Lincoln LS Transmission Fluid question

[386Motoring]

My transmission started slipping really bad, then reverse stopped working so i had the car in the garage for the past week before finally getting brave enough to test the fluid level in it. I jacked up the car. I had a small level on the bottom of the transmission pan to confirm that it was infact level. Then i removed the middle bolt. According to everywhere i read, it should dribble out a little if its full and if nothing comes out then i need to add some. Well. I had a transmission flush at 75000 miles and there is 84k on the car now. When i removed the plug almost a gallon of black metallic crude oil came out of it... it no longer had the red tint.

Is there any reason that much fluid would come out?

Also... the car was driven through alot of water during the storm floods in may, and it hasnt' been right since. Is it possible that water got into my transmission and caused this?

I tried searching but only found issues that i've read about before. Just wanted to know if anyone had any first hand experience with fluid levels and the condition of the oils.

I'm already planning on getting a rebuilt transmission. If its possible to save this one then that would be nice also.

Sorry this is so long Thanks for reading

 

[Jim Henderson]

Black metallic crude appearance pretty much means your tranny is soon to be dead meat. Too late to save it other than maybe getting lucky and replacing a few internal hard parts. But then you need a full flush and clean out etc, so a rebuild is probably the same price.

Metal means some hard parts are dying. Black means the fluid overheated or got contaminated. BAD symptoms. With less than 10,000 miles on the fluid it should be nice and red and clear.

As far as higher fluid levels, It is possible deep water, like up past your hubcaps could infiltrate the tranny. A more likely cause would be the ATF cooler inside the radiator going bad. This would pump water into the tranny and ATF into the coolant. Not good. Probably need a new radiator and a coolant flush if this is the case. Check the overflow bottle to see if you have nasty gunk in there.

Sounsd bad, Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

[joegr]

... A more likely cause would be the ATF cooler inside the radiator going bad...
Jim Henderson

To the best of my knowledge, the LS like several other recent Ford products does not have a transmission cooler in the radiator. It has an air cooler in front of the radiator. There's no way for coolant to find its way into the transmission.

 

[386Motoring]

Thanks for the input guys. I'm almost positive it has something to do with driving in the flood waters. Since the day my daughter's mother borrowed the car i have had the issue. The trans was slipping and when i would come to a complete stop it would pulse like i was riding with bad ABS sensors.

Transmission is coming out this weekend. I found a local shop that seems fairly confident regarding these transmissions. 1100 to rebuild with a 2 year warranty. That doesn't seem to bad so i'm going that route.

I was just a little worried about the mass amounts of fluid. Hopefully this doesn't happen anytime soon. My LS has been trouble free compared to most i read about and i take very good care of her. Thanks again LVC

 

[Silver_LS]

I had a similiar problem, about a gallon of extra fluid came pouring out. My problem was chosing the same shop I used to have my 90 z28 worked on. They had never seen an LS and had no idea how to know when it was full.

I had FLM flush and properly fill the tranny and its been fine ever since. My fluid was pretty dark, but not crude oil black.