Day 2 the "right" trans-filter doesn't fit either

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Day 2

I had hopes today, but some trepidation. When the filter arrived it had the right WIX part number 58822, and the "right" orange seal. But, this new seal was only half the length of the green one....and half the length of the orange one in Sir Tanon's photo in yesterday's thread. Hadn't seen anything like that one before. This is getting stranger by the hour. And it fit no better than the green seal one from yesterday. Simple_gifts was kind enough to wait until I tried the filter fit. It took way to much force and it was going nowhere again.

Called the nearest Ford parts dealership and got hold of them before they left for the day. They had a OEM filter for $39 that could be picked up first thing in the morning. I mentioned to the guy that I had tried twice with the WIX filters/hard plastic-metal mesh seals. He said the Ford seal is just plain old orange rubber. That's what come out off my car, pieces of soft rubber that were quite resilient, and no internal metal rings. If the Ford filter doesn't work out, I will probably have it towed to a local shop. I'll have $85 in filters come tomorrow morning. Thanks to Simple_gifts yet again who is going to pick up the Ford filter on his way to work in the morning.

Day 3 to come.

Day 1 recap
 
I was wondering how you made out. keep us posted and good luck
smile.gif
 
There is another filter that is not listed in the transmission parts breakdown found online, that is the .420" red one which is probably just rubber.
Like I said yesterday I have a feeling (seeing as you could lift the car with a jack trying to get a .490" in) that is might be one of these .420".
The dealer will have the correct one for this based on VIN. For some reason some cars end up with parts in there that don't fit when a regular aftermarket parts program is used.

Some aftermarket filters for a Subaru fit fine but will suck air and possibly blow the transmission, sometimes its best just to go OE.
Clean up any nicks and burrs with a piece of 600 wet and dry (use a little ATF) to prevent seal damage, wipe it out after sanding with a lint free cloth and lube the seal with ATF. If the bore is really buggered and cant make a good seal you may need to sleeve it, easy 10 min job that doesn't require a different seal.
Wish you were close I would come over and give you a hand. PM and I will give you my number if I can help help with any questions if you get in a bind.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
...Clean up any nicks and burrs with a piece of 600 wet and dry (use a little ATF) to prevent seal damage, wipe it out after sanding with a lint free cloth and lube the seal with ATF.

If the bore is really buggered and cant make a good seal you may need to sleeve it, easy 10 min job that doesn't require a different seal.
Wish you were close I would come over and give you a hand. PM and I will give you my number if I can help help with any questions if you get in a bind.


Thanks Trav. I actually ran a rounded metal "pencil" file lightly around the bore yesterday (followed by wire brush) to get 99% of the traces of the previous orange rubber gasket out. Hopefully, I didn't bugger up the bore either by that or slamming in the oversize seals.

What do I sleeve the bore with if it needs to get bigger? A certain grade of rubber sheet to cut and wrap around the existing seal? Or just wrap with teflon tape?

I researched this job several times over the past 6 months just to prevent "gotcha's." In none of the videos or procedures I viewed did anyone say they ran into a problem with filter seals. Based on my experiences it's probably pretty darn common. None of the videos I've seen show a rubber gasket being used, just hard plastic with metal strips. I don't know how these people got their seals in. ???? If I could do it over I'd have left that old/OEM seal in place and just tried to reuse it. It was quite pliable and fully intact. Every video I saw said you must remove the old seal. If the new filter fits back into it snug, why bother replacing. I would suggest to anyone to try that first before removing an old rubber seal that appears to be in good condition.

Sure got my head handed to me on this one. I just hope I can get the car done by late Friday for a trip out of state. If not, I'll have to get a 3 day rental.
 
There are commercially available stainless steel sleeves in different sizes, but you sound okay if like you say there are no gouges.
These sleeves are extremely thin and can be used on worn or damaged bores and shafts.

It sounds to me just from reading your problem this is an oddball, they are getting their seals in because they are sized right for the transmission they are putting them in that's all.
When you have the correct on your will go right in.
 
Guess I got lucky with the 5 filters I changed. I never heard of red, orange and green. Mine were all orange. What difference would it make if the flange is scratched inside. It's all bathed in fluid anyway. As long as some of it goes thru the filter. It's really not that snug in there. Sometime the filter just comes out with the pan. It's sorta loose on there. When the pan is on, it is the only thing holding it in place. Also just wanted to tell you make sure you re-use the factory gasket and use a torque wrench to put the bolts in. They don't take much torque. 108 inch pounds or about 7-8 foot pounds and they will strip easy. Although they are easy to re- thread. Hope you have better luck tomorrow.
 
