A4LD puked when warm is it OK?

[trailblazr81]

So when I was getting my 92 4wd auto Explorer smogged I guess the tranny puked out the front seal area. Now after doing some reading it seems this happened cuz it got too hot. After it cooled the tranny was re filled and all seems well. My radiator is good, the coolant is good, and my tranny fluid is good. The truck had a tranny cooler on it when I bought it, dunno if its stock or aftermarket. Is the tranny now on borrowed time? Am I now driving a ticking time bomb? What else can I do? Buying the biggest cooler I can fit? Add an electric fan on the cooler? Is there a larger finned tranny pan I should get? I wanna be able to drive without worrying about the transmission giving up on me.

 

[Glacier991]

About 30,000 miles ago, while driving with a load on a hot day up interstate 80 into the Sierra, my A4LD "puked" as you put it... overheated and discharged ATF thru the vent tube....

I added fluid at my destination and dorve it home ok, since it was downhill and the load was gone in any event.

I flushed the tranny, and have been vigilant about potential overheating issues and even shift into D (3rd gear) on steep grades to increase RPMS, fan pull and decrease loading.

It has been going strong on that same grade now for a number of years and has an additional 30,000 miles on it (total around 230,000 on the original A4LD).

In other words, follow my lead, flush the old fluid and replace the filter, and I think you should be good to go.

 

[trailblazr81]

Should I try a sytnthetic tranny fluid or additives?

 

[BrooklynBay]

Lubegard is OEM approved. Lucas swells seals to make a tighter bond. How many miles do you have on it?

 

[fischerry]

i wouldnt worry about additives or synthetics untill you rebuild it, i have had this happen in many diffrent vehicles.Go buy reqular atf and filter gasket kit.I would add another explorer tranny cooler right inline with the original one this will slow the heating process down.Excessive overheating will burn up your bands.here is a pic.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a93/SuRrEaLNJ/IMG_2564.jpg

here is the site page from snj...http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171783&page=3

 

[trailblazr81]

Im at 170,000 miles. Would like to get passed 200K.

 

[Glacier991]

Here is a little trick..... it requires that you not get lazy.

Add something like Lucas or Trans-X that softens seals, and drive it a week....

Flush the system.... add fresh fluid and change the filter afterwards...

Add lubegard to it,and top it off.

Worked for me... I am at nearly 240,000K.

Oh and, drive it sensibly. Grandma should not be asked to do wind sprints. An external cooler is not a bad idea..... though I did not add one.

ps. Lazy means you do it on THIS schedule, and not decide it can wait a month to swap out the fluid with the seal softener in it.

 

[Diff Whack Daddy]

Bypass the radiator cooler and by an aftermarket tranny cooler. The bigger the better. Painter Ken's truck did this in Moab and it hasn't spit since the camp site mod of an RV tranny cooler with a fan and bypassing the stock radiator tranny cooler.