Used wrong transmission fluid

[rjewkes]

whew thjank god you guys wheres scarring me.

[fordman]

i hated it when you go in to a station and ask for type f and they try to say just use mercon thats all we have. those chevy idiots don't know anything about fords.

[hmills]

well, live and learn. looking on the bright side, a complete transmission flush is probably what it needed anyway. Thanks for the feedback especially the specifics from Barry and Qman. When doing the complete flush should I leave it in park or have someone work it through the gears? By the way, don't know if it makes any difference but it's an automatic. HMills

[fordman]

like they said if you put in gear with the new fuild in it then go through the gears when draning it. if not leave it alone. i thought the torque converter had a drain plug in it by the way.

[qman]

should I leave it in park or have someone work it through the gears? HMills

Good Question. All I did was start it and then stand at the funnel and pour in quarts until the fluid coming out of the trans (you could see it in the clear tubing) started looking like new stuff and then I turned off the engine and made sure the fluid level was correct. Does anyone know if shifting gears does more to flush things?

The first time I had a flush done I paid a trans shop like $120 to do it. All they did was jack the rig up in the air, remove the trans pan, and then hook up some drain/fill machine to the underside of the trans and then start it. The trans pump in my rig did all the pumping of the fluid. That's when I figured I could just do it myself and save $100.

One last thing. Every time I've ever removed/replaced a pan (3-4 times), the pan seems to leak a few days later and all the pan bolts need re-tightening. Don't know why but all it ever takes is a single re-tightening.

[Jake11]

All the friction materials made for Dex for a long
time now. Since the 80's I think. Dex is better shifting.
Yep, there's a little plug on the converter.

[hmills]

request for clarification. so if there's a plug on the converter, is it necessary to open the plug to ensure a complete flush? it seems to me that the way Qman describes it this isn't necessary. what am i missing? Has anyone ever used Auto-Rx to clean their transmission?

[fordman]

i was thinking it would be the most draining way to do it. and maybe the quickest

[Jake11]

Yes, it is draining. I would take the plug out of the converter and drain it
too, if that's what you think you have to do.

[spartman]

If you do the power flush method of having the engine run with a line off and dumping into a bucket then you do not need to flush the converter.

This is because the fluid will pump through the converter when it is running.

If you decided to drain the fluid without running the motor then you need to drain the converter as well.

Anyway how would you get the plug off a spinning converter?

[fordman]

with a spinning wrench.

[spartman]

Just make sure it is spinning in the right direction.

Wouldn't want to be using a right hand spinner on a left handed spinning nut!

[Jake11]

Some converters have 2 drainplugs. Opposite sides.

[indy358]

You know, we had a 78 F-250 that always had a bad transmission. The dealer just kept telling us that Ford had a bad design on that particular tranny. They would replace it for us about every 50K miles. In hind sight I bet our maintenance guy was putting type F in it. If it was one of those GM compatible trannys, would the type F fluid cause it to go bad?

[DuckRyder]

TYPE F won't hurt DEX/MERcon parts, just makes them shift harder (or at least seem to shift harder).