Interesting article. I like how the Dodges actually bolt the filter on. Fords the pan just keeps them from falling out. They fit snug, but it doesn't take much to pull them free or press them in. More than once I dropped a pan and the filter was in it with a Ford.
 
Got the Ford 3rd filter, red seal that is very nearly identical to the WIX green one in width, length, and material. And it's identical in lettering and mfg to what came out of my car...perfect match in all respects. So that's the OEM filter. Didn't go up into position any better though. Runs into resistance after 1/3 insertion (flange lip). Trav suggested using hot air on seal to soften it, vaseline on the bore seal threads, and then inserting. Another video suggested using a perfectly sized socket to contact the seal OD and tap it in. Great ideas. Didn't help me though. It's beginning to feel like I screwed up.

It's finally hitting me that 3 filters can't be all wrong on the fit. Looked at the bore again and thinking what before looked like a perfect sleeved/machined bore in there might be the wire wound metal core of the old seal. Sent a photo to Trav to get his thoughts. Yup, metal seal core must still be in there. The traces of orange I see at top and bottom of the bore is seal material oozing out from the outside bore. Still doesn't explain how hard plastic turned to soft rubber.

Going out now to apply more force with a screw driver to that inner seal in order to deform it. It looked so perfect I thought it was part of the machined/cast surfaces. Put my reading glasses on and could see a couple "phonographic" rings on the lower part of the sleeve/seal. Rather than a machined finished surface, it's probably the tightly wrapped metal core still stuck in there.

Finished breakfast as I typed this up.....heading out with hammer and screwdriver for a 3rd time. First attempts Wed/Thursday were only moderate force. Experience on this job matters. Trav indicated that there are lots of places to go wrong with these filters/seals/bore, etc. It's not quite like an oil or air filter change. I also didn't realize that seal is ultra critical to the transmission life as a poor seal fit will shorten the trans life or kill it in short order. So taking Trav's advice, I'll stick with the OEM filter at twice the cost to ensure an ideal OEM-designed fit.
 
Seal came out within about 10 min of prying it into a scalloped shape. I just didn't pound it hard enough with a metal hammer the first time around. I knew about the caution of not damaging the upper seating surface, but ended up doing it anyways by driving the screwdriver tip too far on 2 occasions (2 dings). And the screwdriver left some "tracks" along the vertical bore. Smoothed that up with a round file and some sandpaper. Lubed up with vasoline and it popped in with almost no effort.

Next time be extra careful only drive the screwdriver up about 1/2 to 2/3 the length of the seal to avoid that upper flange. Now to complete the flushing of the upper end of the transmission.

Kudo's to Trav for walking me through this, and to Simple_gifts for running 2 filters for me. I have 2 new WIX filters going back to the parts store. That 2nd "correct" WIX filter with the red seal and right part number was just wrong. That half length "shorty" red seal was not going to be as good as what Ford intended. For trans filters, stick with the OEM. Oddly, the first filter with the full length green seal (and wrong part number) would have worked perfectly fine imo. Funny how that it is.

I got off course 2 days ago because the leftover orange seal material in the bore was soft rubberized stuff. Had it remained like stiffer plastic I'd have continued to working on the seal. Got confused on the soft rubber. Ford may have used a different seal material back then. Don't know. At least I have a fresh filter in place now for the rest of the time I own this car. It either had 50K or 70K miles on it.

----------------

Afternoon update:

I thought I put those last 2 posts in this morning but instead they went to Trav's PM's. So I just put them in a few hours after the fact.

To keep the fun alive I forget the jack stands under the car and ran them down when coming off the ramps. It never ends once you get behind the 8 ball. Jacked the car back up, removed the stands and no damage underneath. They were 1/4" under the frame as secondary support.

Now trying to get a level in "hot" operating band without much luck. Had 17 quarts of fluid to flush/fill and I'm all out. I kept a visible level on the stick cold when flushing so I'm surprised that when fully hot it got a little lower. Have to run to WM or the parts store 12 miles away for more quarts of Mercon V. I'll take the Camaro since it's been boxed in for 3 days.
 
