Reading through my owner's manual I was very surprised to see my manual tranny was rated well below what an automatic tranny was rated in the pulling department My first thought was is ford smoking crack or are there legitement reasons for this?? I suppose ford's reasoning might have to do with not replacing a clutch under warranty. Given a person knows how to drive a manual I see no reason a manual couldn not pull just as much as any auto, any opinions?

 

Basically the M5OD tranny is really marginal. However, I have towed my racecar with the truck in the past a bit with no problems. The tranny is now at 180,000 miles, and is in need of synchros. Has anybody swapped a heavier duty 5-speed trans into the '97 and later trucks (4.6)?

 

The tranny is realy a POS. Mine has a chipped input gear tooth. The clutch is weak. I have a 3 inch body lift that I am going to install and that should give me room to put in a ZF 5 or 6 speed from a SuperDuty. I did tow my wife's Explorer 4300lbs twice with this truck but that mught have been what added in the demise of the tranny.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

Was told by a local Transmission store that the tranny itself can handle just as much as the auto's can, he just said the clutches were not to tough, so I guess I'll just replace the clutch if it goes out & not worry about it (i hope)

 

W