M5OD - Milky transmission fluid

[Danno1985]

I've owned my Ranger since November and since then have developed sort of a love-hate relationship with the transmission. This thing only has just over 80k, but the shifter feels incredibly sloppy compared to my buddy's '03 which has twice as many miles and has a positive feel going into each gear (on mine it feels like I have to search for the gate). Replaced the bushings in the shifter with the Dorman kit, but honestly none of the factory bushings or springs looked worn. I've sort of given up on any expectations of getting a better shift feel, but if anyone has any suggestions, they'd be appreciated.

Since picking up the truck I've noticed a couple quirks with the way the truck actually shifts. Occasionally it will be hard to get into 1st gear from a stop, and once in a blue moon, 3rd as well. Recently I noticed it was getting really annoying to the point where there were a couple occasions when I held up traffic because it wouldn't go into 1st at a green light. I figured I'd change the fluid just to see if it made any difference whatsoever, and maybe get a clue as to what was going on. The fluid came out looking like chocolate milk! My first hunch was that maybe it was contaminated by water. Needless to say, fresh Maxlife ATF has helped the shifting noticeably, but I'm concerned about the appearance of the fluid. I've only owned the truck for the last 5k. What's going on here?

• Clutch reservoir is full. The clutch pedal feels ok, but sometimes it seems like it's sluggish to engage/disengage. I'm starting to suspect slave cylinder issues as the cause of the stubborn gears.
• We've had an incredibly wet late-winter, but the odds of water getting into the transmission from the outside are incredibly low, right? If anything, the flow would be out, not in, yes?

 

[adsm08]

It was probably just due to be replaced. ATF will darken and take on a burnt smell as it is heated and cooled repeatedly. This is a natural property of the fluid. The brass of the blocking rings, which are wear parts, will also get into the fluid and can give it a milky sheen.

Water intrusion into ATF give a strawberry milkshake quality, not chocolate milk.

Try bleeding the clutch out a bit, that may help the hard engagement, do it until the fluid runs/shoot clear, but if the previous owner liked to speed-shift, and/or skip 2nd that could account for your shifting difficulties as well.

 

[Danno1985]

It was probably just due to be replaced. ATF will darken and take on a burnt smell as it is heated and cooled repeatedly. This is a natural property of the fluid. The brass of the blocking rings, which are wear parts, will also get into the fluid and can give it a milky sheen.

Water intrusion into ATF give a strawberry milkshake quality, not chocolate milk.

Try bleeding the clutch out a bit, that may help the hard engagement, do it until the fluid runs/shoot clear, but if the previous owner liked to speed-shift, and/or skip 2nd that could account for your shifting difficulties as well.

Hmm. Ok. I hate being wasteful but I'll probably do a quick interval to see if it's still happening and make sure any deposits are drained. Doubt the previous owner was speed-shifting; he was an older gentleman and he took good care of it. It has a couple dings here and there but for a 9-year-old truck in the upper midwest it's in great shape.

With the new fluid there's a satisfying "click" when it goes into gear and it doesn't feel like I'm shifting through a bucket of rocks anymore, but I'm still not crazy about the way the revs hang even when the clutch is on the floor. But, after doing some more reading, it sounds like that's a design feature on the newer ones and not a sign of a dragging clutch? Even with the four banger this truck on paper has more than enough power to move out of it's own way but man, waiting for the revs to match on upshifts makes it feel like I'm driving a Farmall in city traffic when everyone and their grandma in a shitbox Nissan Versa is on my ass.? Ah well. I bought a 4-cylinder pickup truck that has the same transmission my '89 straight-six F-150 had, and that truck actually was slower than a tractor. Probably should keep my expectations realistic.

 

[adsm08]

When you drain the fluid to check it catch it in a clean container then pour it into another clean container through a coffee filter, you may find it is clean and can go back in.

 

[8thTon]

Hmm. Ok. I hate being wasteful but I'll probably do a quick interval to see if it's still happening and make sure any deposits are drained. Doubt the previous owner was speed-shifting; he was an older gentleman and he took good care of it. It has a couple dings here and there but for a 9-year-old truck in the upper midwest it's in great shape.

With the new fluid there's a satisfying "click" when it goes into gear and it doesn't feel like I'm shifting through a bucket of rocks anymore, but I'm still not crazy about the way the revs hang even when the clutch is on the floor. But, after doing some more reading, it sounds like that's a design feature on the newer ones and not a sign of a dragging clutch? Even with the four banger this truck on paper has more than enough power to move out of it's own way but man, waiting for the revs to match on upshifts makes it feel like I'm driving a Farmall in city traffic when everyone and their grandma in a shitbox Nissan Versa is on my ass.? Ah well. I bought a 4-cylinder pickup truck that has the same transmission my '89 straight-six F-150 had, and that truck actually was slower than a tractor. Probably should keep my expectations realistic.

