Hello Friends, Australia calling....

[Lone Ranger]

OK, Marc Marc, what a guy always on the ball to lend a hand,

Mark told me how to drain the Power Steering system at the cooler. Ours are built a little different and have a ramped crash cage under the radiator, so it is a little different to get to, but a good place to drain it, would have never looked for Power Steering little mini cooler!! .. And you should have seen the panic as I pissed power steering fluid all over the driveway missing the bucket by feet.. Ha!

Anyway, the question, is this a good place to drain the Auto Tranmission as well? Pump it out at the cooler? How do you get it out of the Torque Converter? I did the pump out but did not seem to get more than about 14 of the 16 litres ..... I am one of those Kooks that likes to do all of his own service, to make a mess - I mean get it done right... Ha!

Best Regards from the Lone Ranger in Oz...

[mschn99]

i wouldnt drain the trans here because all your going to get out would be the stuff in the radiator and external cooler. its not like the powersteering system that will gravity drain itself........unfortunately ford stopped putting drain plugs on the converters so the only option is to either service it more frequently, or to service it, fill it back up, and go drive it for a while and service it again.......Marc

[Lone Ranger]

Yea Marc, but what I did was fire the engine with my own invented "Power Drain" system.... And worked good and fast but blew power steering fluid all over the place with my three second fire up.... HA!

What I did before is to run the transmission, and actually foot on brake ran it for about a second or two through each gear, and power pumped it out... That got out maybe 12-14 of 16.5 litres.... I did that twice, but it would be ridiculously expensive with the Castrol Transmax Z which is the best synthetic I know of available here in Oz, at about three times the cost of Mercon... What do you think, any harm in doing it that way? More frequent changes? 80% is good enough?????

Our Fords are doing it hard here, towing big trailers (Bushtracker vans) in the roughest going... That is why the higher boiling point synthetics... But maybe more frequent changes with Mercon and an additional cooler would be cheaper???

As usual you are right there to lend a hand... My guess is you play in the garage at night and have your computer hooked up... I was out playing making a mess under the lights last night until about 8:00... Better than TV and too dark to train horses... So play with the trucks instead...

Regards from Oz

[mschn99]

i just dont like the idea of running the fluid out witht he pump, cause you can cause damage by running it down....i do however think an oversized external cooler is a great idea....and maybe cut your service interval down to 20,000 miles and do it the old fashioned way......this way you can replace the filter in the pan too.........Marc