4r100 transmission fluid & filter change

[4rd Toys]

Ok,

I have the stock 4r100 tranny & stock pan on my '01 L which the pan & dipstick are stamped "Mercon" fluid only:

I had the 1st flush & fill done @ a Ford dealership back in July 2005 @ 29K miles but not the filter.
According, to my invoice slip it does not tell me what type of auto-trans fluid was used.
I called the same dealer this passed week to figure out which fluid should be used: having been told just "Mercon" tranny fluid was discontinued and the dealer tech said in 2005 my truck had been flushed & filled w/ "Mercon III".
Is this remotely true?!? Also he states if I bring in my L for a flush & fill it they would be pushing Mercon V into my tranny since all former "Mercon" fluids are discontinued.

Now that I'm about to hit 50K, I ordered a transmission filter from FORDSVTPARTS & also planned on doing my own draining of the tranny PLUS attempt to drain the fluid from the converter.

My problem is the SVTL owner's supplement WARNS about mixing "Mercon" & "Mercon V" or any dual type tranny fluids.

If the dealer tech is correct on the type of tranny fluid being "Mercon III" in my truck: I tried every autoparts store, K-mart, Wal-mart & Ford dealerships which no-one has....

I was wanting to do this myself & save the $200+?!?!
Has anyone come across this situation?!?!


I was told there is a trick to completely drain the tranny fluid is to disconnect the cooler line & turn the truck on for a short period of time which will force all the fluid out the tranny & cooler line quickly. The problem is I do not see any possible way of disconnecting the cooler line(s) from the tranny casing. Is this even remotely safe???

 

[jaymz]

I'll take a stab at this.

There is no Mercon III; it's Dexron III/Mercon, and is available just about anywhere: Wally World, etc., and it's cheap. That's what was originally spec'd in the Lightning, but Ford discontinued that stuff and reformulated it's Mercon so it works in all Ford Trannys (or so they claim). It's Mercon V.

As long as you know you have the Dexron III/Mercon in there, you could just drain the pan every spring and refill with 7 qts of Dexron. That keeps a fresh "recharge" in the trans. While you're at it, order a valve body, 4X4 drain pan and filter, and upgrade the fun factor, too.

Otherwise you need to do a flush, which is much easier at a shop because they get it all. You can drain the converter if you have a plug (they stopped using plugs in 2001 sometime).

Hope I have all this info correct, but someone should pop in and verify.

Jim

 

[4rd Toys]

Thanks....
This may be an old topic but my screen doesn't show a "search" box here under "gen 2" except for the Google search engine in the upper right hand corner.
Over the years, I have used this site for researching maintenance issues & general overall experiences others have had on common after-market parts/components.
I never seen this topic mentioned, so I joined just to figure this issue out.
>
Especially when I have large-print warning in my owner's svtL supplement about tranny fluid & when Ford Performance Group techs [question was passed to 3 different techs which they each had a different answer]; They appear to not have this exact info available to them except for an old TSB which was basically a "play-on-words".

I searched back 20 pages to see if tranny fluid was mentioned or questioned by others.
Only subjects about valve-bodies & 4x4 pans but no mention of tranny fluid.
>
I use my truck for long-distance road-trips @ least once a year. With just the lowering-shackles in the rear & all-stock suspension with oem rims/295-45-r18's: I have still some-how scraped the bottom edge of the front bumper, tapped my lower bassani exhaust/muffler going over a simple speed-bump, had an 18-wheeler/semi in front of me hit/run-over a deer which I did not see in time to react but "thank-my-lucky-stars" had only small pieces of "meat" to pull off the frame/cross-member and blood to wash off.
So based on those past experiences, I am a little leary about having a lower-clearance tranny pan or lowering my L any further.

 

[jaymz]

Actually, on the various Lightning boards, tranny fluid is a frequent topic, and there is a lot of confusion about it since Ford discontinued their earlier Mercons.

I have the same drop as you and I have not had any problems with my 4X4 pan plug (fingers crossed).

Jim