I serviced my trans a couple weeks ago and installed a drain plug while I was at it I didn't get the fiting tight enough and its leaking. The new gasket I used was rubber so since its rubber it should be reuseable right? I need to drop the pan to tighten the fitting for the drain plug.

 

Should be reusable. Although I even reused cork gaskets on ocasion if they are not more than a few weeks old.

 

cool Might mess around with my accumulator body while I'm in there. Not sure what I want to try spaceing the springs adding another spring or drilling the body.

 

What do you think would be average for trans temp? stop and go this afternoon i was getting 210 when i left the light It would go up a bit as i left the light then drop to about 200 oh and it was 90* out.

 

Oh sure, rub it in (90* outside) Sorry, I'm a little winter weary.

The highest I ever say my E4DO was 175* as measured in the valve body by the PCM. That was in fairly hot summer weather with the tranny not working very well (clutch packs may have been slipping). After fixing the problem, 145 was more like what I saw. That was over a year ago, haven't measured the temps since.

210 is as high as you ever want to see the tranny temps, and even then only for brief periods. In theory you could go as far as 250, but I would be very tempted to change the fluid if I ever saw my tranny get that hot. Generally 160 is about the ideal temperature for wear and tear and still keeping it as cool as possible. 100 is too cold and the PCM will disable the TC lockup below that.

What sort of cooler do you have? and where is your temp sending unit? was your truck empty during that drive?

 

Best money ever spent on the tranny is a big a** aftermarket tranny cooler. Mine is a trucool 28000GVW, hotest I've seen is 175 towing 12000 lbs CGVW up the a steep mountain pass, 3000 rpm in 1st gear. My temp bulb is in a welded on fitting on the side of the oil pan.

 

I have both stock coolers the one in the rad and a 1"x2"x10" in front of the rad and My sending unit is in the line going to the cooler. My fluid looked almost new when i changed it and stil looks new. I'm thinking the big difference is that the fluid in the valve body or the pan just came from the cooler where as the fluid I'm reading is going to the cooler. anlso what temp do these engines runn at? the rad might actualy bee heating up my trans fluid.

 

The location of the temp sender matters. My readings in the valve body is about the middle range of that you can take off the tranny. If I were to place a sending unit in the pan, there would probably be a 10* drop just from that. I don't know exactly what the difference would be going to the exit fitting of the cooler line, but that is basically the hottest part of the system. So George, you probably have the most accurate readings of all of us here.

I am still a little concerned about 210* though, and replacing the OEM cooler with a big aftermarket might not be a bad idea, especially if you ever want to tow anything in that hot part of the world.

My truck was used to tow a 5th wheel camper all over the continent by the PO and he put two auxiliary coolers in (supposedly not recomended due to possible line pressure drop), each roughly 11" square. I have since bypassed the cooler in the rad completely and am cooling off the external coolers alone. The almost completely cover My A/C rad.

 

I'm going to talk to some guys at work I remeber them saying back in the day when we worked on fords befor computers, for some reason a Navistar scan tool wont talk to a navistar engine in a ford. They had a guy with a trans tem gauge and it was hitting 250 they tryed everything and couldn't get it down finally they talked to ford and they said, "and the problem is?" aprarently it was normal so I'll get the exact details tomarow. Mine used to have a fith wheel in it at some point and a seven way with RV blades in the bed.

Wheres Ford Trans Tech? he would know about the temp.

 

Well fixwd my leak tonight now on to my next night mare noticed my drivers side caliper locked up and went metal to metal on me. was watching my trans temp today averaged 170-180 but just befor i got home saw 210 of couse that was after taking off hard multiple times seeing what RPm I start building boost. Didn't change anything while i was in there with this brake proble don't want to have to drop the pan again if the shifts are too harsh.

 

250 is too high, as a peak temp yes but only during a high load and for a very short period
at that temp the pump seal wont last long
the cooler in the radiator is the best source of removing heat from the trans fluid
oil retains heat and it is hard to remove heat from it thats why you need the liquid of the cooling system in order to remove it quickly , then an oil to air cooler can remove more of it but is limited to size and ambient temp.
200-210 is normal
a temp gauge is best suited in the cooler outlet line to the radiator because the torque converter generates the heat in an automatic and you need to monitor the temp of the fluid leaving the torque converter
a sender in the pan is only measuring fluid temp after it has been cooled
my two cents on the rubber pan gaskets for the older style pan
i wont install one , i have replaced too many pans because it warps the pan rail so badly and i havnt seen one yet that didnt leak , rubber wont compress like cork
if you want a real good seal get a pan from a 96 or later E4OD or a 4R100 that has a completely flat pan rail and uses the elastomeric gasket
it also uses slightly longer pan bolts
i have had these type of pans and gaskets off of the same vehicle 6 times and it never leaks
it never needs replacing and you just clean it off and reinstall
one other item you can do is switch your fluid from mercon 3 to mercon 5 it tolerates heat better

 

Thanks ford trans tech I thought it was ok but didn't know thats good.

 

anytime, sorry about not posting sooner but a lot of time its days before i get to a computer