I have a 1998 ford Ranger 4x4 with the 4.0 l engine & 5 spd auto trans. When I look through the owners manual it says nothing about changing the transmission fluid. Whats up with that? I read on this forum and everyones doing it. My truck has 114 k on it ,Ibought it when it had 93k and didnt think to ask the previous owner if he had ever changed it. I dont do much trailer pulling, and we have a moderate climate here in North Carolina, the trans. shifts fine and the fluid doesnt look burnt ,but should i change it anyway.

 

Look in the "Scheduled Maintenance" manual & it'll suggest 30K mile tranny fluid changes for most automatics, although they've omited our 5R55E automatic tranny for some reason.

I do a drop the pan, filter change & full fluid pump out every 25-30K on my 5R55E, with a Motorcraft/Filtran tranny filter & Motorcraft Mercon-V tranny fluid.

So if you don't know, or can't find out the tranny service history, I'd sure consider dropping the pan to change the tranny filter, inspect for quantity & type of pan deposits & debris on the pan magnet, clean them with a good spray cleaner, then let it air dry, lint free.

Then replace the pan & refill it with the exact amount removed on the pan drop & continue on with removing the tranny return line at the cooler & idling the engine to do a full tranny fluid pump out, 2 qts at a time, until the full system capacity has been removed at the cooler.

You can save about $100 & easily do this pumpout yourself in a couple of hours in the driveway & it'll safely remove most of the old fluid from the pan, valve body, torque converter, tranny cooler & lines.

My last pumpout & tranny filter change cost me about $60 & that included a new FelPro tranny pan gasket. The OEM pan gasket is supposed to be re-useable, but mine was a cheap looking double sided coated cork one, thats a pain to keep in place when refitting the tranny pan, so I opted for the re-useable FelPro pan gasket, which the pan fastners will scew into & hold it & themselves in place while we fiddle with aligning it & getting a couple of fastners started to hold the pan up.

If you want to do ths yourself, there is a easy "how to" read in the "Tech Info" thread atop the Ranger forum.

Let us know what you do & how it goes.

 

Looks like its waaaay overdue. Thanks for the advice.