How To Flush Your Tranny At Home

[shoz123]

Here's the easiest and cleanest way to change the ALL the fluid and filter.

1. You may still spill some fluid when dropping the pan. Best just spread out the oil dry before starting.

2. Jack up the car and place on jack stands.

3. Next disconnect the line on the drivers side of the aux ATX cooler. Put the tranny side line in a five gallon bucket. Attach a piece of 3/8" hose to the cooler where you just disconnected the line and place it in the bucket.

4. Start the engine and wait until the fluid almost stops. There will be a definite difference in the amount flowing out.

5. Stop the engine.

6. Start loosening the bolts on the pan. There is still 3-4 quarts in the pan. Position a drain pan under the tranny pan and on the drivers side. Loosen and remove all the bolts but two on the passenger side. This will let the drivers side tip down as you then slowly loosen the remaining two. After the pan is mostly down and the fluid is in the drain pan remove the pan completely and replace the filter. Be sure to remove the rubber ring that will stick up in the tranny filter mount. Just bend it in with a screwdriver and pull it out with a needle nose. Do not scratch the aluminum tranny filter holding housing.

7. Reusing the OEM gasket and in a three pass sequence progressively tighten every other bolt until all are tightened. Do not over tighten as they really just need to be snug. Use a 1/4" ratchet drive socket.

8. Then add 10 quarts. Start the motor and wait until it almost stops pumping fluid out or until you see new fluid coming out. Better to waste a quart or two of new fluid to insure all the old stuff is out.

9. When the flow has almost stopped, shut off the engine and reconnect the hoses.

10. Add 5 quarts, idle motor and check level keeping it on the low side on the dipstick.

11. Then drive the car for a while to heat up the tranny fluid and recheck and top off the fluid.


The pan gasket is reusable if it is the OEM rubber one. Total system capacity is around 14-15 quarts. Buy a couple of extra quarts to get all the old stuff out.

[kermit]

Great How-to! Any suggestions on adding a Drain plug? Is the Pan even thick enough to put one in? Would you even suggest doing it? Thanks.

[red92gl]

I had a drain plug put on my '92. It's a tapered thread so there's no need for a plug gasket.

[shoz123]

I've bought a drill a hole and screw it in drain plug fro the tranny pan. Only a few dollars at the auot parts stores. I would want it on the side of the pan though and not the bottom.

I ended up puting it on the front drivers side.

[NorCaLarry]

An oil extractor really works well for draining the transmission, drop the pan with no mess at all and it makes partial changes easy. Also comes in handy for partial power steering pump changes.

[D Man]

I gotta change the fluid in my 96 and was gonna take it to the dealership but, I think I'll try this first and see how it goes. I know from experince the dealership is roughly $100. Doing it myself should only be about $35-45 depending on how much the tranny fluid is. I think I'll give the synthetic tranny fluid a shot.

I was also gonna get the coolant flushed at the dealership but, I think their is a do-it yourself write-up around here somewhere and hopefuly it complies with the Duratec motor. Probably gonna get a new resivoir too, one of the clear ones.

Thanx for this write-up Paul

[shoz123]

My only comment is that this is an adaptation of the official Ford procedure as listed in their service CD.

I have heard that the forced flushing without a filter change is worse than just draining.

I've done my tranny this way probably 4-5 times.

[D Man]

Well just got done doing it to my 96 I just recently purchased. This car has 121,000 miles on it. The previous owner didn't do anything to keep up with the maintance of the car. Except for the oil change (which was probably always late) and the brakes occasionaly and I think he may have changed the tires.
Yesterday i took it to the dealership and had to flush the coolant, put a new thermostat in, put a new serpenten belt on (this was never changed), and put a new coolant resevior jug on (the clear one). I paid $358.??, I think I got robbed, but atleast it's done.
When i got the car back around 1pm I started the tranny flush. i disconnected the hoes, put another one on and stuck that in the bucket started the car and watched it all come out. I swear it looked like chocolate milk coming out, or maybe even used motor oil but, not that thick.
Than when I went to drop the pan, i noticed a green sticker. And I had already bought the orange filter. So, while my dad went to the parts store, I took off the pan and filter (and the rubber colored piece that gets cought up inside). I cleaned out the inside of the pan (which was filthy) and the magnet was cleaned. Their was no real metal shaving on the magent. Just a tiny bit, what i would expect from it never being changed or flushed. Than my dad came back and I installed the new filter put the pan back on with new gasket. My old one was cork.
I ended up having to install about 10-12 quarts of new tranny fluid before it would start puming out more old stuff and the new would follow.
All in all, everything went good. took it for a test drive and everything was smooth as silk. Came back and had to put about a 1/4 of a quart and it was fine. On the drive back to my house doing about 80 for 20 miles or so. Everything was fine there too.

One question, the orange filter looked EXACTLY like the green one I took out and the green one I bought. But the gaskets were different. Same bolt patteren so it would have fit but the gasket was made of plastic with a rubber bead, like the intake manifold gaskets on the Duratec, and the one I used that came with the green filter was a rubber gasket. would it have mattered which one I used??

This saved me $50 doing it myself. I paid about $50 for all the stuff (fluid and filter) and it would have cost me $100 from the dealership and they wouldn't have even changed the filter.

Thanx again for the write-up Paul
When spring comes around, I'm gonna do it to my 98 and NEVER have a garage do this for me again. Can this procedure work with any auto tranny??

Dylan

[shoz123]

The factory gasket is reusable and rubber so it appears because of the cork gasket yours had been changed at least once.

The only difference in the filters is the SHO has a longer gasket on the filter neck. The filters themselves are the same.

[somedude]

well a warning to the 93-95 ATX SHO's out there, there are 2 sooling line that run just below the radiator, on the passanger side is a **check valve** (one way valve), my lines were rusted out and flid began seeping out so I decided to replace them (discontinued) and since both ends of the lines were good and just the middle 12" was rotted out I cut the line on either side of the rust and replaced the rusty line with rubber fuel line.

i'll show you the pics then tell you what happened.

[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00311.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00315.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00316.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00317.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00318.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00335.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/DSC00339.jpg' alt='' width='1024' height='768' class='attach' />
[img]http://sonikempire.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10007/normal_DSC00340.jpg' alt='' width='533' height='400' class='attach' />

some of the pics are shakey but I was not in a hapy state at that moment.

flashback to 4 months before the pics, replaced the above lines... but I crossed them this eliminated any external cooling via the radiator and factory external cooler.

back to when the pics were taken, I was performing a tranny flush at work (work at goodyear) the fluid became badly burnt (brown) and we could not get fluid to flow through the flush machine and upon further looking we found the crossed lines.

that was a $1400 mistake because I crossed $3 lines I did still get 6 months out of the tranny then it was done for. oops just a heads up.

BTW I cut open the filter to see what goodies it caught.