Hi all, first time poster. Just bought my '02 Ex 7.3L a week or so ago, 265k on the odometer, engine has been well cared for and truck overall is in great shape. I knew the transmission was original and knew that it would need to be fixed sooner rather than later, but was hoping I'd make it more than a week!

Driving home yesterday on the freeway and the OD light on the shifter started flashing off and on and the transmission was slipping in and out of OD gear. Got off the freeway, shut it down and started it back up and everything was fine, no slipping and no light flashing. Got in it this morning to drop the kids off at daycare and right away, even at low idle and 30 mph it was shifting between 2nd and 3rd gear non-stop. Limped back home and parked it.

Not sure if I should drive it to a tranny shop for a diagnosis or not, I don't want to do any additional damage by driving it, but I also don't want to pay for a rebuild if it's just a front pump or something else (been ripped off before on that).

Thoughts? Anyone have similar issues and find that it was NOT a full rebuild? I found a shop nearby that gets decent reviews for rebuilds but, again, don't want to get ripped off if that's not the issue!

 

The best way to find out what's wrong is to read the codes. The places that read codes free CANNOT read these codes. You need a good independent shop or a Ford dealer.

I wouldn't trust anyone that would pull a trans out, tear it down enough to replace the pump, and not rebuild the entire trans. The difference in cost at that point to do the rebuild is small.

 

Thanks Mark, I was reading up more about it and agree with you, if the pump is bad I still might as well rebuild it since you have to drop the whole darn thing just to get at the pump too! I got a hold of a good OBDII reader tonight and pulled some additional codes that the original scanner I used didn't pull so I'll look through those more and see what's what. Test drove it around tonight though and didn't seem to have any issues so not sure what the issue is. To be continued...