Ok thanks. Wasn't sure since they listed more than one for my year of truck.

 

I've done this many, many times. The only times I saw enough stuff in the filter to be concerned is when a clutch or band failed. If the trans was still working fine there was very little material in the filter.

One time we had a trans come in from an ambulance. The only reason the trans was pulled was the ambulance was totalled and we wanted the trans to inspect. It had 369,000 miles and the fluid and filter were original. All the maintenance records were there. The filter had minimal stuff in it.

Where was I when this happened? Ford Motor Company Automatic Transmission Engineering Office.

I totally disagree with this. I think so many people are having transmission problems because they do NOTHING to their transmissions until it fails.

Magnets don't get full. You must have missed the section on magnetism in school. Each particle that sticks to a magnet also is magnetized, so it also attracts particles. You could argue that the more material on the magnet the better it works at removing ferrous materials from the ATF.

I haven't seen one of those in at least 40 years. Can you tell me one modern transmission that has a screen?
Good for you. Do you also drain the torque converter? What do you do if the torque converter doesn't have a drain? Ford stopped installing torque converter drains in August, 2001.

 

If your happy to just flushing the fluid, Great. Keep doing them. Not get into a pis match.
I have had my own shop, working on all the different types of cars and trucks for the last 35 years, Never did a flush, just serviced fluid and filters every 30K. It worked for my customers. To each his own.

 

Don't listen to a man who was a Ford transmission engineer - just keep on replacing filters unnecessarily and replacing only 1/3 of the fluid.........

 

ATF is the ultimate cleaner, so your always flushing if your trans is not dry. Just keep the filter changed and you will be fine.

 

Ford or any manufacture engineering don't want trucks to last pass 100,000, they want to sell you a New Truck. That's how they stay in business. Transmission engineering thinks we need filters in the trans for some reason, oh wait, to catch the no see ums. If you want your trans to last, drop the pan and change that filter, and cut it open and look inside, you will be a believer!

 

I've done that many times. I'm not a believer.

I also owned a repair shop. We flushed our customer's transmissions with excellent results.

 

Since I build these specific transmissions for a living, always have the parts handy and have installed one of the pans I sell with a built in drain plug to make it easy, I change my filter when I change my fluid too. But this isn't the point that Mark trying to make and truthfully I don't need to do it even though I do.

Transmission fluid will lose the characteristics that cool, clean, protect and lubricate long before the filter will ever come close to being clogged up. Doing regular service such as a fluid exchange will keep good fluid flowing through the transmission which will definitely extend it's life. Keeping good fluid in there will also cut down on particulate from wear that would otherwise end up in the filter.

The purpose of the filter is to trap the larger particles that will do damage. If one becomes clogged then the damage is so severe that it's way past time to worry about a fluid and/or filter change.

The purpose of the magnet is act as a helper to the filter by grabbing some of the magnetic particles that are floating around in the fluid in the pan. Again, if it's an unrecognizable fuzzy mess then it's past time to worry about that fluid and/or filter change.

The filter in this transmission was designed by the factory to be lifetime. If it clogs up then I can positively tell you that the transmission has exceeded that.

I have been doing this for more than 30 years now and I have never seen a filter so clogged up that it wouldn't flow even on a destroyed transmission. I have one on the bench now that has burnt almost all of the friction material off of the direct clutch pack and burned up both the forward and intermediate clutches as well. You couldn't tell that the magnet was a magnet anymore because there was so much on it and the filter media was dead black. Just for fun I wiped both ends of that filter clean and I can blow easily through either side of it.

So yes, the filter is actually lifetime as designed by the factory. That's something that Mark can better fill you in on due to his profession.

The point here is that if you change out the fluid properly and regularly that if filter flow becomes an issue then you have much bigger problems on your hands.

D

 

I am NOT a transmission Rebuilder or a transmission Engineer. All I did was owned and operate a repair shop from about 1980-2011 and only serviced the customers transmissions, American & Imports ( many with over 250K on them, never needing a rebuild) so I will just have except what you both are telling me. if I don't, this tread will keep on going.

 

I think what the transmission guys are trying to say is this - with today's exchange machines there's no need to drop the pan to service the tranny. However, if you are going to drop the pan, you might as well change the filter and clean the magnet while you are in there, it does NOT hurt. The big downside of doing just a pan drop is you are only getting rid of 1/3 of the old fluid unless the TC has a drain plug and you drain that too. The machines do a total exchange, they are quick and a lot less messy than dropping the pan, even if you do put a drain plug in the pan.