Allison MD3060 unlock tutorial

[BigFireTruck]

Originally Posted by concrete

Do we know of anyone WITH a letter from the OEM whose been turned down by Allison?
Those of us with older IH’s can’t even get that far. IH seems to cut us off after about 10 years.
My local Allison dealer had no issue with reflashing my 1995 IH, but I supplied the CIN (off a roughly compatible TCM).

I'm rereading through the trans unlock threads and don't know why I didn't think of this the first time; Do you think your local dealer would let me mail them my WTECII with new CIN number and they could reprogram it for me? Down here in the lower, I haven't found a shop yet that has the old equipment and can mess with WIIs. Thanks in advance either way!


Besides that, how's the truck holding up?

[concrete]

Originally Posted by BigFireTruck

I'm rereading through the trans unlock threads and don't know why I didn't think of this the first time; Do you think your local dealer would let me mail them my WTECII with new CIN number and they could reprogram it for me? Down here in the lower, I haven't found a shop yet that has the old equipment and can mess with WIIs. Thanks in advance either way!


Besides that, how's the truck holding up?

Hello!
You would have to check with the company and ask them whether they would accept a mailed in unit. I don’t know why they wouldn’t. I had to remove mine and give it to them, so your idea seems like the same thing.

“Pacific Power Group” in Anchorage Alaska is the company (terrible name, imo; because it gives scant idea of what they do). 1-907-522-3434 is the phone # as of this posting. They do have a website.

And my fire truck is holding up well, thanks for asking. There’s always a couple things that need replacement through the course of a year, but nothing major. No issues with the tranny.

[matthews2001]

After driving to AK I never left 5 years ago! Well my Bus never left, I fly up every summer!

I had it done at Trailer Craft in Anchorge 3-4 years ago, no letter, $300, still works great! THOUGH 5th gear no big deal in AK as no interstates and wonderful perma frosted here and there bumpy highways!

[BigFireTruck]

Originally Posted by concrete

Hello!
You would have to check with the company and ask them whether they would accept a mailed in unit. I don’t know why they wouldn’t. I had to remove mine and give it to them, so your idea seems like the same thing.

“Pacific Power Group” in Anchorage Alaska is the company (terrible name, imo; because it gives scant idea of what they do). 1-907-522-3434 is the phone # as of this posting. They do have a website.

And my fire truck is holding up well, thanks for asking. There’s always a couple things that need replacement through the course of a year, but nothing major. No issues with the tranny.

Good to hear that it's holding up well, I'm sure you've been enjoying it.

Thanks for that info, MUCH APPRECIATED! Wouldn't you know that 10 minutes after posting, I found two companys on Ebay that'll reprogram WTEC2's for $450 and $500. Now for piece of mind I'm trying to find a spare WTEC2 that I can send them just in case it gets bricked. All of the old stuff is steady drying up, I need to hit up some heavy truck junkyards in the next couple of weeks and see what I can come up with.

[WiredForStereo]

I have now completed my 6th gear unlock, done by the Allison Guru.

For anybody in the Rogue Valley or Southwest Oregon area, I have the USB Link, and am willing to rent it to anybody wanting to do any sort of reprogramming with the Allison Guru for $50. Will save you $700 buying it yourself.

Went great, takes about an hour or so, he remote accesses your computer, installs all the stuff, and does the modifications, then you have to take your bus for a drive for the transmission to re-learn how to shift. Once that's done, it's all good to go.

He also removed my idle shutoff, and raised my speed limit as well, but that's done in the engine.

Now I can cruise at 60 mph at 1800 RPM.

It is also possible to raise your horsepower, though I would not recommend it. Lower horsepower means things live longer and break less.

I'm not sure if I should give out his name, he said it was okay to tell people about him, he said he's done many unlocks of people on this forum. If you PM me, I will give you the contact information.

[o1marc]

Originally Posted by WiredForStereo

I have now completed my 6th gear unlock, done by the Allison Guru.

For anybody in the Rogue Valley or Southwest Oregon area, I have the USB Link, and am willing to rent it to anybody wanting to do any sort of reprogramming with the Allison Guru for $50. Will save you $700 buying it yourself.

Went great, takes about an hour or so, he remote accesses your computer, installs all the stuff, and does the modifications, then you have to take your bus for a drive for the transmission to re-learn how to shift. Once that's done, it's all good to go.

He also removed my idle shutoff, and raised my speed limit as well, but that's done in the engine.

Now I can cruise at 60 mph at 1800 RPM.

It is also possible to raise your horsepower, though I would not recommend it. Lower horsepower means things live longer and break less.

I'm not sure if I should give out his name, he said it was okay to tell people about him, he said he's done many unlocks of people on this forum. If you PM me, I will give you the contact information.

Good info to know. Do you know if this will work on 99 International? I certainly don't need my speed limit raised because I can set the cruise at 85mph, but gas savings would huge.

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by o1marc

Good info to know. Do you know if this will work on 99 International? I certainly don't need my speed limit raised because I can set the cruise at 85mph, but gas savings would huge.

marc,
it should on any MD3060 that is 98+ (3rd gen) which the controller usually has 1 red digit on it.. you should be WTEC-III on yours.

[nconn]

Hey all,

I brought my bus to my local international dealer for a quick service and first full look over. I asked them about unlocking 6th gear and the guy at the service desk said not all MD3060s are 6th gear capable and that I have one of those. I clarified with him if he meant it literally does not have a 6th gear and it is not that they just wont do it for safety reasons.

I don't think this is true. Don't all md3060s have a 6th gear? or am i missing something? I believe the guy at the service desk just did not know what he was talking about.

