AW4 Teardown (Lots of pics)

[99NCXJ]

I've had an AW4 sitting in the garage for quite a while now. I was told it was bad so I had planned on tearing it down just to see what makes these little buggers tick. This particular transmission started out in BlueCrawler's XJ, then Dave Moore bought the jeep, then Ray Van Buren bought it. The tranny went out while Ray had it so I sold him another one to swap in. Today I finally got around to pulling this thing apart to learn about them.

Keep in mind, the whole reason for taking this apart was just to kill some time and see what was in there. I've never been into a transmission before so this was just for fun. I figured I would take alot of pics so if anyone wants to see what is in these things you can see without getting your hands dirty. If anyone knows the proper terms for all these parts or even a simple understanding of how they work please chime in and educate me. I'm hoping this will be a learning experience.

The bellhousing was already removed (ended up on 96CountryCherokee's transmission) so i started with what I believe is the "pump".

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/008.jpg

This is what the back side of it looks like:

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/010.jpg

Once the pump (?) is removed, this is what you see:

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/011.jpg

Then the little input shaft will pull out along with a set of planatary gears.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/012.jpg

Same part pulled apart:

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/013.jpg

And this is what is behind that set of gears:

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/014.jpg

You can see here that there are several clutch plate looking things held in by a large snap ring

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/015.jpg

Here they are pulled out.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/017.jpg

You can see some buildup that looked like rust on some of the plates.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/018.jpg

Next I found another thin plate with several sets of springs.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/020.jpg

Pulled out

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/021.jpg

Where the springs were seated

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/022.jpg

Pulled out yet another large snap ring and this part looked like it would just slide right out. Didn't happen. But, there was two holes tapped for a puller. Sweet, just throw a puller in there and crank away. Nope, the top of the part moved some, but the bottom was not budging. It felt like there was something else holding it in internally.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/024.jpg

Flipped the whole thing over and started tearing into the "brains of the beast"

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/025.jpg

Not the cleanest pan i've ever dropped.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/026.jpg

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/027.jpg

Pulled the filter

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/029.jpg

Pulled these two little hard lines out and what seemed like a hundred 10mm bolts holding the large "part" in place

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/030.jpg

Under side of said "part" I'll take this apart later to see whats in there.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/031.jpg

And what was under the "part"

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/032.jpg

Pulled out all of the round valve looking things

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/033.jpg

Found springs under all of them. One actually has two springs under there.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/034.jpg

And what do you know... These two bolts looked like they were going into the other round part inside that wouldn't come out with the puller.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/035.jpg

Yep, pulled the bolts out and it came right out.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/036.jpg

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/037.jpg

some more rust

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/038.jpg

digging even deeper

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/039.jpg

Next to be extracted

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/043.jpg

And... some more rust

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/044.jpg

same part in pieces

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/045.jpg

Each of the two halfs were full of clutch plates

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/046.jpg

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/047.jpg

found some more little springs

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/048.jpg

its getting harder to reach in here

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/049.jpg

another planatary outer ring

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/051.jpg

and planataries

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/052.jpg

small little something.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/056.jpg

And then it got fun. This little snap ring was DEEP in a groove and almost impossible to get out. I tried 3 different snap ring pliers with no luck. Finally ended up taking a long pair of small needle nose pliers and bending the ends to about 45deg. to get it out.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/057.jpg

Found some deep scoring inside the bore of the case.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/058.jpg

Once the small snap ring was out this was next. Yep, more planataries.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z249/99ncxj/AW4/059.jpg

Thats as far as I got today. i'll dig back into it tomorrow and finish it up. Now...someone tell me what we are looking at here!

[tjrockcrawler]

This will be helpful to someone...

[jeepinmatt]

Awesome thread, keep it coming!

[99NCXJ]

I finished pulling the guts out of it sunday but havn't uploaded the pics yet.

[dmoore714]

I always wondered what happened to this thing. I knew it came out of the XJ shortly after I sold it. I'll be interested to see if you can determine exactly what went wrong with it. So far it looks like it was just age and lack of maintenance.

I would also be interested to see if you can put it back together again, once you've got it apart.

[99NCXJ]

I have no interest in putting it back together. It wouldnt be all that hard, but I don't see the point right now. I have another good aw4 in the shop if I ever need to replace either the one in the 99 or the 2000 jeep. I'll either sell the parts (if anyone needs something) or just add it all to the scrap pile. It was mainly just a tear down to see how everything works...and I still don't know for sure ;)

[Ray VanBuren]

Yhe "thing" in pic #19 is the valve body.