While running and hot. There is fluid all over the dipstick, definitely not like the oil dipstick. Tried it 10+ times and can't see a fill mark what so ever.

 

In the words of Adam Sandler from "The Wedding Singer", that's information that would have been useful to us yesterday.

I'm still a bit confused though. In the original post you said the fluid was low. If you can't get an accurate reading via the dipstick how do you know that? I might venture a guess that since fluid is splashing all over the dipstick and coating it from top to bottom that you could actually have too much fluid.

Run the engine until it's up to temp, shut it down, and immediately check the fluid level. What's it's like then?

 

I am not sure how to answer your question. How TF do you read this dipstick? It’s low, good, and over filled based on how you read it or what fluid you look at. This is the cleanest read I could get after running it, shutting it down, cleaning dipstick and rechecking.

 

Three suggestions - when checking it hot and running, you will probably find when you angle the dipstick to the light that you have trailers of fluid up the sides of the dipstick down to where the fluid is solidly across the width. Where it goes solidly across is what I use.
If you check it cold you will get a reading about a quart higher than when hot, but it will read more like an engine oil dipstick. So if it reads about the same distance higher over the full line as the length from the full to add lines, you are pretty close.

Re what fluid to use, and this is STRICTLY my opinion (and there are lots of folks here smarter than I am) use what the dipstick tells you to, which is effectively Dexron, unless you have a better degree in engineering and transmission design than the Ford folks. ADDING a quart of F may make your shifts a bit crisper due to the different friction modifiers, but I suspect when they changed the overall fluid to Dexron they knew what they were doing. Yes, there will be the folks who "have run full type F in every transmission with no problems" but there are also lots of girls who never used birth control and never got pregnant - until they did. For the hassle and price of an overhaul, I'm sticking with Dexron 'cause Ford said to.