Well, the extension housing bushing was a bit sloppy and the seal was leaking a little tranny fluid so I ran my ride up to my favorite tranny shop to have the bushing and seal replaced; normally an easy job involving dropping the drive shaft, collecting a couple of quarts of tranny fluid, prying out the seal and extracting the bushing, then reversing the whole procedure. Labor plus parts nominally about $90....or so if would seem.
Ford engineers, in their quest to make maintenance as complicated as possible, have fixed the 4R70W, at least in my ride, so that the extension housing must be removed to replace the bushing. In order to remove the housing the exhaust system frame must be dropped thus adding an additional hour of labor to the cost of the operation.
Anyway, after ~2 hours of time and 25 bucks worth of parts and tranny fluid my ride now sports a new bushing and seal....U-joints OK....slip yoke OK.
Total cost: $184.

 

ya gotta love them engineer guys, sharp as tacks dem boys r

 

Yeah, the Ford engineers are nearly as good as the GM guys that designed the V8 Chevy Monza.
Speaking of some of the GM cars: Some sort of mid-sized, middle-eighties, GM-built car was in a salvage yard I was visiting. The car had never been wrecked, but the sheet metal in the engine compartment looked as if it had. In addition, as a means to reinforce a certain part of the sheet metal assembly, a brake rod had been bent 90 degrees and three-point welded to the subassembly...no joke, this was a genuine GM design feature for that car!!

 

One of the GM fixes that I have always liked was chaining down the smallblocks (mid 70s) to the frame instead of fixing the motor mounts.

 

Just like the 2010 I bought when looking over the manual telling me no dip stick for tranny. Before long they'll do away with the oil fill too!

 

I'm not sure of the new "no filler cap" either. Yeah I read that in the manual about the dipstick, or should I say, the lack of?

 

Not new really. Just to the F-150.....Started on the 5R55W/E transmission back in 2002 for the Explorer's. I know why they do it....but they wont admit it. So you cant put Mercon III in a Mercon V spec transmission...You walk into any parts store still now adays and look for tranny fluid. The first thing you see is the cheap Mercon III with hug e letters that say Automatic Transmission Fluid. Most who dont know any better dont look for anything else....Mercon V started in the above mentioned transmission as well in 1997 But they had dipsticks back then.....

 

I assume the extension housing is also called the tail shaft, Is your truck a 4x4? if its not does the 4x4 models have that bushing too?

 

Extension housing = tailshaft....The 4X4 might have the same drive configuration for the rear drive, so there should be a similar bushing. Whether or not it requires the same treatment for replacement as the 2X4 I don't know.

 

I've a '97/4.6 and it's been a beautiful truck for 195,000 mile. I will not change. I will rebuild it from ground up if necessary, and that is a lot cheaper than buying a new one.