7.3 Weak points? What Tranhy mods for towing are MANDATORY?

[NEokcTERROR]

Accumulator housing part number is F81Z-7G422-AA. If you are using the sonnax kit this should be the only thing you need to buy if it is scored in the valve bores. Here is a sonnax kit advertised on this site.

http://www.blackclouddieselperforma...id=85&osCsid=ff4fd4c8ee586e646fcabc6f0bb7d53f

 

[dougger222]

I ran my truck pretty hard since buying at 40K miles (99 F250). At 55K the turbo was rebuilt and shortly after a 78hp Diablo Sport chip was installed. Being young and not so smart at the time the work truck was beat on daily and it wasn't uncommon to find me burning out with 1K+ lbs of weight in the box or while pulling a trailer. Not to my surprise at 83K miles the second gear synchro was shot. 1,000 miles later a $2,000 rebuilt Ford unit was installed in my shop.

At 100K miles the in line tranny filter was finally installed (still original). At 123K miles the torque convertor failed due to driving up a mountain in first gear resulting in an overheated tranny causing 9+ quarts to leak up the mountain. It was a $960 dollar repair but better than another tranny replacement. At 160K the tranny fluid was flushed and at 185K miles a large tranny cooler was installed with triple guages.

Now at 215K miles the $2,000 tranny is running stronger than ever. The truck is used daily for work, pushes snow and pulls up to 20K lbs a few times a year but averages about 20 tows a year of 12-17K lbs.

My wifes ride the diesel Excursion has 155K miles on the original tranny but doesn't get worked that hard.

 

[dougger222]

That reminds me, three times now in the past year with the tranny gauge I had to stop the truck due to hot temps. Once was moving a huge shed, the other time was pushing snow in warm weather (March snow in MN!!!) and the third time was pulling the dump trailer loaded in very warm weather in hilly terain.

 

[jonwright]

So looks like a tranny temp guage is a must.

I guess if the tranny overheats you just pull over and let the truck idle for a while??

 

[dougger222]

Two of the times I just shut my truck off and came back to it half an hour later with no ill effects. The people that seem to be in the know say to let it idle to cool down.

In the past three years my truck has also overheated about four times and letting it idle on the side of the road works best. All times it overheated was in 40-50 degree weather pushing the snow plow. Once I finally realized I was running too hot when tons of white smoke was bellowing out of the passenger side of the hood! Looked at the temp gauge and it was pegged, one gallon of engine coolant burnt, pretty close call!!! Drove it a couple miles slowly to Wally World were a gallon of coolant was bought. This was 30-40K miles ago and the truck runs fine.

 

[jonwright]

Well, installed the Sonnax/Tricum kit and I do indeed like it a lot better now. Shifts are way more positive and it doesn't unlock the conver at slight hills anymore.

Haven't had a chance to tow with it yet (since I've a compression fracture in my T5 vertebrae I haven't been racing my motorcycles, hence, no need to pull anything).

What I was worried about was really stiff shifting at slower speeds. Not the case. Easy shifts around town, but when you put your foot in it they firm up when needed.

Great mod. Great results so far. Definately worth the $$ and time.