- Joined
- June 17, 2004
- Messages
- 24,489
- Reaction score
- 5,088
- City, State
- Knoxville, TN
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 Limited AWD 302
The transmission needs some attention at this age and mileage. Do a full service on it, fluid and another cooler are basic must haves for typical uses. I mean find the time and help to do a VB drop, replace several parts that Sonnax has for it, which are the highest wearing parts of an older trans. Put in new solenoids and accumulators etc, and a shift improvement kit or the J'Mod. Use the common Forscan software now to adjust the shift firmness to tailor it to you.
That is all possible for any 2nd gen 302 Explorer, no PCM tuning costs required, plus it is not lost labor or parts if the trans needs rebuilding later on. Everyone should do that with all of these trucks, the automatic V6's also. The cost of a trans rebuild is more than most of these trucks are worth now. Those improvements shouldn't cost more than $300 or so depending on what brand parts used, labor costs etc, for the 4R or 5R trans.
Someone needs to make a way cheaper cost manifold for these 302's. I know it's way late being a 20 year old truck, but a decent old regular manifold should cost less than $100 each(no coating). Yes I'm old enough to recall living when a set of popular headers(real full length) were $100 for a Ford V8, new. It's nuts to think of paying such crazy prices for parts, which reminds me of chroming bumpers. That used to be about $100 to repair and chrome a bumper, now it's near $1k for just chroming one. Supply and demand, it is what it is.
That is all possible for any 2nd gen 302 Explorer, no PCM tuning costs required, plus it is not lost labor or parts if the trans needs rebuilding later on. Everyone should do that with all of these trucks, the automatic V6's also. The cost of a trans rebuild is more than most of these trucks are worth now. Those improvements shouldn't cost more than $300 or so depending on what brand parts used, labor costs etc, for the 4R or 5R trans.
Someone needs to make a way cheaper cost manifold for these 302's. I know it's way late being a 20 year old truck, but a decent old regular manifold should cost less than $100 each(no coating). Yes I'm old enough to recall living when a set of popular headers(real full length) were $100 for a Ford V8, new. It's nuts to think of paying such crazy prices for parts, which reminds me of chroming bumpers. That used to be about $100 to repair and chrome a bumper, now it's near $1k for just chroming one. Supply and demand, it is what it is.
