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I have a '94 Ford Econoline Club Wagon E350. I was towing my 24 foot boat coming back from a fishing trip and everything was fine until we hit some traffic on the freeway. So I put it into 2nd gear and I was in a stop n' go traffic for a good 30 minutes until I noticed smoke and an oil burning smell. I pulled over to find oil gushing out from the tranny underneathe the van and a trail of oil behind the van about 100 feet. I got home to find all the tranny oil empty. I thought it was an oil leak at first, but I got home and filled up the tranny oil and it runs fine with no oil leak now. I'm just guessing that all the stress on the transmission while pulling the boat in traffic caused the oil to dump out(about 8 qts of oil). Can someone give me a solution to how to fix the oil dumping problem when pulling my boat or heavy loads? Thanks
#1. Stop pulling heavy loads in traffic taking off in 2nd gear, it's too high, you overheated it, likely was coming out the front seal.
#2. expect a rebuild soon, VERY soon, you got it hot, pumped it dry and drove home pulling a load, your clutch pack are likely gone, pray you didn't damage their hubs.
#3. Install a large transmission cooler, then have a shift kit installed, one setup for towing, wait till it's rebuilt first.
maples01 is pretty much correct. You should have left the shifter in OD and just driven normally. I have towed in stop and go traffic dozens of times and never had a problem.
When the transmission overheats it will blow fluid past the front seal much as you described. And has was already noted, towing while low on fluid likely damaged the transmission.
BTW, Ford, unlike GM's, 2 on the shifter, puts the transmission in second, so when you start out, you're in second causing real heat building, GM will take off in first , but Ford does not do this. The 2 gear on Ford is for taking off in slick road conditions where you want to keep from spinning the tires, but never used when under load.