*HELP!* Automatic Transmission Problem
 

Car has 50K miles, 2001 GT, 4r70W AODE. Tranny cooler was installed at about 45K miles with new fluid added, everything else stock.

Here's the problem, about two weeks ago I noticed that when I switch from reverse to drive it takes a good 3 seconds to get kicked into drive.

I'll back up from a driveway, parking spot, etc. switch to drive, sit for a few seconds and then it'll jump in drive and kinda lurch forward. Sometimes it also does it the other way from Drive to Reverse. It never did this so I'm not sure what's wrong, but I could get to live with it.

However in the last few days, about once a day, I'll be sitting at a stoplight or basically just stopped somewhere, and the car almost feels like I'm about to stall. I'll let go of the brake and won't move at all, lightly lighty press the throttle and it'll kinda kick forward a foot until everything is find and dandy. It's almost like it somehow mostly flips into Neutral until I urge it a little on the gas. Is my tranny going out or something else?

I do have an SCT dyno tune with 93 octane and firmed up shift points.
I've yet to "Return to Stock" to see if I still get this problem.

Anyone have an idea? HELP

I've got a 95 V6 auto with 119K on the tranny and it does the reverse to drive, drive to reverse delay thing too

put it back to stock see what happens, mine does the exact same thing, i just got into a habbit of waiting for it to catch into drive, just get used to it, there is nothing wrong with it, just normal wear

that's what I figured with the reverse to drive.... but that cant be normal for it to sometimes kick into neutral somewhat at stoplights, is it???

Ive never had that problem with nuetral, it could that its not grabbing completely and its slipping out of gear, might want to take the shifter out and look and see if anything is lose

thats pretty much exactly what it feels like. I'm gonna swing by my tuner and see if he's got any ideas sometime this week.

Reflash the tune. Check Shift pressure. Does this problem occur when the car is warmed up?

Im assuming you have, but have you pulled the dipstick to check the level?
If its low on fluid, it will do similar things.

I will do both re-flashing tune and add more fluid if needed.

I'd see if the stall is slipping...my friends was begining to fail and was doing that.

anyway to check that fairly easily?

It could be your diodes in the tranny pan going bad. I forget what they are called but I was told they fail around that many miles.

I thought about this... but I've heard it was only the ones on your 2-3 shifts that went commonly bad

Not really I had mine checked on the dyno.......all you can do is look for signs like decreased MPG and a few othe signs. You can probably go and get that checked by a shop

Yea, I'm gonna swing by my tuner's hopefully. Gotta ask him a few other questions. And I think my MPG has gotten better, HAHA.

Another thing that just happened today.

I was driving for about 15 minutes and my "O/D Off" light came off and started blinking. This also happened about 2 weeks ago, this was the second time it's done this now. I always keep O/D on and most of the time turn traction control off. Car still ran fine, and was still in Overdrive. I would turn off overdrive, light still blinks, but clearly would turn off overdrive as normal. Turned back on and reacted normal.

Any thoughts?

computer is detecting a code being thrown due to a tranny problem of some kind more than likely...did you check the fluid level yet?

Doing it tomorrow right after work. (Work bright and early). I have a tranny temp gauge and havent noticed anything out of the ordinary at all. (I keep a close eye on this gauge daily, before and after my tranny cooler install).

What tranny fluid should I use if I need to add more? My tuner told me one kind, but forgot what it was. He said it was the exact same as the Power Steering fluid.

Just has to be MERCON V...if it has Fords brand in it now, add the same..

Thanks for those who helped...

My fluid level was wayyyy low. I added 1.5 quarts of Castrol Mecron V and now I'm good to go. One of my return lines through my B&M tranny cooler has a minor minor leak I believe. I'm gonna tighten it up on the lift this week. Thanks again, that should be the problem, lol.

oh snap, hopefully you didnt cause tranny problems, running low fluide is super not good for it.

I think it's only been for 1-2 days and my temp hasnt exceeded 160* so hopefully I'll be ok

You check the fluid at full opp. temp right?

Yes Sir.

Alright good. Sounds like you got it all taken care of. BTW, I just finished the J Mod write up and its on my site. Should make that your next mod. If you're still having that slight delay when shifting into reverse then itll fix that.

Everything is running A ok now, just got to keep my eye on this return line from the cooler.

You should still do the j mod.