I'm going to chage the transmission fluid in my 2004 2wd Expedition. It has the 4.6 engine. I had heard that some trucks have a reusuable metal screen transmission filter, does this Expy have that? Do I clean & reuse the transmission filter or buy a new one? Aproximatley how many quarts of fluid will I need to purchase to refill the transmission after I drain it?

 

Are you only going to drop the pan or are you doing a full flush? 13 qts per the manual. I suggest a full flush and new filter as I'm not sure about a reusable filter in your truck.

Here is a link to your owners manual if you don't have one.

http://www.motorcraftservice.com/pubs/content/~WO4EXD/~MUS~LEN/41/04exdog3e.pdf

 

drain the pan, no flush this time

 

If you have a pan and less then 10' of clear 3/8 id tubing, you can flush it in 15 minutes. Would you only change 2 of the 6 quarts of oil at an oil change?

 

Cool. How do I do this?

 

First, drop the pan, drain the fluid, replace the filter with proper torque (watch for the o-ring) clean the pan, clean the reusable gasket, put back together. Torque the bolts to spec, don't guess, they need to be the same torque so you don't jack up the gasket. Look at the passenger side of the trans and the rear line is the return line. Disconnect the rear return line, attach the clear tubing to the line, put the other end in a large pan. I use a flat 6 ga pan, $4.00 at the cheapo store. Make sure you weigh down the tube end in the pan. Start the car and let it run for 30 seconds then shut off, it pumps fast. The pump will pump it into the pan. Approximate what pumped out and put the new fluid, Merc V I believe, in the trans thru the dipstick fill hole with a good funnel. If you mark 13 quarts on the side of your pan, you'll know when you flushed most, if not all of the old fluid out. Buy a couple of extra quarts so you don't run low. Doing the flush will cost you half of what a shop will charge AND you're putting in a new filter.

If you ever overfill, don't panic. Just disconnect the rear line and start the car for a few seconds to pump it out.

Good Luck, it's a little long winded but after you do it once, you can do this in a half hour. It takes me longer to get the jack and jack stands out and get the beers cold.

 

Rule of thumb.
Never clean ANY filter. Replace it !

 

Just so I understand how to do this. Don't want to mess up a transmission. Disconnect the rear most line or the upper line and these are the return lines. Depends what transmission you have 4R70 or 4R100. Use 3/8 clear tubing from the hardware store(6-10FT) and hook it the line you unhook from the transmission and run the tubing out from under the truck into a drain pan large enough. Start the truck, fluid will start coming out. As soon as you see less fluid/bubbly, shut the truck off. This should be close to 13 quarts of fluid then. Hook return line back to transmission. Fill with fluid through dipstick. Would you add about 6-7 quarts then start briefly to suck up fluid then fill with remaining fluid until full?? The other question, running it briefly less than 10 seconds, without fluid will not hurt the transmission as the bubbly fluid starts to appear in the clear line.

 

Well, first drop the pan, clean it out, change the filter, reinstall the pan, and put about 4 quarts of clean new ATF in the tranny. THEN disconnect the return line................
No, stop after about 4 quarts or you will be sucking air out of the tranny pan. After about 4 quarts, stop engine and refill the tranny. Keep repeating this ~4 quart cycle until you see nice cherry red ATF in the clear tubing. Then stop engine, hook tranny line up, top off tranny and recheck the level, and your done.

 

Thanks. That is what I was thinking. Dropping the pan sounds like a good idea. I can drain the fluid first since Ford thought it is a good idea to put a drain plug on the transmission pan. Will add this to the to do list!

 

I used a 1 gallon milk jug, filled it with water, and dumped it in the large pan and marked the 4 quart increments on the side with a marker. That kept me from over pumping and you know when you got most of the old fluid out. I always pump out an extra quart or 2 then top off.