2004 E-350 with 6.0, it's our shop truck.
We recently changed fluid in the trans since we have put about 8k miles on it since we got it and never got to change it till now.
The fluid that came out was rather clean, we felt we were wasting our time but felt good getting it done anyway.
Fired the van and went for a drive and it has massive shift flair going to 3rd gear. Would eventually slip a lot, OD light flashed and we limped home. Reloaded tunes, tried different tunes, all resulted in the same behavior.
Found online the direct solenoid was probably not happy with performance upgrades (van dynoed at 560 hp, done some time ago with no trans issues at all) so we installed one today.
The fluid that came out was nearly black and very thick. Lots of clutch material, both filters plugged. This is 100 times worse than when we changed fluid the first time and has literally 15 miles on it. Cleaned everything out and put the new solenoid in. Put in new filters, filled with fluid, ran through gears like normal and went to test drive.

Now it will only go in reverse.
Put in drive and is sits there like you have your foot on the brakes. Pop into reverse and it moves perfectly fine. All forward gears does the same, won't move, just sits and revs against the converter.

Anybody have any idea what the hell is going on with this trans?
It was 100% perfectly fine till we changed the fluid a few weeks ago.

Thanks for any help.

 

What kind of fluid did you use?

 

What fluid did you use?

 

There is an echo in here.

I thought I made a double post for a minute.

 

LV from Ford.

 

any trans codes? Maybe a stuck solenoid?

 

No codes.
This morning the van rolls backwards slightly when you put it in D-1, then sits there.
Still goes in R just fine.

 

Tow/haul light not flashing?

 

What tuner are you using. Some such as Bully dog have been known torqueshift killers.

 

Sounds like the pump or clutches are shot.

 

Must have been an air pocket or something. I backed it out of the shop this morning and for giggles I ran through the gears and it finally moved itself forward.
Seems to run OK and shift OK, but still has big shift flair going in to 3rd gear. The rest of the shifts seem fine.

No flashing light, no codes. The flair is worse on stock tune than on the Gearhead tunes, but it's still there.

 

You still didn't answer what tuner you'r using. Even if it's driving good that sudden shift from red to black fluid means something is wrong and you'r on borrowed time.

 

He is running gearhead tunes so its safe to say he is using a sct programmer.... the direct drive shift is not the 3rd gear shift but rather 3 gear and up

 

I have never seen a transmission with an air pocket. I maintain that with the pressures inside a transmission that isn't possible.

My theory is that when something went wrong that turned your fluid black one of more of the clutches got REALLY hot. The seals have deteriorated to where they usually don't work. Even a really bad seal will once in a while hold and then the clutch will engage.

I believe this trans is finished. Stick a fork in it.
I have no idea what that means.

 

The Direct drive solenoid influences the shifts for 3rd, 4th, and 5th gear, I believe is what he's saying.

I've been driving the van a little more and it's been running and shifting very well.
So I got on it just a little bit last night and the flair to 3rd was better, so I got on it just a little more and it flairs into 4 and 5 as well.

Yes, Gearhead tunes. I will contact them this week to see if it's something they can adjust. If we can get it ironed out then I will worry about fixing the trans. I don't see the point on putting in a new trans if the tuning will harm the new trans.
I have run other vendors tunes on my other truck, with the only change being their tune, and it had a much greater flair in the 3, 4, 5 shifts that made the truck simply un-driveable, so I am really wondering if it's a tuning thing now for some reason.

I'll pull the filter this week and see how bad it is to see how much time I can limp it along.

Thanks for the input.