hey guys, i had my A4LD trans rebuilt about 30 thousand miles ago. i think it's time to change fluid. any point in dropping the pan at this point to change the filter? or just change the fluid.? i was at one of those valvoline oil change places a while back, they offer a service were they hook up to your coolant lines and drain your fluid and replace it as you sit there. sounds good.any thoughts? i was wondering if they can really get it all that way? its still running great!
rick

91 aerostar extended
"aka" "the green bean"
187 thou miles and going......

 

If the filter is plugged at all, your tranny is going to die because the stuff that plugs the filter is coming from your tranny parts. In the old days, trannys would still work when they had 'lost some parts' of the friction material. Todays newer components are designed to work fine until the last minute, and then, basically, stop working altogether. The friction material on todays clutch rings is a lot thinner, and made of different material than the old ones. I don't know the composition, but some of the old ones had clutches that looked like they were made of copper or brass, and the bands were lined with what looked like some sort of metal, not paper or composition like the new ones.
So, in short, if the filter is plugged, the tranny is on its last legs. The 'transfusion' process should work well, though costly. You can do much the same thing by disconnecting your cooler lines, running the engine at idle until you have caught about 1/2 of the fluid, adding new fluid, restarting the engine, and running until the fluid comes out 'new & clean'. Then reconnect the line, and fill the trans to the proper level. I don't bother. I place a catch basin under the pan, and a bunch of old sheet cake pans around the big black plastic oil-change with the sloping top and the plug in the middle. Loosen the bolts, let drip, loosen some more. Take a break. Drop pan, clean etc etc etc.

tom

 

 

thanks, by the way, how much tranny fluid does the A4LD have in it? will i get it all dropping the pan? Is that merkon/dextron II stuff ok to put in?
thanks, rick

 

The A4LD holds about 9.7qts. You can siphon about 2.5 qts from the pan through the dipstick tube. If you drop the pan and remove the filter you can get out a total of about 3.5 qts (+ maybe another .5 pt if you leave it to drain overnight). The rest of the fluid remains in the torque converter, pump and cooler(s). Mercon 2 is specified for pre-1997 transmissions, and Mercon 5 for 1997. Ford used to warn not to use Mercon 5 on pre-1997 transmissions. When I acquired the van at 129K the fluid was black with a huge mound of metallic sludge on the pan magnet. I ignored Ford's advice about the then newly-introduced Mercon 5 (as the advice seemed to be without technical merit and issued only for liability reasons) and changed to Mercon 5. At 230K I changed to a full synthetic all purpose ATF. Both of these changes produced improvements. The AT has now done 252K with no problems. The secret to a long AT life is frequent filter and fluid changes, preferably synthetic, and most importantly, no fast standing starts as they place an enormous strain on the AT components. Jan Richter.

 

So how do you get all, or most of the fluid out of the tranny then??