My girlfriend has a 2000 f-150 with the 4.2l and five speed manual transmission. This past week it has been fairly cold here in Dallas low 30s and with the cold she has been having problems with her tranny. First thing in the morning she has one he!! of a time putting the truck in gear (any gear) and once she has finally gotten it into a gear it is extremely difficult to shift between gears until the truck is good and warm.

Has anyone encountered this? What's the problem, any solutions? Once the truck is warm there is no problem. The truck has 60000 miles on it and as far as I know has never had any tranny service done to it.

 

It's cold here in MA often. Every manual I've ever driven does this when it's cold. The fluid needs to warm up. I just plan on shifting slow for the first five minuets of driving because I know it'll be fine when I get to operating temp.
Thats what I think it is.

Tom

 

Switching to Red Line D4-ATF made a big improvement for me.

 

You don't think it's a mechanical problem ie: throwout bearing. I lived in Canada for a long time a could always get my vehicles into gear.