new user with odd trans trouble

[benschreff]

I have a 97 ford explorer 4.0 control track.i started having trouble when I come to a stopu it does not down shift to first.also on start up the idol would be eratic. I found a vacume line that wasn't connected to anything.in searching in the general area I found a place to plug it in on the heater core hose. now it shifts great and so far no eratic idol,but my temp gauge is stuck half way in the middle even when the engine is cold.Any ideas would help I am afraid I could have plugged the vacume line in the ring place.will this mess anything up

 

[benschreff]

The idol problem has returned at start up the idol goes up to around 3000 then drops to around 500 then bounces back and forth until it worms up had a code that came up cleaned the maf and coed whent away then it started running worse. Runs really ruff until it is warm how do I fix this could it be the tps.4.0 sohc v6 please help