Hello:

If I do a pan drop on my 1996 F150 Automatic Transmission I will not be able to get all of the original Mercon fluid out. Is mixing the Mercon and Mercon V together inside the transmission going to be a problem. Do I need to get all of the orginal Mercon out before I put the Mercon V in?

Wes

 

Don't forget to drain the torq convertor. Hey, why not just switch to M1 synthetic? I've never lost a tranny that i have filled with M1. The oldest one so far is an 84 EOD with 274,000 owned by a friend the second owner, i was the first and put M1 in at 20k. Oh, and the fluid has never been changed since and the turck is still used as a daily driver and hauls boats maybe three four times a month up to 7,000LB.

 

By 1996 I think they left out the converter drain plug. The 1994 had one and I got about 15 quarts out of the pan and converter.

Jim

 

Ford stopped installing drain plugs in the torque converters just after the start of the 2002 model year. A 1996 should have one.

 

After doing the pan drop & draining the torque converter, (if it has a drain plug), the valve body, radiator, tranny cooler & interconnecting lines all have old fluid in them too.

So after pan drop & refilling the pan, maybe consider continuning on with a full fluid pump out, by disconnecting the tranny return line at the cooler & letting the engine idle & the tranny pump finish emptying/pumping the remaining old fluid out into a catch bucket.

I've done this on my Taurus & Ranger for years.
Both of those trannies pump 1 qt/15 seconds at idle.
So I start the engine & while it idles, shift into each gear including R, to flush the valve body with new fluid, then stop the engine every 30 seconds, so the tranny pump doesn't run dry & pour in two more qts of new fluid & repeat, until the total system capacity has been removed + one qt just for good measure.

My pumped out volume is measured by using a bucket with 1/2 qt marks, so I can accurately measure & keep track of what's been removed on the pan drop & pumped out!!!!

This way you can safely use the tranny pump to do a "soft" fluid exchange, get most of the old fluid out, without the solvent flushes that the tranny shops like to do, that stirrs up so much mischief in our trannies.

Just some more thoughts for pondering.

 

Did i say 84, my truck was a 94 EOD. They were starting to phase them out at that time i think and some guys were drilling and tapping in there own plugs. I think they now have a procedure for getting the fluid out I read about in this forum somewhere,

 

So is it ok to mix Mercon and Mercon V? Because Im going to change the fluid in my 2000 Expedition 5.4L 4x4 and wanted to know?
Do they still make Mercon?
~Gage~

 

On all the literature I have, we are advised by Ford NOT to mix Mercon & Mercon V.

 

I was just at an Advance Auto Parts store and they had a huge display of gallon jugs of Dexron III/Mercon. I think Ford stopped making it, and the aftermarket may be phasing it out, but there is still a ton of it out there...

George

 

Ford switched over to Mercon V. You still are not supposed to mix Mercon/Dextron 3 and Mercon V. From what I gather its OK to flush the Marcon out of the tranny and switch over to Mercon V.

 

So if I change the tranny fluid in my 2000 Expedition that takes Mercon I cant refill it with anything? So what new transmission?
I was going to use Valvoline Dexron III/Mercon fulid and there going to stop makeing that too?
Thanks ~Gage~

 

You can still get Mercon/Dextron 3 (For now) just not at the ford dealer. Castrol makes some yet too, I have some castrol on hand.If you worried about getting all the old fluid out just use Mercon. Mixing Mercon and Mercon V is a No No.

 

Ford has stopped licensing the production of MERCON fluids. GM has stopped licensing the production of DEXRON III fluids. I guess you need to scrap your truck now.

Ford hsa a TSB out that states that MERCON V is the replacement fluid for ALL transmissions that used to require MERCON. They changed the formulation of MERCON V to make it compatible with all older transmissions that used to use MERCON.

 

...would it be OK then, to do a pan-drop (or drain plug) fluid change (getting only 1/3 or 1/2 of the old Mercon out) and refilling with Mercon V?

On a related issue, I've got a Mazda Protege5 which uses the same auto trans (4F27E) as a Focus, and have no idea what fluid is in there--bought it used with 52k miles. My intent would be to use Mercon V, but have some concern about mixing it with whatever is in there, which is some kind of Mazda spec stuff (and maybe identical to Mercon V, but maybe not). I might do 2 or 3 consecutive drain/fills on it, with a few miles driven between each drain/fill.

Again, it's clear to me that a total fill of Mercon V would be OK, but how about mixing it with older formulations?

Mark--as a recent Ford trans engineer, do you know? My recall is that MV had additional additives in it compared to Mercon, and I even remember someone selling some kind of bottled *stuff* that would convert Mercon to MV....

 

I've seen bottled stuff that said it would convert lead to gold. I didn't believe that, either.....

I would not change part of the fluid to MERCON V. It is not hard to change all of the fluid, and that's the only way I'd convert to MERCON V.

You can adapt this procedure:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...nsmission.html
to any vehicle to change all of the fluid. That's the way I do it.