msvphoto

To preface, recently bought the truck. It is a 2001 Supercab 4.6 with the 4R70 transmission. It drives and shifts perfectly, the fluid looks and smells okay. The truck currently has 139k miles. The previous owner bought it at ~75k miles and never changed the fluid. I think it should be changed ASAP but after reading a bunch of posts here and elsewhere I am concerned about doing all the fluid at one time. My thought is maybe I should start with just a filter change and pan dump rather than changing all the fluid?

Am I being overly paranoid and should I just get all the old fluid out now? I'm pretty sure my '01 is early enough to have the torque converter drain, and if not the pump the fluid out the cooler line method is also an option (maybe a better option anyway). My only concern is all the doom and gloom discussion of all new fluid into a high miles trans that has not been changed in a while.

The goal is to try to get this transmission back on a regular fluid change maintenance interval and hopefully maximize the service life. There are currently no symptoms I am doing this for (no shudder, shifts great).

Please advise. Thanks!

jayson_waltz

Yes just change all the fluid and filter. Do not do a flush with that many miles, just change. From what my dad (ford tech) has been saying about when I do mine soon, there is a plug in the tranny housing under the torque converter that you can take out, then take a plug out of the converter. Doing that and dropping the pan should get almost all the fluid and only leave like a quart let in some places. Just dropping the pan you'd be lucky to get half the old fluid out. Should be changed more often than that too, mine should be at 40k this summer when i do it and i just changed my diffs and transfer case here at 35k.

Maintenance is cheaper than fixing!

msvphoto

That is my plan.

What I am not sure about is if I should sneak up on it by just doing a pan dump and fill first, drive it a while, and then do a full change, or if I should just change all the fluid I can get out now?

radtexas

I am in the same situation as you are. I have an 01' and it has 155k miles on it. Not sure of the how it was taken care of before so looking to change filter & pan fluid also. Is there a drain on an 01'? I heard they may have stopped at 01' or was 01' the last year they had a torque drain? Just wondering how much fluid I need to buy. 5-6 quarts if just the pan fluids or up to 14 quarts if you can get out most of the fluid? Any ideas?

radtexas

Just posting to follow up on what I found.

Well got the transmission serviced. And my 01' had a converter drain plug. So I drained out what I could and cleaned ii and put it back together. I bought 13 qts. and it took 12 to get it to the full line. I don't know if the filter had ever been changed because it was pretty dirty and the fluid was more brown than red. Also the mystery part I saw on other threads that was still in the bottom of the pan.
Seemed to shift better but I noticed more problems when I was pulling 2 4-wheelers. When I pull them again I should notice more.

msvphoto

Thanks for the update! I was planning to do it today, rained out so far so maybe next weekend now.