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Lucas Oil Transmission Fix

ford33

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I dropped the pan, changed the filter, and 4qts of ATF in my transmission last month. I still have a rough down shift to 1st and a little shutter from 1st to 2nd if I am accelerating quickly from a stop. I have read numerous pros and cons on other sites. What are your opinions about this stuff? Can anyone share their positive and negative experiences with this?

Thanks
 



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I used lucas in my '91 explorer trans with no problems, the biggest problem was getting it out of the bottle!(it's very thick) so I diluted it with trans oil and the poured into the trans.
 






i used it w/some good results. i was experiencing some hard shifts and it smoothed them out within a 30min drive. now months & months after i added it and my secondary trans filter i am getting a few hard shifts once and awhile again. i didnt expect it to "cure" my hard shifts forever, but the bottle i added helped alot for quite awhile. so i plan to add a little more when i change my secondary filter this weekend.
 






Awesome. Thanks for sharing your experiences. Anyone else have an experience they can share with this stuff? Negative experiences would be good to consider as well.

I have read some reviews where people say it's too thick and actually messed up their transmission. Bob is the oil guy did a review on oil additives proving they make oil worse. I don't know if the experiment he did would be in the same spectrum as ATF though.
 






I used 1/2 bottle with my last filter change. I had a driveline vibration which I thought was from the U-joints. The Lucas stuff cleared it up. No vibration. Might have been from the torque converter. My truck has never been so smooth. I am not a big believer in additives until a friend at a transmission shop told me about this.
 






It causes old seals to swell, and make a tighter bond. This would help increase hydraulic pressure until the seals go back to their original shape. It's not intended to be a permanent fix for old seals which are cracked, and dried out. Heat causes seals to expand, but too much heat causes transmission failure. This causes seals to expand even though they are cold.
 






It causes old seals to swell, and make a tighter bond. This would help increase hydraulic pressure until the seals go back to their original shape. It's not intended to be a permanent fix for old seals which are cracked, and dried out. Heat causes seals to expand, but too much heat causes transmission failure. This causes seals to expand even though they are cold.

So is this something that should be considered bad? I am not an expert at this and have no experience rebuilding transmissions...so would not know if adding this and having the seals expand is a bad thing.
 












It was recommended to me by a transmission rebuilder, it's the only stuff I've seen that actually works.
 






I bought a '96 EB from a friend who lives in a small town. They didn't have to drive far to get anywhere. I live in a big city and after a short period of time, I noticed the transmission did not drop into low gear at stops. I was starting out in second gear which is rather sluggish and the O/D OFF light would flash. I did some research and found there are electronic solenoids that are supposed to make the shifts when commanded by the PCM. I was never a fan of additives but this vehicle has over 200k on it so I felt I had nothing to lose. I dropped the pan and changed the screen. There was very little of anything in the pan and the fluid still had a reddish tint. I added a bottle of Lucas Trans Fix and filled it with trans fluid. It helped some but the problem still occurred. It just was not as often, but often enough to piss me off. I dropped the pan again after a few thousand miles. This time I added two bottles of Lucas and filled up the fluid. It has been over a year since I dropped the pan and it happened only once. I suspect there was a small piece of something in the valve and it got washed out. I don't know if it was the Lucas or the fresh fluid but it has been working smoothly and it drops into low at stops and is ready to go when the light turns green. I'm pretty well satisfied with this product. Give it a try. If you have a lot of miles, it might do the trick for you. Sometimes nothing will help but if it's almost there anyway, what do you have to lose? Good luck,
Mike
 






ive used this in my truck with great results. i had the famous 2/3 flare and it would take a second or two to engage when shifting from N to P/R.

i put one bottle in and within a week, there was a very big difference. about a month later i had the tranny flushed, changed the filter and put two bottles in with the tranny fluid, the tranny is MINT now. no problems. this will not fix a mechanical problems (obviously)
 






The only liquid that should be your tranny is ATF.
 






I first got this Explorer 2 years ago, it needed a rebuild (A4LD). It would not shift out of 1st no matter what.

Even though the fluid was pretty red and the PO changed it often, i drained and changed the fluid/filter and dumped in a quart of Lucas.

Its been drivable (still in need of a rebuild though) ever since. I can now take off the line and rev out past 3000rpms, lift off the throttle, and it will shift into 2nd. Once passed 2nd its fine.

Just food for thought.
 






