Torque Converter Not Locking Up

[SAltonS]

My wife has a '00 SD PSD with 82K on it. She bought it new. She toes a Bumper horse trailer that weights about 5K (6K max).

I just married the truck, I mean her, and to say the least, we have different driving styles. She did a lot of highway miles with the OD off and when she did use the OD, she would turn it off when getting off the highway to slow the truck down. I do not know the history of the truck, but to say the least, I am not impressed with it at all.

She is getting about 12 to 13 mpg with and without the trailer. Without the trailer not that offen and it is mostly me getting building material for close by jobs.

I just dropped the tranny pand and changed the fluid in it and the filter. The fluid was in very good shape, clean, bright red and did not smell burnt. That was about 2K ago.

The problem is that sometime changing the fluid, when she tries using the Tranny to slow the truck, it just free wheels!! The tach drops to an idle RPM!

What could be causing this? And how can I fix it?

Thanks for the help.

[SAltonS]

Update on the problem.

I was told that it might be the "glide clutch" or "Coast clutch" seloniod?

[superxcrewfx4]

Torque converters are the weakest part of our trucks, unfortunately most problem have to do with them not the rest of the transmission. Hope you can figure it out.....

[Nightcrawler]

My truck is like that. I just select 2nd or 1st gear to slow me going down steep hills with one of my trailers. If I leave it in "D" it just free wheels & goes into idle.

[SAltonS]

Well, that is the way the truck is now, but it was not like that a couple of weeks ago.

Turning the OD off while going down the highway would cause the tach to rise to about 2500 or so RPMs and you could feel the truck slowing down. Suddenly, after changing the fluid, but I do not know if it had anything to do with that, the tranny would free wheel after turning the OD off. No stopping power.

Now, if you tap the gas while slowing down, it does go into an idle, which I think all the fords do. But if you just take your foot off the gas, I think the motor is supposed to hold you back a little!

The udate on the story is that I took it to the local tranny guy and he is ripping it apart. He is going to put a new Ford HD Torque converter in and do what ever else needs to be replaced. He said on Friday, that on of the plates was covered in "slim". I do not know what that means, but he did not say it in away that made it sound good!

Hopefully, I will have it back by Tuesday so I can get the delete pipe and 6637 mod in.

I asked him about changing the Valve Body, but he said it should not be necessary. I might do it later, I do not know.

[Nightcrawler]

Thats interesting about the overdrive. I never take mine out of od. I only noticed the switch about 1 year ago. Do you manualy select 2nd or 1st when you go down a hill?

[SAltonS]

Ya, going down a hill, then I drop her down into 2nd or 1st. That really holds her back.

[SAltonS]

Here is how the story ends.

I took it to the local Tranny guy. He could not get it to act up, but I had him rebuild it any way.

Verdict, Clutchs showed a little wear, but that can only be expected with 82K. Otherwise, nothing was found. All new internals and a Billet torque converter.

Just got it back and towed about 100 miles with it. Much better.