Trans fluid flush or drain?
 

I want to do a complete fluid change for my first 30k change. I was told by a shop that it has to be flushed and you cannot "drain" the torque converter. If I can drain it, is there any advantage of having a "flush" done? I have a 97 E4OD.

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97 F150 Lariat, Dark Torridor Red/silver, grey leather, extended. Leer running board, deflector, tonneau, bed liner, Superchip in the mail!

The E4OD has a drain plug in the torque converter.

By removing the converter drain and the pan you can get about 95% of the fluid changed. If you do a flush without dropping the pan or removing the plug you can also get about 95%.

As long as the current fluid isn't burned, either method will work fine. I would not worry about the small amount that remains.

Mark

Thanks Mark,

I had conflicting information on this. But I haven't crawled underneath to see for myself. I guess you can't believe all mechanics.

It sounds like the reason for the flush would be to remove any burnt fluid from the cooler, and lines also? If my fluid is not burnt, I guess I would be best off to drain from both ends and replace the filter at the same time. flushing doesn't eliminate a filter change does it?

Mark and Grandpa,
The converter may not have a drain, only the 6 bolt converters do now, I can't recall if the 4 bolts had tehm in 97 or not.

If it doesn't have a drain, I would go with the flush. IMHO, a filter change never hurts anything, especially with a re-usable pan gasket.

Gregg

The E40D tranny has a drainplug in the TC. I have a 98 E40D and I recently changed the fluid on mine. On the bellhousing, there is a rubber "plug". Pry this out and you can see the TC. Spin the engine with a breaker bar on the crank until you see the drainplug. I dropped my pan and drained the converter. I let both drain for an hour. When I refilled, I used 15 qts, so I got out all but 1 qt. FWIW, I used Mobil 1 Synthetic ATF. I wasn't expecting any difference in shifting, but it seems to be a little better now. Let me know if you have any more questions. It's not really hard, just VERY messy!

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1998 F-150 XLT SC 5.4L

Thanks guys,

Fred

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97 F150 Lariat, Dark Torridor Red/silver, grey leather, extended. Leer running board, deflector, tonneau, bed liner, Superchip in the mail!