YOU ARE RIGHT Hooked-on-4WD!!!!
I have a 93' Ranger XLT V6 4.0L 4X4 with original 67K miles.
I had the same problem. Every 2 weeks I was adding a
quart of transmission fluid. To monitor the problem I put
a piece of cardboard under the trans but only a few drops.
At first I thought both the trans and engine were blown because
everytime I started the truck first in the morning I had a BIG white cloud of smoke. I went to the dealer and some tranmission
shops, all they said it was going to cost me about $2k.
So I decided to put on my backyard mechanic hat on.
I noticed on the vacuum tree all the rubber plugs were dry
rotting so I decided to replace them, When I removed the bottom vacuum plug about 2oz fluid came out. I removed all the vacuum lines and found the steel line from the transmission vacuum modulator was filled to the top with transmission fluid.
The modulator was $37 bucks from the dealer + 2 hours
of my labor and no more BIG WHITE SMOKE CLOUD!!!!!