Took my 2003 F350 4x4 7.3 AT to the dealer because I thought there was a vibration and a clunk in the trans and on rare occasions it didn't want to go in reverse. They put a u-joint in it said the tranny was fine and it seemed like new again for the first 70 miles and then the trans temp guage shot up to the red and the Check Guage light came on the dash and the OD light started flashing. Wasn't towing, lightly loaded. Let the truck cool down drove it another 5miles no problem, worked all day then drove it home again no problem until 2 miles from home the guage climbed up to the yellow, no warning lights this time and coasted to the house. Other than the guage the trans seems find, fluid looks good doesnt look burned or smell hot, shifts fine, if I didn't have the guage I wouldn't suspect a problem at all. So I called the dealer and he said he couldn't send a tech out to drive it till something happened, that it needed to be hooked up to a "co-pilot" and then I could take a picture when it was happening, only problem is he doesn't have one. Neither does the next closest dealer. Any body else ever run accross this? I think its just the guage but I'm afraid to drive it and ruin the trans. Truck has 86k and until now the trans guage had never been above the halfway mark. Thanks

 

The module from your tranny guage have any power wires ran across it? I am no expert on this at all but you could have moved something around and have RF getting to the guage maybe??? The weird part would be the flashing OD light and CES light. Sounds like there should be something there for the dealer to see with a scanner if you ask me.

You have the fluid and filter in the tranny serviced lately, like around 60K???

 

Recent Fluid change (pan only). I can't think of a reason that a tranny would wait 70 miles to overheat if something was really wrong with it. I don't know how the guage works but it would have to be a wild coincidence for an intermittent electrical problem to come on at the same time of each trip. Is the trans part of the 100k powertrain warrantee. I thought it was when I bought the truck but I read on here that only the engine is 100 and everything else is 36, true?

 

Any body else have any ideas on this? Help

 

One more try

 

The engine is all that is covered for 100,000 miles.I hate these stories about automatic tranny failures, I have been known to even skip over threads about Automatic trannys, just to keep from jinxin myself.
I have no idea on the tranny gauge other than what i have been told. If it ever goes over the halfway mark, or wherever your gauge usually goes its too late, hope thats not the case for you.Has been often said the Factory gauge is nothing more than an idiot Lite..Please let us know what happens.

 

You know just for sake of knowing here, I know I would have to figure this out or it would kill me. What if you get you a way to shot the bottom of the tranny pan with a temp gun. I use a digital ray gun to shot temps on all sorts of motor parts when I work on them.

Point here would be to go run her around and get warmed up and see what your guage is showing, if lucky if such a thing with this problem, maybe the guage show a higher reading than we would like, stop there roll under the truck and shot the temp of the tranny.

I know the first few times after installing my temp guage I was not believing the guage. Mine lucky enough was too low. Just knew I spent all day installing the new triple guage setup from my old two guage setup. This did prove the guage was right and just running this cold with the temps we had outside at the time.

So, do you know someone in the business that might have one of the ray guns for temps? You could buy one as they have come down on price from when I bought mine at 350 bucks, I have seen them for around a 100, b ut that still is quite a bit of money unless you could use this with your work somewhat. Just a way to figure some of this out and at least know if its getting hot or the guage is just getting rf or weirding out on you. I have chased RF all over outboards for years and you can't believe some of the weird things RF can do. At least I hope this is all it is for yours. More so than tranny trouble.

 

Even cheaper than that - Sears has an infrared, digital, temperature meter with a laser sighting pointer. I paid $50. I checked it with boiling water and it read 210 degrees. I'm not going to quibble about 2 degrees for the price.

 

The boiling water could have been at 210°F, depending on what altitude you were boiling it. The higher the altitude the lower the boiling point of water.

 

You are absolutely correct, Casey. But I'm only about 700 feet above sea level here. Boiling should be pretty close to 212.