Solved - Air conditioning drain problem causing transmission shudder | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Solved Air conditioning drain problem causing transmission shudder

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TTSaleen

Active Member
Joined
September 17, 2013
Messages
73
Reaction score
61
City, State
Apex, NC
Year, Model & Trim Level
2003 Explorer XLT
So my 2003 Explorer XLT AWD 4.0 V6 started developing a weird transmission shifting issue over the summer.
When I would sit for a period of time with the air-conditioning on (such as in a drive-thru), as soon as I would pull away, the Explorer would shift funny.
What I mean is it might slip, feel like it was confused on how to shift, or sometimes shift too quickly.

When I didn't run the air-conditioning, I did not have this problem.
So I started looking into the problem and found the drain for the condensation (water) was running into the transmission harness and down into the plug on the side of the transmission.

So I did 2 things. 1 - I took the plug apart and filled it with dielectric grease and reinstalled. This keeps the moisture out of the electrical sockets. 2 - I put a 3/4" heater hose on the outlet of the drain from the firewall and made a longer discharge for the water to exit beside the transmission and not into the harness.

Since performing this mod, the transmission issues have disappeared and I've had zero problems.
The total cost was less than $20 and just took me a bit of labor to snake my hand/arm in there to attach the rubber hose.

I figured this might help if any of your had a similar issue.
Ryan

Here's a video I did talking about it.
 






Nice job troubleshooting the issue. I set you up with a 3 month Elite membership for the article you put together:chug:
 












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