After several months of complaining about the transmission in my 97 F150 4X4, I have fixed he problem. NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS AT ANY DEALERSHIP!!!! CHANGE THE TORQUE CONVERTER!!!!! I went through the deal with the Mercon V, total fluid change and that only fixed the problem for 3 days. I finally decided to change the TC after several mechanics, none ford related, knew exactly what was bad with the TC. Also, my fathers 97 Town Car had the same problem. the Lincon dealer has a TSB that tells them to change the TC and add a trans cooler. This fixed his.(under warranty). Mine has 97K to 150K on it, i think it has been rolled?? Anyway I decided to go ahead and replace the TC on my own. With the help of my father-in-law, we did the swap in one day. It was a royal pain. I would not advise unless you have done a trans before. I had to take the exhaust system off of the vehicle and remove the heat shields. The tansfer case was easy, tie it out of the way. After putting everything back together the truck ran great. I called a few dealers and they could not give me a quote for a TC replace. They even asked me to bring it in to "let their trans guy drive it, we have never had a TC problem". DON'T TRUST A DEALER. Don't fool around with the fluid crap, change the TC.

1997 F150, 4X4 offroad 5.4L

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1997 F150 4X4 Lariat
5.4L Auto OffRoad
Towing Package
Gibson 3" cat back

 

Glad you got it fixed, sorry it was such a pain. The reason that the dealer didn't know about replacing a converter is because for the most part they don't do it, under warranty they ussually replace the whole transmission. It's prooly cheaper for Ford that way, Ford want's to see the box to see what went wrong most of the time, and the customer satisfaction is pretty high when a service advisor tells you the converter is bad, but we're gonna replace the whole thing to be sure. Plus, dealers just don't have the equipment to really diagnose a transmission anymore, too much electronics...
G

 

You are probally right F_tech if the system is under warranty, but what if it is not. The fact that Lincon/Mercury has a TSB for their cars (even out of warranty ones) to replace JUST the TC and Ford does not says that they must not be looking at the problems that cause them to replace the transmission. When I called the dealer I asked them about the problem and about the TC and told them I had no warranty. I called another dealer today and asked them how much to replace the TC, out of warranty. They still said that the TC was not the problem. When I told them that I had already replaced it and it fixed the problem, they would not believe me and said I must have done something else!!!! This is just another reason I bought 2 Ford trucks when I got this one, "my first and last". Sorry for the bitterness but 5 months of listening to dealers and them being wrong makes me sick.