Mike, thanks for the informative conversation the other day about my low "load" readings on the dyno. (and the off-topic discussion about my tranny) Because of the bad weather, I have not been able to do a street datalog to see what the load # is in real world application. Close to 90 mph in 2nd gear on the hiway in the rain is not cool

On to the tranny. 4r70w

I wanted to post this since it may help someone else. I went out and bought new solenoids, filter, 14Qt of Mobil 1 synthetic fluid and set out to find out what's up. Low and behold, much to my amazement and happy surprise, it turned out to be what I thought! The filter had dislodged from the valve body, and was laying in the pan I thought that might be the case, because it would pop out of gear (rogue neutral?) on uphills, turns, and hard starts. Since the filter inlet is at the front of the tranny, the fluid would surge back, and cause a momentary lack of fluid.

Now the first thing I thought was: Mike, (me not you) you dummy! You did a shoddy job of putting the filter on last time. But no. The seal was still in the bore, with the filter in the pan. And no, I did not leave the one in from the previous filter. I always check that! Just like when changing fuel injectors.

So, went ahead and installed the new ssa and ssb shift solenoids and the new torque converter clutch (tcc) solenoid. Bought a B&M drain plug kit and installed that as well. Tired of having to use a bath tub to collect the fluid when pulling the pan. Put in the Mobil 1 fluid, and voila! she shifts and runs like a new.

By the way, old fluid clean, no metal in pan, very little residue on the magnet.

So if this post helps someone else with the false neutral, pops out of gear problem, then good

So thanks for the tips, I'm glad I changed the solenoids anyway, and I will run some datalogs as soon as the weather clears!

 

Thanks for letting me know how all of that turned out - I'm delighted that it was just the filter!

However, that still concerns me a bit, as that really should not have happened, so I'm wondering it it was just that once in a hundred thousand type of deal - also, was it a Ford filter or aftermarket unit?

In all these years we have *never* had that happen (maybe we better knock on wood ), and we use strictly original Ford tranny filters - maybe yours was just a rare failure of the filter/tolerance issue, etc.?

Usually in these cases where it goes up into neutral and bangs down into gear in the 4R70W, it's a solenoid issue almost every time - which is why I suggested installing new solenoids. I'm glad you went ahead and did the new solenoids, that way you have the latest revision, as Ford has gone thru numerous revisions on those shift solenoids - more importantly, I'm glad to hear you found the real culprit and got it taken care of ASAP!