Hard Shift

[beads]

I have a 1994 Taurus 3.0. It shifts hard from 1-2 if I hold the accelerator steady. I can soften the shift if I "feather" the accelerator just before it shifts. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[NERDY]

I used to get that in my crown vic, probably your fluid levels...if thats not it then there is a series of possibilities:

bad clutch application pressure, damaged gaskets/separator plate, or could be a stuck main solenoid

start with the fluid, then come back

[OldWagon]

The 94-95 axod-e transmission had an aluminum forward clutch piston that breaks or hangs up. My 94 had the opposite problem - downshifting from 2 to 1, especially at, say, a stop sign at the end of a freeway off-ramp, required waiting until the transmission engaged itself. Otherwise, you'd take off and the transission would slam from neutral to first.

Rolling downshifts in rush-hour traffic would slam back into first.

I never properly fixed mine, but most of the slamming went away with an application of Lubegard Red ( http://www.lubegard.com/automotive/trans_atf.html ) from, I think, a NAPA parts store.

The Lubegard might have just been snake oil, but the tranny certainly behaved almost perfectly after adding whatever the bottle said... had to take a little of the transmission fluid out prior, to prevent overfilling.