The only liquid that should be your tranny is ATF.

Any particular reason you feel this way? There are a couple of people on here saying otherwise...it would be nice to know why you have this viewpoint.
 






The only liquid that goes in my transmission is Mercon V

I have a horror story for you. About two weeks ago on the gf's 2001 v6 mustang, it developed a transmission pan leak. Figured it had something to do with the gasket so I dropped the pan, changed the filter, and replaced the fluid plus added a bottle of this Lucas stuff since i love their fuel additive. Well I drove it and it shifted hard, lost power, and just didnt feel right. I did some googling and everyone said you shouldnt add this to mercon V because the mercon V is a thin liquid to begin with. They said you should only add this crap if you need to get from your home to the transmission shop.

So I had to pay for a full flush, which helped but it still doesnt drive the same to this day. Think about it, the Mercon V is a synthetic and thinner version of the regular mercon stuff. That's why Ford recommends it on their newer trucks/cars. Why put something thicker in there? It defeats the purpose.
 






Ill add my .02 for whatever its worth.

I do not believe in additives, engine or transmission. When you buy oil/atf etc there is already an additive package in the oil, anti foam, anti wear etc, that they have balanced to what is needed. When you add other stuff you throw that balance off. I have seen a test that someone did with the lucas engine treatment, and holy crap you should see how much that stuff foams. For those that arent the most savvy with oils and stuff, foam is air bubbles, and air bubbles means there is no oil there. So when that runs through your bearings, gears etc, there is no lubrication in that air bubble. This will cause quick catastrophic failure.

The only time i support the use of additives is if it is for sure dying and you just need to buy some time. Like for me, i've had an engine with a knock, clearly its about to kick the bucket, so i dumped lucas in it which quieted the knock down for a while. Just bought time is all.

I feel the same about transmission additives, if its got serious problems and you plan on a rebuild or new soon, use the additive to buy time. But NEVER put additives in a decent functioning part.
 






The only time i support the use of additives is if it is for sure dying and you just need to buy some time. Like for me, i've had an engine with a knock, clearly its about to kick the bucket, so i dumped lucas in it which quieted the knock down for a while. Just bought time is all.

I feel the same about transmission additives, if its got serious problems and you plan on a rebuild or new soon, use the additive to buy time. But NEVER put additives in a decent functioning part.
Well said. :thumbsup:
 






Ill add my .02 for whatever its worth.

I do not believe in additives, engine or transmission. When you buy oil/atf etc there is already an additive package in the oil, anti foam, anti wear etc, that they have balanced to what is needed. When you add other stuff you throw that balance off. I have seen a test that someone did with the lucas engine treatment, and holy crap you should see how much that stuff foams. For those that arent the most savvy with oils and stuff, foam is air bubbles, and air bubbles means there is no oil there. So when that runs through your bearings, gears etc, there is no lubrication in that air bubble. This will cause quick catastrophic failure.

The only time i support the use of additives is if it is for sure dying and you just need to buy some time. Like for me, i've had an engine with a knock, clearly its about to kick the bucket, so i dumped lucas in it which quieted the knock down for a while. Just bought time is all.

I feel the same about transmission additives, if its got serious problems and you plan on a rebuild or new soon, use the additive to buy time. But NEVER put additives in a decent functioning part.

Exactly. I learned the hard way
 






Quote:
Originally Posted by JakePSD
The only time i support the use of additives is if it is for sure dying and you just need to buy some time. Like for me, i've had an engine with a knock, clearly its about to kick the bucket, so i dumped lucas in it which quieted the knock down for a while. Just bought time is all.

I feel the same about transmission additives, if its got serious problems and you plan on a rebuild or new soon, use the additive to buy time. But NEVER put additives in a decent functioning part.


Well said. :thumbsup:

Just think if the tranny is dying and you put Lucas in and it last 6 months to a year longer just think of how long it might have lasted if you put it in before the tranny was acting up.
I have used Lucas in all my cars because my first car was slipping when I was 16 and I had no money for a new car just added 1 bottle after the fluid and filter change did not help within 2 days the slip was gone and the car lasted 2 years until the water pump went.
 



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Putting it in before the tranny acts up could cause it to fail sooner. Lets just say a tranny is good for 100k miles. It starts slipping at 100k. Putting some lucas in might buy you another 5k. Now let say you put lucas in at 50k, your trans might die at 75.
 






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