Newbie needs advice

[Jaiello]

I would like to say i am glad this forum is here. I also have a BMW and i have found it to be very valuable in asking questions to members. I look forward to listening to all of your advice on here. Anyways I just purchased a 2002 Ford Explorer Limited I guess it has the 4.6l V8 in it. I bought this truck to tow my boat to our nearest lake which is about 30 miles away. My boat is tops 3200lbs. Not heavy, but anyways I noticed with this new to me SUV, that when i am slowing down it clunks. It doesn't do it all the time it only does it about 2 out of 10 times. It feels like its clunking into the last lower gear as i come to a stop. I have no OD light flashing or any other lights. Shifts up are very smooth and no noise at all. I am perplexed on what to look for because i can't even check the tranny fluid because some bright engineer decided to omit the tranny dipstick and put a filler only under the car. I am hoping its not the tranny because i heard these cars are notorious for this problem. Others say to check the slip yoke. I am looking for some advice from all of you here since you guys are the ones driving these vehicles. I was also wondering if i should have the fluid changed and filter changed also and if i should use Lucas in the tranny since i am going to be doing some towing. Any advice will be helpful.

 

[xlt03]

Welcome aboard!

What is the current mileage on your vehicle? It helps to give us a clearer picture. The factory u joints are sealed and may be dried. I changed mines at about 102, 000 miles when they started to groan and slight clunk. I did use geasable ones. That solved my particular problem. If you do decide to change yours, be sure to mark the position of the driveshaft in relations to the differential yokes so you do not have a out of balanced problem.

Do you get the clunking if you manually shifted your gears when slowing down? Try each gear to isolate. I'm thinking the trans may not be the problem if you get the same noise in all of the gears and you only get it some of the time.

Yes, the transmission is problematic. If you change the fluid, do drain and refill with a filter change. I'm leary for transmission flushes. There is a posting on changing the trans fliud with pictures.

I usually change all fluids on a vehicle I aquire used. The service history may not be accurate if the vehicle had multiple owners. You did not state if you were going to service your own vehicle. If you are, I would start with the clunking concerns first, then perhaps the trans fluid. Then I would do the rest of the fluids.

Let us what you did to solve the problem so others learn from your experience.

 

[Jaiello]

Thanks for your reply... The car has 156k on it... I never messed with transmissions so i would go somewhere to get it done...

 

[Number4]

I've not replaced mine yet, but from everything I've read, it's sounds like your tranny solenoid pack is going out.
I'm not sure how exactly they fail. So once they act up, how long till it actually goes out and what happens when it does.
But if you are towing, I'd check it out.

 

[Donystoy]

There was a thread on here some time ago that addressed a clunk that came from one of the drive shafts during heavy braking. The fix was to put grease under a boot on this shaft, I tried to find this thread but was unable to. Mine has had a single clunk only when I do heavy braking and just prior to actually stopping. Since I read the thread about the drive shaft issue I have only considered it a annoyance and don't worry about it. Mine first showed up probably 5 years ago.