Ordered a new internal wiring harness and solenoid kit... Do you think I should change out the case connector as well? That would probably be another week to get the part.... Could try to locate a valve body gasket, pull the thing and inspect the O ring...

 

If the connector is leaking internally and getting the plug wet, then I'd change it.

The valve body gasket part # is 1L3Z7C155AA . IIRC, the connector is the same for 2000-2008 and is F8AZ7G276A. Make sure you have a torque wrench that can do in/lb. The valve body gets torqued to in/lb, not ft/lb. I'll try and find the torque sequence and spec. for you.

Go to www.parts.ford.com and make an account. They'll ask you to pick a dealer. Some dealers give discount, so change dealers and see which one shows a discount in your cart. There's usually one dealer in the area. They also have next day shipping for $9.99. Since it's Friday, you wouldn't get it until Monday or Tuesday. I've ordered parts as late as 6 PM PST (I'm in California), they shipped from Michigan and Memphis and still showed up by 10:30 the next business morning.

If you do find a local dealer that gives a discount on the parts.ford.com website, you can call them and ask if they have them in stock and will they honor their online price. They usually do.

 

Ford dealer is telling me that I just need to replace two O rings on the case connector and that I shouldn’t have to pull the valve body...

Maybe he’s talking about another model of transmission???

 

The case connector only has one o'ring around the outside to keep fluid from leaking from the case. You would still have to remove the valve body to remove the connector to replace the external o'ring. So I'm not sure what transmission he's talking about.

Unless I misunderstood what you described earlier. Your problem isn't that fluid is leaking around the connector but internally through the connector and wetting the inside of the plug too. If this is the case, then you need to replace the connector and you must remove the valve body either way.

 

Here are the torque specs and tightening sequence for the valve body. The manual also references what I've told you. The connector is held in place by the valve body (see red circled area):

 

Bought the gasket and the plug o rings at the ford dealer... I’ll see what I can do to pull the plug and inspect it...worse comes to worse, I’ll order the plug... Ford doesn’t have it in stock...

 

I've been watching this guy on YouTube...
Pulling the valve body seems intimidating, but I've done worse things..
However, if I have to wait for a new transmission case plug to come it...
I'm wondering if I should go ahead and order the check *****, replace them, and rig up a tool and possibly replace the snap ring on the overdrive servo while I'm at it...
The truck has 149,000 miles on it.

 

Changing out the check ***** is easy. Don't let it intimidate you.

Changing the snap ring would be a good idea given the issue with them. A new OD servo wouldn't be a bad idea either. Save yourself some hassle by wedging something up the slot and against the band before you remove the OD servo. That way you don't have to mess around when installing the new servo. I remember a thread somewhere where the guy used a hack saw blade with the teeth ground down to slide up there and he said it worked great.

If you don't want to use a bottle jack and pipe/broom stick to push the servo up to remove and reinstall the snap ring, you can build a tool. The video from Transmission Bench shows the dimensions for building one. Skip to 9:06

 

Alrighty... Pulled the valve body...not as hard as it looks.
The check ***** appear to be in excellent shape... I think I'll go ahead and replace them.
Overdrive servo snap ring is intact (including the ears) and appears to be in great shape (I always lock out the overdrive whenever I tow). I'm half tempted to leave it.

Pulled the wiring harness bulkhead...came straight out... It only has one o-ring on the upper side of it.
The external plug had a tiny amount of what appears to be transmission fluid in it. Continuity was fine, no shorts.
Regardless, I'm going to see if I can source a replacement.

I'm going to install the new solenoids and the wiring harness that I ordered from Global...they appear to be of good quality.

How should I clean the valve body..or should I?
If I clean it with brake parts cleaner, I have to take out all of the valves...
If I wipe it with a rag, I risk lint contamination.

Going to order a decent inch lb torque wrench too. The one I have from Harbor Freight is garbage...barely clicks.

Overall, looks to be in good shape for almost 150K miles and nearly two decades of use.

 

 

Shots of the plug...

 

It's FIXED and runs like new!!!
I managed to find the parts that I needed locally including a brand new case plug!
Boise has a few transmission parts warehouses and they have reasonable prices.

Replaced the case plug, all of the solenoids and the internal wiring harness and used new gaskets.

Inspected the check *****...they looked fine. The people at the supply house parts counter recommended reuse.
As none of the supply houses in town had enough of them in stock, I just reused them.
The overdrive servo looked just fine, including the snap ring. I decided to just leave it alone.

I dumped the fluid out of the valve body and set it down on a clean, lint free, shop rag.
I cleaned out the as many of the fine particles in the valve body as I could with a magnet and checked to make sure the valves weren't sticking as in the video. Covered it it with a clean shop rag to keep any dust out while it was laying around.

Sprayed the external wiring harness with CRC electrical parts cleaner and blew it out with compressed air.
The rubber gasket material in the connector blew out and I reseated it, and I believe it is causing the connector not to seat fully and lock into the case connector...for now, it works, but I'll put the truck back on the lift and look into a bit further at a later date.

Found a halfway decent inch lb torque wrench at Home Depot of all places. The $10 Harbor freight one has almost no feel to it and doesn't click at all...Even though the YouTube reviews were good (the only reason I tried it), I just didn't trust it...especially for this job.

One more thing to note for anyone who may be read this thread: I ended up screwing up the top gasket on my first attempt at reseating the valve body. The first time around, I left the dipstick in the tube and had to maneuver around it when reseating the valve body. This caused me to make an abrupt up and down movement with the valve body against the transmission case coated with sticky fluid which caused the edge of one of the corners of the gasket to fold over onto itself. Luckily, I caught it...and had a spare gasket (I bought spares in case I screwed up). Be sure to remove the dipstick when re-installing the valve body.

 

The most stomach churning moment was when I refilled the transmission with about 5 quarts of fluid, started the engine and cycled through the gears and nothing happened. Added another quart of fluid and reverse engaged with a long delay. Gradually, I added more fluid and the gear engagement returned...it took me a bit of driving around, and rechecking to get the fluid level just right... it took about 10 quarts of fluid.

This was the first time I've done anything more in depth than changing the fluid on a transmission. It was a bit intimidating, but it wasn't really all that hard to do. It would be a royal pain in the butt without a lift, but still doable.

Thanks a LOT for the advice, diagrams and technical references...it was very much appreciated.

 

Good job. Glad to hear you got it fixed and glad I could help. See, I told you it wasn't so bad.

Definitely looks like some fluid was seeping through the plug. Good you replaced it.

Some advice. You should never run your transmission through any gears until you can see fluid in range on the dip stick. You can damage your transmission.

By the way, from what I can see in the picture, nice shop. A lift has been on my list for a long time. One of these years.