Rockauto sent me a Wix Transmission filter for a RAV4, it was totally the wrong thing.

I left the original filter in there and didn't want to mess with it.
 
Glad to hear you got this all fixed.

I never had the kind of filter problems you had with your AX4N. Not sure why - maybe I lucked out. Hopefully, your next replacement will go much more smoothly.
 
Originally Posted By: SirTanon
Glad to hear you got this all fixed.

I never had the kind of filter problems you had with your AX4N. Not sure why - maybe I lucked out. Hopefully, your next replacement will go much more smoothly.



Because you were smart/intuitive enough to get the old seal out right away. It's a 15 min job. I took 3 days (18 hrs) because I thought I knew something. Doitmyself cautioned me 2 days ago on the troubles they had with figuring out their seal was still in there. No, that couldn't happen to me...lol. I'd seen the photos before I started and knew what to look for....NOT! It was in front of my face all the time. And 2 "bad" filters wasn't enough....I needed to get my count up to 3!

Needed 2 extra quarts to get the level at nearly hot-full. And the final ironic insult was "proudly" walking over to the car for the last task, putting on the steel clamp tie for the 2 cooler lines where they pass close together. I guess this is to prevent rubbing and movement. As I slid my hand into the slot with jubilant anticipation, my hand got bumped and the clamp fell into "Hades." I heard the tinkling sound of metal. It didn't make it to the ground. Ended up wrapping with wire for now.

Was able to return both other filters for $48. So at least I didn't have to eat those. Total amount of quarts used was 19 - the trans holds 13.7 qts.

There will be no next replacement as the car will have to go another 8-10 years to rack up that mileage again It would be 22-24 years old by then...and hopefully doing Taxi service overseas for someone else.
 
I read Doitmyself's post from 2 days ago along with the seal bore photo. And darn if that's EXACTLY what I did. Like most people, I scraped away the inner rubber leaving essentially a metal sleeve behind, thinking that was the inside bore exposed.

Why that didn't hit me like a 2x4 across the face I don't know. You can't always lead the thirsty horse to water....though you should be able to.

Procedure posted earlier by Doitmyself
 
It is only hard after the first time because you left it in there so long. I bought our Lincoln new and the Lincoln dealership screwed me. I had the 40,000 mile service agreement. I went back at 30,000 miles for a transmission service. They "said" they did, I had my doubts. They assured me it was performed and documented. Well, at 60,000 miles I did my own pan drop and what falls put ,the yellow production plug. So they lied. I had to Pou d and pry that ring out too. Every other filter change has been easy. They just come out, plug a new one in. I don't do the whole flush. It's going to be 7 qts with a pan drop. It holds 13. Your renewing over half the fluid. At every 30,000 mile change, it's still nice and red.
 
It wasn't until I had flushed 15-17 quarts through the system that it looked "fresh" bright red. At 15 quarts it was still somewhat dark. I expected it to clean up earlier than 15 qts as the system only is supposed to holds 13.7 qts.

Considering that my seal had very soft and pliable rubber on both sides of the internal metal sleeve, I'm surprised it couldn't have just plopped out. But that metal sleeve is one tough customer. There's almost zero clearance between the wall and the sleeve. In fact, the first few times I pried into that on day 1, I was using only hand force with a screw driver. I tried a rubber mallet next w/o any luck. That led me to believe the seal was out. It wasn't until day 3 when I smacked a metal 2 lb hammer quite hard that it drove in behind that metal seal sleeve.

That fluid had 30K miles on it. Filter was more than likely original (71K miles) or at best changed right before I bought the car (50K miles). Don't really notice any difference in how it shifts. Feels the same so far to me.

When I ran out of fluid yesterday (had 17 qts on hand) the Auto Shop just up the street didn't have anything in Mercon V. They Wolfshead Dex 3 HM and Max Life ATF. They tried to convince me that the Max Life was good for my car as it says it meets every ATF spec right on the bottle. Yeah, that's the problem. It meets LV,HM,ATF+4, Merc, Merc V, DEX VI, etc. How's that even possible. Recall that my 1997 Lincoln with AX4N was specced for regular Mercon. By 2002 they had upped it to Mercon V. I think the dealer who did the flush for me at 42K miles used Dex 3. Back then I didn't know any better. So this time I wanted to be sure I got the Mercon V and the filter was taken care of too.
 
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