Will over filling the E4OD transmission enough possibly make the fluid leak out of the tranny vent? And where is the vent located? Thanks.

 

I have never seen a vent on an Auto Transmission, they all vent through the DipStick Tube as far as I know. Over filling may cause it to leak around any seal if the oil level is over them.

 

Yes it is possible. The transmission is a sealed system. The dipstick is sealed on an E4OD, and yes there is a vent in the top of the trans. If it's over filled it will leak through that back down to the proper level.

 

Hey you are right about the vent, just went out to the barn and looked at three of them. As many as I have rebuilt I never noticed that little vent on top. I guess it must have been because they were all upside down. But you would have to put a lot of extra fluid in it to come out of that vent.

 

You don't have to be very overfill for fluid to come out of the vent. If the fluid is high enough that the rotating parts are whipping the fluid it will foam up and be forced out of the vent. As little as one quart overfill can do this.

Overfilling is at least as bad for a trans as underfilling. Foamed trans fluid can't lubricate nearly as well as fluid that isn't foamed. Once it foams it GREATLY increases in volume, so it can easily force enough fluid out to be underfilled.

 

The little woman has been adding tranny fluid everytime the van farts! I think that the intermittant hard shift from 1st-2nd was an excuse to add a quart of fluid and was "venting" the excess. The solinoid electrical connection on the passengerside of the casing (behind the little shield) was getting the fluid leak in/on it and causing the hard shifting. Does that sound possible? It has been driven daily this week and hasn't mis-shifted once! The tranny dipstick is the one with the neutral-colored plastic tip and is nearly impossible to make out the fluid level! I guess if it's wet then it's got fluid as long as it's shiny. I originally thought the pan gasket was leaking but after changing from the rubber gasket to a dealership cork and back to rubber one I now believe it was leaking from the vent and not the pan flange area. I did find a stripped pan bolt and had to helicoil it, successfully. In this vans 10 year history it spent the first 8 in the Detroit area and just about every nut and bolt under it suffers rust. In the past 2 years I have replaced the radiator, fuel filter, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, intake bolt, blower motor, resistor block and faithfully changed the oil and filter every 3K miles. I figure changing these things are just about right for a 10 year old van from the rust belt......driven by a female that "inserts key and aims" and expects everything to operate normally..... (Some) Women and machinery are like oil and water......they don't mix.

 

Yes, trans fluid is wet. It will cause a short, I'm surprised it didn't turn the OD off light on.

 

Ford has a fix and a replacement plug for E4OD as it gave problems.
No, trans fluid or motor oil will not cause a short, oil is used for an insulator in transformers.
Oil will eat rubber that is why all the seals and gaskets are made of neoprene.
Brake Fluid is used in the brake system and not oil for this reason also.
I have seen a lot of tranneys coming in overfilled with no leaks over the last 40 years. Not much in there will agitate and transmission fluid has an anti foaming agent in it unlike motor oil.
I have never seen a sealed dip stick either.

 

Not much to agitate it????? What about all those parts that rotate? Clutchs, drums, GEARS?

I've seen quite a few overfilled transmissions dump fluid out of the vent. I also saw one dump the fluid onto the catalyst, which was HOT, and then the entire car got MUCH hotter!

 

No there is not much in there to agitate, everthing you mentioned is either smooth outside as in drums or the gears and clutches are inside the drums.

If you ever get a chance to look inside a transmission all the parts you mentioned are inside a cylinder. If they had fluid coming out the vent then they really got carried away at putting fluid in it. I have seen them with 2 or 3 quarts over and not leaking or foaming.

Now in an engine you have a thing called a crankshaft that will agitate.

Do not get wrong, I do not suggest overfilling a transmission and I am very careful to add just to the full mark with the fluid hot. I am sure what you say is true about somebody putting way too much in and catching fire.

 

I've looked inside several hundred, if not thousand transmissions. Every one of them had parts that went around and foamed the oil if it were high enough to get into those parts that are going around.

I geuss we'll just have to disagree on this. I know what I know, and you know what you know, and the two seem to be very different.