AOD Filter change

When the tranny fluid is brown and burnt,the clutch packs and seals inside in on borrow time. I kill couple of OD bands before and that is what drain out from inside the tranny. The clutchs starting to slip and builds up a huge amount of heat and the tranny fluid get burnt.

The filter is not going to catch 100% of the junks floating inside ( Clutch material,very fine metal etc ). I am sure it is already all inside the valve body and every where else inside the AOD tranny.

The story I heard about changing out the old fluid and the tranny stop working is that the old fluid holding all the clutch materials around the clutch packs and when it is replaced with new fluid you have no more clutch materials for the clutch to bite on. lol

There is a pan under the AOD with around 20 bolt holding it onto the tranny, the filter is expose when the pan is removed. The filter is available at all the car parts place ( NAPA,Schucks etc ). Ford did not put a drain plug on the pan because they want the service peoples to remove the pan and change the filter at the same time. Otherwise most will just drain the oil and forget about the rest. So if you are doing it at home,do not drop the pan all at once or it will be a big mess,let it hung down one side first( Most likely from the back ). And let as much fluid as possible drain out. Good time to get a deeper aftermarket pan with a build in drain plug or buy one from the above named car part place and put one in yourself.

A good transmission cooler will help too in the long run.

Don't forget the gasket too

I suggest you service the fluid no matter...if the trans is ailig, it might die sooner, possibly, however at least you know it was ready to go instead of giving up on a trip.

For quick services I pull the bottom cooler line, hang a short hose off it, run the car till it pumps all the fluid out, then run car again, then drop pan....usually results in 2 drops of ATF on me, intead of shower!