97 F250 4x4 460, 150k miles, original E4OD transmission. I bought the truck about ~500 miles ago to use as a back up to my diesel and for snow plowing.

Well tonight I dropped the transmission pan, changed out the filter, flushed all the fluid and added a transmission temp gauge.

The transmission fluid that was in it didn't really smell all that burnt, but it was pretty dark.

When I dropped the pan, I found an O shaped magnet in it. I originally thought it was some sort of rubber gasket because there was about 1/4" thickness worth of metal shavings stuck to every part of it, and it looked like a puffy seal of some sort. Once I figured out what it was, I cleaned everything up real nice.

There were also some thin 1/4" shavings floating around in the pan that were not stuck to the magnet.

Would you say my transmission is on it's last legs or would this be normal wear? It seems to shift fine.

 

Pretty normal

Shavings from the clutches, etc.....

 

Metallic "dust" on the magnet is normal. It sounds like the transmission hasn't had the pan dropped in quite some time.

That is the part that would concern me. 1/4" non-ferrous shavings aren't the norm.

 

Yes, the fine gray metallic "paste" is normal, if you can see actual strands of metal 1/4" long (which could be flakes or pieces of gear teeth from any of the planetary gears in there) that may be an issue. But I wouldn't go tearing it down just because of that.

 

The Magnet is designed to collect the fine metal shavings of wear. BUT 1/4" metal pieces is NOT GOOD. I would start saving your money for when the trans fails

 

seconded, especially an E4OD with 150,000 miles. it may go another 50,000, it may start acting up tomorrow and you never know what it went through before you got it.