I have a 2000 f150 4x4 automatic transmission that has 97k miles on it. today going down the rd at say 40ish mph it acted like it went to neutral and reved up to maybe 3k kinda caught me off gaurd and i let off the gas dropped it into neutral and back to drive and it seem to engage fine. i stopped maybe half mile up the rd and checked fluid it was full and smelled fine. i left that spot and got up to maybe 30ish and it done the same thing and i did the neutral to drive again and drove it maybe 2 more miles to the house. any ideas on what is causing it.
I am the original owner and the truck has never really been run hard i have stepped on the throttle maybe ten times since ive owned it.

 

Ummmm, I'm just gonna guess maybe your Torque Converter unlocked? idk thats really strange.

 

i was starting to think sensor "but" dont know. I would take it around the block and see if it happens in a certain gear buts its kinda late to be stuck on the side of the rd and i dont want to make it worse by driving it

 

id say trq converters slippin tht wat it sounds like to me

 

Could be a problem in the electrical system. I know in my Montero (Notorious for all their computers and electrical systems going bad) when I had a short somewhere and the engine died while I was driving. The Theft system wouldnt let me start the car or let the PCM or anything turn on w/o me throwing it in neutral because this was some way of resetting the system. That probably not what happened to your vehicle but I'm just throwing ideas at the wall seing if anything sticks. You prolly need to take it to a dealer or shop as soon as you can.

 

my girlfriends grand am was doing that just recently so we disconnected the cruise control and it hasn't done it since

 

TQ or some sensor sounds most likely guess ill look at it tomorrow just very odd how it is acting

if I have to drive to shop would it be better to manual shift, drive slow in 2nd or just hope for the best and go?

 

Do you have any drip or anything underneath where you park your truck? Your torque converter might have an internal crack when when it hit s certain point the pressure drops or gets too high. That might be causing your prob.

 

I don't think I have any drips never have seen any and the fluid is full and clean. I drove it around the block to get a better idea of whats going on and it looks like all gears are OK except drive. once it hits drive it starts to slip. as far as I could tell the rest of the gears were ok but I did not force it to try and make it slip.

Now the big question I know an older guy that use to do transmissions. am I looking at a full rebuild or reman tranny or is it possible there is something a little smaller of a job that can be done to repair?

 

My dodge ram did the same thing to me, except I didnt have any choice but to drive it til it puked! The cooler was plugged, it caused my trans to overheat, which caused my rear planetarys to blow apart. Look at your cooler hoses, mine was about 3 times it's normal size. I re-built it, threw a huge cooler on it and no problems! My erd has a re-man trans in it, as well as an aftermarket cooler. It's also still got 65,000 miles of warranty left on it, so I'm breathing easy for a while...