for this spiffy five speed... i'm coming up on 100k, and am
going to put on the dieselsite trans filter, and change fluid,
and i'd like to know what y'all think is the best trans fluid
for this application..... thanks....

and how much fluid does it take for a hot flush? duh.
that would be good to know as well....

 

Why are you putting on dieselsite's trans filter? There is already a bypass filter in the system.

Use Mercon SP for the torqshift.

 

Mercon SP or Mercon LV.

Valvoline Max-Life I think is SP and LV compatible, but not exactly sure. Check their label. I haven't seen anything else that is.

If you want to do a full change you'll need at least 18 quarts.

 

You can use any fluid that has a MERCON SP or MERCON LV rating. Any other fluid has the potential to damage the solenoids.

Are you going to do the hot flush yourself? How? You will need 20-22 quarts to do it, the trans holds a total of 18 quarts.

 

well, there is a pickup filter in the bottom of the pan,
but that is mostly for keeping the big chunks out of
the stream. the bypass is an extremely fine filter, and
will polish the oil.....

the filter i'm adding is a 22 micron, and filters the entire fluid
volume to that level, with the bypass filter removing stuff
below that level. as the OEM bypass filter is now only picking
up stuff below 22 micron absolute, it doesn't plug up as fast, and as
the filter in the trans pan is now just a pick up, it doesn't need
changing, and there is a differential pressure gauge on the
dieselsite housing, showing when the spin on filter is getting
backed up with crud, so it's just a spin on filter and a fluid change
at 25k miles, with the bypass changed every other time, and
the pan filter/pickup not changed at all.

the real reason i'm doing it is 'cause trans rebuilds are 'spensive,
and i'm carrying a lot of weight, but the main reason is that it
gives me a warm fuzzy feeling ...

 

i'll get 24 quarts... thanks.....

someone here suggested getting a crawfish bowl propane burner
to up the temperature, but i've opted for having my mechanic do
it with his hot flush machine... it'll heat the fluid to whatever he sets
it to, unlike the crawfish burner....

so i figure circulating it till it gets to 185 and then switching it over
should work well enough.

on a side note, why on earth didn't ford put a drain plug on the
torque converter, so it could simply be drained, and this heating
to overcome the thermostat wouldn't be necessary?

 

Another option to the dieselsite filter is the 6.4L pan and filter.

 

Four little letters:
C - O - S - T

Engineering argued against dropping the torque converter drain plug, but they all went out of production in August, 2001.

You may not think it is a lot of money to put a drain plug in each converter, but consider Ford makes a couple million automatics per year. If each drain plug costs $1 for the parts, time, and tooling to install them, that's several million dollars per year.

 

The Owners would pay for it in the end

I would of gladly gave 10 Bucks for one LOL

I Dont beleive they take it in the *** on anything

 

everything costs, and it's a lug to attach, drill, tap, and balance.
so a matching weight on the other side of the converter. twice
the cost.

and ya can get dollared to death, and at the time i bought the
van, ford was giving zero percent, no down loans on 100%
of the van, and $8k in accessories, even if not bought from ford.

and really, GMAC is living proof that you make more selling money
to buy the car, than you make on the car, so for an automaker to
make a financing deal like that is the act of a desperate man, or
corporation. so they were looking at any way possible to save money.
at least they put air in the tires....

so, they were trying to save money everywhere they could.
it's an unfortunate dollar to save, but it leads to higher service
costs, and more profit on the back end.

now, here's the funny part... my gas mechanic has a regular trans
flush, not a hot trans flush, and i explained about having to have
both the trans and the new fluid above 175 degrees to keep the
trans circulating, otherwise, you just move the new fluid to the
old fluid tank, with minimal mixing... he looked at me, and said
"where'd you learn that?"

so.... the fluid in that trans has been "changed" 3 times @ 25k
intervals. how much of it really got changed, with the t-stat closed?
the pan was dropped and drained, but i'm guessing that was mostly it.

shame you can't idle it dry in park, as was discussed in the other thread...
oh, well, things that seem too good to be true, are usually false.

 

It doesn't work like that. The price of the truck is set by the market. If Ford prices the truck to much higher than Ram or Chevy they lose sales. The cost of making the truck doesn't enter into the decision on how much it sells for, only external market forces. Now for every penney they save, Ford gets to keep some money as profit.

Would you gladly pay $10 each for 1,000 little things that were cost saved out of the truck? Would you pay $10,000 extra for these little things? Especially if GM and Chrysler didn't have them and sold an equivalent truck for $10,000 less? You might be a Ford enthusiast and do it, but most people would not. And you don't get to choose which little thing you want and which you don't, because that REALLY dives up the prices, so now you would have to spend $10-$100 for each of those little things.

And the drain plug is only one place of thousands where they save some money. Without those savings either the price of the truck goes up a lot, or Ford loses money. Then they end up like GM and Chrysler.