Another fun maintenece job- tranny fluid change

[BajaXplorer]

Well another fun item the Ford engineers decided to do.
" Lets put the tranny fluid pan right above a catalytic coverter just for giggles"

I drove up on my ramps and put jackstands under the rear axle to get the X up enought to climb under and work on.

Anyways be ready to have fluid dump all over even when trying to drain pan with just one edge pulled down. 18 bolts hold it up and 6 arent easy to get to with a extension and wobbly.
Once the pan is off it's easy to get to everything. Changed the filter/ o-rings, and put in semi -synth QuakerState Mercon V
I wrapped all the parts of the cat, and exhaust and tranny crossmember with tin foil but that fluid still gets everywhere. I sprayed the undercarriage off afterwards with simple green/paint thinner to clean off all the spills.

When I went to startup after putting in 4 quarts of ATF, the OD-Off started flashing but i turned off the X, restated and it was fine. drove it 20 miles and its noticably smoother and quieter shifting.

anyways
just my little weekend maintence report

 

[mikeh]

I'm guessing that you realize that you just changed about 1/4 of your fluid this way. The rest is spread around the other parts, touque converter and radiator. Should be about 12 quarts to a full change. I changed mine by letting the truck pump it out and filling it back through the fill tube.

Are you now running a mix of Mercon V and Other?

Did you find anything in the filter or pan?

How many miles do you have on the X?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[BajaXplorer]

Yeah I did put in a drain plug so after a week or so I'll drain and add 4 more quarts and do it one more time. That should get it all 12-13 quarts out and new.
I didnt want to risk running the tranny dry with the pump and fill method so I'll just do it this way. .
Actually its the original trans fluid which is Mercon V in that tranny is the 5 spd auto.

The pan was spotless and the fluid still brite red..

48 K on the motor.

 

[mikeh]

Sounds good. Just wondering what the filter looked like? Did you see stuff in the filter? Did it look like it was due for a change?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[BajaXplorer]

It actually looked very clean, nothing out of the ordinary.

losses- 1 t-shirt, 3 pairs of surgical gloves.

 

[mikeh]

Thanks for the reply. I'll probably keep doing the change by pumping out the fluid until 100,000 and then I'll change the filter at that point since you didn't see anything in it.

Thanks again for the info.
Mike H

 

[John H.]

Doug,
What was the procedure you used to install the drain plug? I'm going to drain the tranny fluid in my Mountaineer sometime down the road and plan to go with the drain plug vs the mess from dropping the pan.

John H.
2000 Mountaineer

 

[Sschultz]

John,
You can buy a tranny pan plug kit from your local auto parts store.

 

[KEbert]

When I changed the ATF in my mom's 99 SOHC I had to undo the exhaust at the cat so I could have enough room to get the pan bolts out. It was not fun.

 

[BajaXplorer]

I found the lowest point on the trans pan and made sure that it didn't interfere with anything on the inside. Then drilled a 1/2" whole on the point I chose. You then install the drain port, and then locknut on the inside of the pan and a plastic washer. I put red Locktight on the inside of the pan nut to keep it from spinning(it will eventually come loose if you dont use some sort of LockTight on the inner threads)

Good Luck