2003 F-150 SCab 4x4 5.4 it has 81k miles on it.

I bought it last summer so I have not towed anything yet....

I thought I had a miss in my truck, But come to find out garage says it's my torque convertor?
What it does is, When backing out of driveway and barely give it gas it feels like a miss shakeing press brakes like coming to a stop and barely moving you can feel it shake. Give it gas slowly and you can feel it again, But once you go it's fine no slipping or anything. Has anybody had this problem, and what is the fix ? Does it mean the tranny is about to go out ? Or should it be fine for a long time ? I'm going on a camping trip in May so I will be towing a 5-6k pound camper. Will the Tranny handle that ?

I also just changed the fluid over to Amsoil (before I found out the torque converter was shaking) Any help, suggestions ? I would greatly appreciate it.

 

The tranny will handle the weight fine, but the torque converter sounds like it definitely needs replaced. There is a brand I can think of the name but A LOT of members use it, it's very popular I hope someone can help me out on this. I know a lot of guys on here replaced their crappy converters with this brand.

 

Is that all they had to replace in the tranny ( torque converter) ? I got a price on replacing it $600 bucks, But they said it was a dice roll may fix it, may not ? But he felt pretty sure it is the torque converter. If I don't replace it what happens ?

Thanks for the reply !

 

Bump !

Need to know if replacing the torque converter is worth doing or wait for the whole tranny to go ?

 

the whole tranny isn't going to blow up because of a bad torque converter. The only thing that's going to fail is the torque converter if it's bad.

Your transmission is likely fine and just your torque converter is bad, besides the torque converter sits in front of the transmission inside the bell housing, it's only connected to the internals of the transmission by a shaft. They are really 2 separate things, there is the transmission and then you have a torque converter that is another part in front of it.

I say replace it, or you will be waiting for A VERY long time for the trans to die on you.

 

Thanks for your help. I think I will go ahead and replace it before our camping trip, Only thing is I would like to know the name of the best torque converter ?
Hopefully someone will chime in on this !!


BTW- The shaking/hopping is not that bad if it don't get worse ( I could live with it and save spending money I really can't afford at the moment) just a little at low speed or just coming down to idle. So will it get worse when towing or what happens with torque converters do they just get to a certian point or just go out completely ? Right now it's just a little annoying. But I don't want to start out on a 250 miles trip towing 6k pounds if it's a big risk.

 

Sure its not a misfire? Any dtc's?

 

What is dtc's ? I have changed out all coil paks and plugs, no misfire. So we put old coil paks back on, Didn't see any reason to pay $400 for something I didn't need. It don't throw any codes either...

 

dtc's = codes

 

go to summit racings website and get a full set of cops from accel or granatelli for under $200, they have 25% more power than stock dg508's