[WiredForStereo]

All MD3060s have 6th gear. 6th gear uses the same clutch as 2nd gear. You can't not have 6th gear, since it uses the same clutches. I believe there are 4 clutches in the MD3060 and 1 or 2 of them is used for each gear. I may not be precise in what I'm saying so I'm open to correction, but you can find a video of how it works on YouTube.

The question is the drivesshaft speed. My bus has 5.38 gears which means good acceleration but not the highest top speed and it came from the factory with 6th disabled and a 68mph limit. I raised the limit to 75 but above 70 I hear some driveshaft vibration. However, since it is a drive shaft issue, enabling 6th and not going faster will hurt nothing. But it will drop your engine RPM by 2-300, giving you some fuel economy increase. Truck speed limit is 60 here and I think that's plenty. I don't generally plan on exceeding 65 when finished.

I also want to add a retarder. As a truck driver, I can tell you brakes are far more important than any other consideration. And there are a lot of big ups and downs around here. Engine brakes (or retarders) are not optional IMHO.

[rossvtaylor]

What Mr. Stereo said ^^^^

Now, that's assuming you really have an MD-3060. There is a B 400 (which we have in a bus) that uses the same pushbutton shift pad and LED display...but the B 400 doesn't have a 6th gear. I do presume you know what you have, though, and they just gave you bad info. And I don't know the models well enough to know if International ever used the B 400.

[Rwnielsen]

I have a B300, pushbutton. I was in contact with "Banos" (I think) and he stopped communicating with me after I sent him a photo of the trans' nameplate. I'm not sure where I stand on this at the moment.

[rossvtaylor]

Originally Posted by Rwnielsen

I have a B300, pushbutton. I was in contact with "Banos" (I think) and he stopped communicating with me after I sent him a photo of the trans' nameplate. I'm not sure where I stand on this at the moment.

I have a hutch I know who you're talking about. I sent you a message.

[WiredForStereo]

I'll just post the info and deal with the consequences.

[Personal info REMOVED by mods]

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by rossvtaylor

What Mr. Stereo said ^^^^

Now, that's assuming you really have an MD-3060. There is a B 400 (which we have in a bus) that uses the same pushbutton shift pad and LED display...but the B 400 doesn't have a 6th gear. I do presume you know what you have, though, and they just gave you bad info. And I don't know the models well enough to know if International ever used the B 400.

thats wierd considering the b300 and b400 are essentially just vocations of the 3000 series which ive only ever seen with a 6 speed rotating assembly and wiring harness.... retarders were optional on both b300 and b400.

[rossvtaylor]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

thats wierd considering the b300 and b400 are essentially just vocations of the 3000 series which ive only ever seen with a 6 speed rotating assembly and wiring harness.... retarders were optional on both b300 and b400.

Well, I might have received some bad info Christopher. I may very well be wrong...it wouldn't even be the first time today! But now I'll have to dig into that further because I still have a bus with a B400R.

[Booyah45828]

It has it. If yours doesn't that means it's locked out.

B400 is old and I believe uses either atec or wtec 2. Not sure who is trying to crack stuff that old anymore.

More reading material here https://mhhauto.com/Thread-Allison-B400-Unlock-6th-Gear

[rossvtaylor]

Thanks, CaddyK and Boo! You guys just made my day.

[WiredForStereo]

Here is the YouTube Video I mentioned which explains how 6-speed Allison transmissions work.

https://youtu.be/Ugao6jTyM7k



So to correct my previous statement that sixth gear uses the same clutches as second gear, here is a much more precise layout of which gears use which clutches.

Gear one: C1, C5
Gear two: C1, C4
Gear three: C1, C3
Gear four: C1, C2
Gear five: C2, C3
Gear six: C2, C4
Reverse: C3, C5

Each gear uses two clutches and sixth gear uses C2 and C4 which are also used by 2nd, 4th, and 5th.

I think it's interesting to see which clutches are used the most and least, in terms of wear over the life of the machine.

C1, 4 gears
C2, 3 gears
C3, 3 gears
C4, 2 gears
C5, 2 gears.

Lockout of 6th gear halves the wear on C4, and reduces by one third the wear on C2, assuming all gears are used equally and each use results in equal wear, which is not a real life valid assumption. It may be that going from 1st to 4th that C1 stays engaged the entire time, thus suffers no extra wear.

I'd love to hear from somebody who has rebuilt one, I've seen somebody said they did at one point in this forum and that they only had to replace one or two clutches and the rest were fine, as were the gears.

[cadillackid]

the gears themselves are almost always fine unless you have a catastropihc overheat condition on standard Dexron III ATF where you lose the lubricity of it.. then you'll see the bushings on the planets get worn out leaving lots of play on the planet gears..



broken snap rings that get chewed up by a gearset are the only other thing that really kills gearsets and thats fairly rare.. snapring pieces usually end up in the valve body and cause mal-shifting / limp conditions before gears thew on them..



valve body malfunctions can nuke gears but its really rare...



if i take a transmission aparts its getting more than clutches period.. it will get bushings, clutches, pistons (if cracked) and all seals as well as a complete valve-body go through.. springs get "sprung".. so I'll usually replace every spring i can..

[WiredForStereo]

I recommend full synthetic lubricants for everything. For transmissions, Allison makes sells their own which I think may be made by... I forget. I use Amsoil heavy duty which is said to be just as good (all Amsoil people actually say Amsoil is better, but whatever), because it was easier to get than Allison at the time I last changed it.

I posted about a neat phenomenon when I fixed my transmission, the fluid that came with the bus, turned purple in the sun. That was fun.

Take care of your stuff. Changing oil is easy. Changing engines and transmissions is hard. $4000 to rebuild the transmission in my 7.3. And it was a manual.