I was wondering what type of fluid guys used that had E4OD trannys. I was leaning towards synthetic fluid, but wanted to see what seemed to work best. Is it wise to invest in a bigger pan while I'm doing a flush, and also i have heard a lot of ranting about Lucas oil along with the fluid, is this something i should add even if i use synthetic? I also want to do it myself, but want to double check to see if I am going to do it correctly. I was going to unplug the transmission cooler line out of my transmission cooler, and then start the motor and let the fluid pump into a pale on the ground, and slowly poor fluid into the transmission dipstick tube to create a flushing process, after doing that for a little while, I was going to drop the tranny pan, and then replace the filter and its seal, and thoroughly cleanse the pan. Then add the fluid through the dipstick tube...Sound ok?

Couple different things here.

a) Flushing your fluid (the way you describe is not the TRUE meaning of flushing) is not necessary. The e4od takes 12-14 quarts of ATF and by only draining the pan and torque converter -- you will remove the vast majority of the fluid. The REAL meaning of a fluid flush is when the hook a machine up to the tranny and blow the snot out of it. This ain't a good idea on high mileage trannies like ours cuz it almost always will knock gunk loose inside the tranny which will cause tranny failure soon after. Trust me, I know people who last healthy trannies 5k miles after a fluid flush at a shop. The best thing to do is to drop the pan and drain the torque converter, no flushing involved.
b) Use synthetic fluid at your own risk. A lot of guys say to use it but when I paid $150 for 14 quarts of synthetic fluid, my tranny started making some nasty grinding noises. Switched back to dino and it's workin' fine again. $150 + cost of more dino oil DOWN THE DRAIN!
c) Deeper pan is always good. More capacity = longer time to heat extra fluid to a dangerous temp if you're pulling weight. Generally speaking... More fluid = better. I bought the cheap Derale cooler pan for mine and it works great. Has tubes that go through to cool the oil while in the pan. Not sure if it really works but it theory it should. Here's the link:
http://www.derale.com/pans.html --- Yours is the 14108
d) Replace the gasket ONLY with a cork gasket from Ford (unless you have one of those reusable ones... My truck didnt have the reusable. I tried to use the cheap gasket that came with my pan and it leaked like a SIEVE. Don't bother, spend $10-15 and get the Motorcraft gasket at the dealer. On that note, ALSO buy the Motorcraft filter while you're there --- and specify 4x4, it's a different filter than the 4x2.

Any other questions?

i'm no expert but with my E4OD i'd never unplug the cooling lines. i just don't trust it. not that it's a bad tranny by any means. Mine served me well.
I dropped the pan, spun the tourqe converter 'till i get to it and drained, ran STP trans flush(not endorsing), new filter, gasket,...i consider it, the tranny, bulletproof if taken care of.

Mike I noticed you started reading before already. Make sure to reload the page cuz I edited my post after making it.

Thank you Chris and Lenny for quick responses. I am semi concerned about my transmission because prior to me building this truck up, about 2 years ago when i first got it, I had VIP (i know i couldn't be any more stupid) do a transmission flush, and this now worries me because this may have caused more damage than good but I wasn't into vehicles at the time of the flush so I wouldn't have known if it how the transmission shifted prior to their flush, anyway, I would like to remove their crappy run of the mill tranny fluid they put in about 2 years, 30,000 miles later with something thats going to milk this thing hopefully for another 70,000.

okay i will reread it chris thank you

If you want to milk it for 70,000 then you better invent a new breed of Everlasting ATF That's just plain stupid to run 1 batch of atf for that long. Most guys will say MAYBE run it 60k on 1 change of synthetic fluid. I'll probably change my dino fluid in 30k miles or less (depending on what the fluid looks like).

Like I said before, you can spend the big $$$ on synthetic and risk having your high mileage tranny reject it... Or use the tried and true dino fluid. The synthetic will probably run a bit cleaner and maybe a bit cooler. Do you tow much with that truck?

Skan, the way I read his post was him hoping to milk another 70,000 outta the transmission, I could be wrong...

Blue Goose said:

Skan, the way I read his post was him hoping to milk another 70,000 outta the transmission, I could be wrong...

Click to expand...

Ah crap, you're probably right. My bad Mike.

haha yes hes right chris lol, i wouldn't plan to run fluid that long, but in general if i can hit 200,000 with the tranny, I wouldn't be as sad when i needed to replace or rebuild it. But anyway, I am curious how synthetic would run on this tranny because I am running conventional right now, and it does okay but i think it could be better