gear coming off the end of the sensor. This is not a real big deal, since the gear itself is about an inch tall. Along with the added shaft that is part of the gear, the gear assy is probably around 4 inches long. You should be able to grasp it with a pair of crooked needle nose pliers, but it would be one hella tight fit!!

- Once the sensor is out of the case and you have removed the gear assy from the sensor body, use a rag to wrap around the body of the sensor base. This part of the sensor is metal, so we don't want to damage it. Use a pair of pliers and grasp the metal part of the sensor. LIGHTLY! Do Not Squeeze Hard!! Just apply a small amount of pressure here. And use a 1" wrench on the plastic part of the body and seperate the two halfs.

- At this point, you get simply reverse. But something that I should note here... There is a seal on the metal half of the sensor base. Be sure to inspect this seal closely or better yet, just replace it. Also, be sure to clean everything really good and lube everything down with CLEAN ATF before putting it all back together.

Part number of the sensor - F-F5RZ-9E371-BC

Cost of part - 44.67 + tax = 47.80

Part was purchused from local Ford Dealer

Reason for sensor replacement - Notice about a week ago that when traveling over bumpy roads, that my speedometer would fluctuate +/- 5mph. Monday, of this week, it progressivly got worse (of course) and the speedo would actually stay at 0 when taking off from a stand still, as well as droping to 0 when I let off the gas. In only 60 miles of driving, on that day, it managed to toast the ATF I had in there, which only had about 5K on it. Yes, I have also changed my ATF as well."

From Autozone for VSS change
http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBroker?ForwardPage=/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/1b/cb/ad/0900823d801bcbad.jsp

Thanks for the help...And fast! What could I expect to pay to have the VSS replacement done by someone trustworthy of doing the job right... the first time? And I don't trust the dealership near me. Read my "Liars and Cheats" post. My A/C still freezes me out! No problems.

-Dan

Should I do that 3x drain and fill on the tranny that I was reading about? I should probably buy a book for this car. Can you recommend a good one? Thank you for your help!

-Dan

Tony2005, you are a genius!.... Well, at least you solved my problem. The old VSS that I removed had a plastic shaft that spun the gear. It was snapped off. The new VSS that I bought from the Ford dealer has a metal shaft. Next time it will probably destroy the plastic gear.

Thanks again!
-Dan

Sorry to bump this.

First thing this morning! (it's midnight here) First thing this morning, I'll lift the nose of my car and replace the vss!

It's time to put those two years of auto shop class to real work!

I was worried. I was expecting the piece to come already with the gear. But from reading the previous posts, it's normal.

Let's hope this works! I haven't turned a wrench in over a year. I traded my wrench work for flight time. Sorry.