I'd like to do it w/ some royal purple, but I've alwasy had tranny flushed at a shop. How do you do it at home, and what do you do w/t the filter/screen? are they reusable or do you need to replace?

 

pick up a haynes manual. that has pretty good descriptions. folloew those instructions. if your mechanicaly knowledgeable should have no problems. the gasket is reusable i think but the filter has to be a new one.

 

Waterman it looks like you have a 2003. Unfortunately your torque converter doesn't have a drain plug. You can drain the pan and change the filter. When you take off the pan though, only the few quarts actually in the pan come out.

 

I dunno waterman, take it somewhere they can actually drain all or flush. You would be surprised how much fluid there is in that torque converter and having no plug is b/s. At least with a pre-02, you'd be able to drain 95% of the fluid rather than just half of it.

 

Or you can use this method to change all of the fluid:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/article/i...nsmission.html

 

Without a torque converter drain plug the simplest, least messy method is to geta hand pump and pull the fluid out of the pan from the dipstick. Drop the pan, change the filter, clean the pan out, reinstall the pan (don't overtighten pan bolts.) Refill the pan with RP or whatever fluid you want, about 4-5 quarts. Every so often, I do it at each oil change, pull fluid out of the pan and refill with RP or whatever. This will keep the fluid very fresh.

Otherwise you need to pull a cooler line and add new fluid while the old is being pumped out. You will get more new fluid in the unit but its messy and expensive to buy 12-14 quarts of synthetic fluid. Let us know what you decide to do.