My wife was towing our travel trailer, approx 9 to 10 thousand pounds, through some long steep mountain grades. On a long uphill grade she noticed the trans temp guage was in the red hot reading, she let off the gas some and it immediately went from hot to the yellow warm reading. we continued about a half mile to a pull off and pulled over. When I got out I could see a trail of trans fluild on the road from our truck. I was able to move the truck after we had pulled over to a safer spot in the pull off, and turned it off. After it had cooled some I tried to move the truck again, the shifter went into gear but the truck didnt move, it seemed like it wanted to but no go. I checked the trans and there was no trans fluid registering on the stick. This happend on a Friday, so after a $400 tow bill for my truck and camper to the nearest towm Sheridan Wyomiing, I had to wait till today for Ford to check it. They called this morning and said it looks like the front convertor seal was leaking and they wont have the parts till tomorrow and that they would need to pull out the trans to replace the seals and then flush the lines and cooler to make sure its all clear, and then after that they could check the convertor to see if it needed to be replaced. Jut that was going to cost almost 1100 and if it needed a convertor then they would need to order that part on tuesday at another $500 plus $75 if I want the part overnighted. Damn!!
I've already been stranded for 4 days of my vacation, and I am looking at possibly 5 or 6. Damn !

My wife said I jinxed us becasue I was bragging on how well our truck was towing our trailer cross country, we towed from maryland through indiana, illionois, through utah and into wyoming. We already crossed some steep rock mountians and all was great. now I have substantial costs upcoming and have been stranded for a substantial amount of my vacation. Did I already say Damn!

 

THAT sucks....

Things got a little too hot, so while it's in the shop, I'd have them retrofit a 31 row 6.0 trans cooler in place of the stock 7.3 trans cooler. It made a world of difference on my truck, my trans temps never go over 140 or 150 even sitting in traffic....haven't towed with it yet, but I'm willing to bet I'd be impressed. Besides, you never hear of a TorqShift transmission blowing up becuase of heat...

 

Agreed, get the 6.0l cooler. Ed the parts guy (sponsor on here) has them for like $240.

Also, get an accurate temp gauge on there. I bought the ScanGauge II for about $170 at my local Auto Zone. Tranny fluid temp is one of the gauges available.

Sorry to hear of your problems and I hope the seal fixes yours. I just went through the same thing on mine. Replaced the seal (about $750) and it was ok for a week or so after and then died again. I bit the bullet and got a BTS tranny. When Brian was tearing the tranny apart, he found a clip that was broken and that was probably what was causing the filter to clog.


6.0l cooler - $240
ScanGauge - $170
BTS Tranny - $4,300

Knowing that I can't kill the tranny now - Priceless.

 

FYI it ended up being the front seal on the transmission. It cost me close to $1200.

 

Crap. Sorry to hear about your vacation.

Listen, if it happens again let your truck idle to cool the fluid. Don't turn it off.

 

And why is that?

 

Because then the trans sits in the extremely hot fluid, cooking the internals.

Always leave the engine on, idling, so the trans fluid will circulate and cool down.

Stewart

 

From what I've read, the temp in the TC hub seal area can be much higher than the bulk transmission or pan temp. My wife's Excursion just did the same thing last month. Seal gave out in hot weather stop/go traffic. I have a trans temp sender in the side port and it was not showing anywhere close to hot. Hot fluid and little circulation sounds believable to me.

 

That seal is notorious for leaking when it is hot, especially when backing up. I wonder if it is a "Ford truck only" problem.

 

In our fleet of SD's with mainly the 7.3's, a few 6.0 the front seal has been a problem.

In our cases it seems that the drivers don't understand that just because they have all of the horsepower available does not mean that they can use it contiuosly as the light duty engines are not rated in that duty cycle.

We have had to put limitations on how fast the drivers can pull grades - and if the seal leaks it is a expense that they have been held liable for in certain situations, and we have had a drivers class to so teach and inform.

We limit maximum mountain hill climes to 55 mph/third gear on the F250/F350 unloaded and 45 mph loaded (2nd/3rd) The larger F450 and 550's are limited to 45 unloaded and 35 loaded (about the same speeds that the semis climb the grade)

We also put the limitation that there is NO blasting past the semis. We also have speed recorders in the trucks that can be pulled.

This has absolutly stopped the front seal leaking issues. And yes, this seems to be a Ford only issue.

We had much the same on the old 460 trucks - in that case on long hill climbs the exhaust manifolds would turn a dull red when loaded - and then warp / fail. We had to limit continuos heavy throttle usage.

You even see this in the semi world. Ever watch a truck pull a hill fast, and then suddenly slow down? That is because they have reached the EGT safe limit and cannot push that much horsepower for that long.

So slow down, more right, if you drop more than 15 below the speed limit, turn on the flashers, have a cold drink or cup of coffee, pop in a DVD for the kids and just enjoy the ride!

David

 

This is so true, this is a design "limitation" with some Ford transmissions. It is rare in stop and go traffic however, at least in my part of the country where it is rare to see 90 and it only hits 100 every blue moon. Most likely this did not cause it to fail, but it was a combination of other trips?

David

 

Automatics are never going to be as good as a manual transmission. They can be pretty good if you understand a little physics. Automatics are designed for soccer moms not for pulling 10,000 lbs up a mountain. Lockup torque converters help a lot but you never know when they are not engaged. If you are holding the pedal down most likely it is going to jump out of lockup to keep the RPM's up which means you are going to boil the oil in a hurry. When the torque converter is not locked the fluid will get real hot fast. Torque converters have the ability to amplify torque at the expense of wasted horse power which turns into heat. Trans coolers will help but no matter what you do you can't make an automatic trans that will take any amount of torque for any amount of time. You won't ever be able to hold one to the floor for more than a short period of time before things get real hot. There are trans command systems out there that help give you some control over what the trans is doing. Also you can install a lockup indicator to remind you when the TC is not locked up.

Perry

 

That's a pretty broad statement. Sticks wear out bearings and synchros. An automatic tranny could last a very long time if it were heavier duty, like the Allison truck tranny. Never as good? good how? I surely wouldn't want to waste my time and energy shifting for nothing. So with that said, an automatic is better than a stick and Ford seems to think so because they will soon be killing manuel, poor guy.

 

Ford is going to do what makes the most money. If you properly desinged an automatic transmission from scratch you could make it bullet proof. Also Ford has the ability for the computer to self monitor the transmissions they have now but choose not to. The PCM module could keep the trans from blowing up but they make a ton of money on rebuilds. What we have is a beefed up car transmission that is designed for smooth shifting and reliability for the 99 percentile crowd which is not the crowd that is pulling 10,000 up a long steep grade at full throttle.

The 4R100 Transmission is going to generate the least heat in 3 gear(OD off) with the torque converter locked. In 3rd gear none of the planetary gear sets are rotating. At that point, it is as close to a manual as you are going to get.

Perry

 

Actually the planetary gears don't even generate much heat, all they are is just little gears going around inside an internal toothed ring, and the bushings and bearings don't heat up much either. The heat comes from slipping clutch packs and mostly from the torque converter where the oil is violently compressed and redirected. And like Perry said; once the converter gets to the point of one to one lock-up it is smooth sailing.