what a mess. everything back together. shifts fine and runs cool. Bottom tranny line into the radiator leaking a bit - always did. Leaks worse now. I'll have to figure something out there. I flushed coolant best I could by cutting heater hose and forcing garden hose into both ends. I dropped the tranny oil cooler lines and drained that dry also. I have prestone coolant cleaner and just water running in it now. Says for deep clean 3-6 hours of driving. I'll drain / flush ( I installed PRestone "T" flush kit)/ drain and fill up with 50/50 in a few days.
Transmission - went to local shop (not Ford dealer) as I wanted to flush it out. They wanted $200 plus tax for all synthetic. I asked for std. MerconV to lower price. They said Ford would only allow full synthetic. Told them truck (2003 sport trac 2 wheel drive) has 178,000 miles on it. They said they won't flush anything over 150,000 as the power flush will cause more damage to it. Best I did for right now is warmed it up in driveway - drained it again (I have a tranny plug installed thank god) and then filled up again a few quarts. Still looks like strawberry milkshake.
I'll probably attempt a poor mans tranny fluid swap using the two lines under the radiator. Does anyone know which line under the cooler sucks and which ones pushes? Basically I'll dump quarts of good clean fluid into a milk jug and stick the sucking hose in that and then the other hose will go into a large oil dump can. Using the tranny pump while engine running to flush - I've done before - works well but you have to watch the fluids carefully and have someone else in the driver seat to cut the engine quickly but I really want to get that strawberry milkshake out of there.
