Originally Posted by wildstang

Transmission question for Dave, Mike and anyone else with knowledge of them. my 01 excursion since we have owned it has acted strange in cold weather when first started. unless warmed up for like 3 minutes or more you put it in gear and it would be real sluggish moving but the rpms would be up and less then quarter mile would seem to act normal. I used to think that maybe it was some sort of cycle in the computer to let the transmission slip a little to help avoid damage to other components when cold. Late this spring we drove it around a 100 miles and I picked my son up from a boy scout event, when I backed up if felt like it spun in mud, there was mud in the parking lot. when I got up to the paved road it still was slipping so I knew that wasn't it. I couldn't really tell if it was low on fluid so I added some to be safe. It still wasn't right. it has gotten progressively worse fast for hardly driving it. I don't even think I have put 300 miles on it since the problem. My parking area has a slight decline and to the point now that I put it in reverse it barely gives enough to role back and when I put it in any forward gear it acts like neutral. It will eventually, I guess, build up enough pressure to move but not well. and then when you have it in gear and foot on the brake it act like in neutral and then act like it is loading the engine more then normally would.

I did ask in the 7.3 forum and Mark, who is the retired ford transmission engineer, said there are 3 feed bolts under the valve bodies and if those loosen then that could give those symptoms. I am in the process of removing the valve bodies to check but I doubt that is it. Do you think the pump would go out that fast and act this erratic? I'm going to put it back together with new fluid and hopefully check line pressure soon. thanks.