Hi all,
this is my first post here. Ive been browsing the forum for a long time, but never actually participated.
Anyway, to the meat of it. I got a 2001 f150 7700 for free by a long story I won't bore you with. I was told the engine is junk and the transmission is failing. After some fresh plugs and coils (looked to be the original plugs with 240k on them) it was running great. Tranny fluid change helped the slipping and grinding. Now, 60,000 miles later, I'm finding shavings in the transmission pan. All over the magnet, in the filter, just everywhere. For the most part, it drives normal. When it's cold, it acts like it has a very high stall converter in it. Typically it doesn't do it while warm, but it will every now and then. It shifts fine, it drives fine, and there's no slippage. For the first 30k, I was changing the tranny fluid every 10k miles to dilute the old as much as possible in an effort to avoid flushing it, as it was definitely the original fluid when I changed it at first. Black as night and burnt as hell. It's been about 5k miles since I found the shavings, and nothing has been out of the ordinary. I haven't dropped the pan since then to see what it currently looks like. I'm looking for some ideas as to where the metal shavings could be coming from and if there's anything I can do to mitigate it.

A transmission rebuild isn't really in the cards. It's a rusty, 2wd long bed with somewhere around 300,000 miles on it(the odometer quit working a while ago and I haven't felt like tearing the cluster apart) it still tows like a beast, and I'll admit I beat it like a red headed step child. I'm just wondering what is happening, and why. If anyone has any answers or suggestions, they are greatly appreciated.

 

Drive it until it dies.