5.0 mountaineer hard OD up shift downshift ideas? | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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5.0 mountaineer hard OD up shift downshift ideas?

silvereagle

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February 6, 2011
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City, State
va
Year, Model & Trim Level
98 mountaineer
Title says it all. On light throttle shifting into over drive the whole truck will sometimes shudder and slowly slip into OD. Also when I hit the gas and make it downshift from OD it will sometimes shift really hard like a short version of the upshift. It has 165k miles and I recently dropped the trans pan to do a fluid/filter change. I noticed the dip stick plug in the bottom of the pan so this was probably its first fluild/filter change. After that the shuddering got a little less abrupt and sometimes is non existant.

Any ideas? Bad valvebody? Bad solinoid? I am thinking about doing a shift kit from rockauto.com for 40 bucks and hoping that will smooth things out.

Thanks guys.
 



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First, to clarify
the "last" shift you feel is actually the torque converter locking.

Try this,
drive with overdrive switched off and accelerate to about 55mph slowly. See if the shudder still occurs.
 






I did do that and it doesn't shudder at all. It did seem only when the tq converter is locking on a light throttle accel it doesn't know if it should lock or not or its having trouble locking. Also when I use the OD button to downshift it unlocks perfect. I don't know much about automatics. So I keep thinking its a relay or something that is going bad.
 






You have torque converter shudder which can be fixed by new fluid but will definitely be fixed with new converter.
 






I have a rubber plug looking thing on the bottom of where the tq converter should be. Maybe its a drain...guess ill pull it off and hope a drain plug is under it. I don't work on autos ever...so if I drain the tq converter do I refill it thru the dip stick and running the engine in netural?

Thanks!
 






I would have the transmission flushed to change all the fluid. I have had this same problem at around 100k and 125k (at 151k now) and a flush both times completely resolved the issue. Matter of fact I will be taking it in for a flush next weekend since I'm starting to feel the shudder again. I believe the fluid is supposed to be changed every 30k but it looks like it's every 25k for me...
 






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