I have not driven that engine/trans combination before, but that "rev hang" characteristic is common on newer engines - and annoying when you try to do rev matching or double clutching. The problem is that when you slam the throttle plate shut the intake is full of a richer mixture than needed, and until that is pumped through you get a burst of high HC and/or unburned fuel. So they hold the throttle plate open just a little to add oxygen. It seems also to be more pronounced on multi valve engines, but that may just be because they're all newer.

For 12 years I drove a Hyundai Accent GSi that I bought new, with a cool little 1500cc 3 valve engine - I don't know if it was because it was under some displacement limit or why, but it had zero throttle hang. It was a joy to shift just like in the old days.

 

[Danno1985]

I have not driven that engine/trans combination before, but that "rev hang" characteristic is common on newer engines - and annoying when you try to do rev matching or double clutching.

Right? It makes the truck feel way more like a dog when trying to get up to speed in traffic than it should. I wonder if that can be fixed with a tuner.

 

[RonD]

If its a 3.0l Vulcan engine you need to keep the RPMs well above 3,000, best torque is at 3,500-3,900rpms depending on year of 3.0l
If you drive it like a regular engine that gets best torque at 2,500-2,900rpms you will be disappointed in performance.

Holding RPMs high when clutch pedal is in should only last for maybe 5 seconds, it is for lower emissions
And RPMs should always stay above 1,000 until speedometer is under 5MPH, another emissions thing

Maybe some one added some gear oil to M5OD, many don't not know it uses ATF, pretty much all manual transmission for the last 100 years used gear oil
If previous owner used a "fast oil change place", a kid there may have topped it up with gear oil

 

[Danno1985]

If its a 3.0l Vulcan engine you need to keep the RPMs well above 3,000, best torque is at 3,500-3,900rpms depending on year of 3.0l
If you drive it like a regular engine that gets best torque at 2,500-2,900rpms you will be disappointed in performance.

It's the 2.3L duratec, actually, but you're not wrong. The 3.8 in my Yota had much more grunt down low and I'm still getting used to the fact that this engine likes to rev and is pretty noisy when you get it into that peak torque range. Kinda cool sounding, but definitely not a classic torquey low-stress truck kind of feel.

Looking at the horsepower/torque curves for both the 3.0 and 2.3 makes me wonder why Ford even bothered putting the 3.0 in these trucks for so long. ?

 

[Dirtman]

Looking at the horsepower/torque curves for both the 3.0 and 2.3 makes me wonder why Ford even bothered putting the 3.0 in these trucks for so long. ?

they had to get rid of them somehow.

 

[8thTon]

The rpm that the engine makes power at isn't all that important as long as it's geared properly. Of course a broad, flat power curve is more useful than a peaky one, but that's just a proportional thing. As long as the engine can get to the power band it works. Some seem to have a preference for engines that make power at low rpms, but I could care less - let it rev if that's what it was designed for and it works properly. The 3.0 with a 4:10 rear seems to be decently geared, even with the auto, which lets it run up through the rpms appropriately for the power band.

 

[adsm08]

Looking at the horsepower/torque curves for both the 3.0 and 2.3 makes me wonder why Ford even bothered putting the 3.0 in these trucks for so long. ?

It was a decision made by marketing and accounting, not engineering.

EPA said "Emissions standards are getting stricter"

Engineering said "It will cost this much to the2.9 to that level."

Accounting said "That's too much. Axe it."

Marketing said "We still need a smaller V6 for our small pickup!"

Accounting said "Well the 3.0 is practically the same size and it's just sitting there, already meeting those emissions standards, use it."

And nobody in Engineering said "Hey accountants, you are a bunch of dumb twits."

 

[Dirtman]

And nobody in Engineering said "Hey accountants, you are a bunch of dumb twits."

I'm sure they did... In fact I'll bet the engineers send the marketing and accounting personnel death threats on a daily basis, they just dont pay any attention to what engineers say.

I always correct people when they curse engineers for the dumb designs of modern vehicles. No one with an engineering degree has anything to do with 90% of how a car is built or designed. Some moron in marketing draws a doodle on a napkin and gives it to accounting, accounting hands the doodle to an engineer and says build this for 14 cents with whatever garbage is in the dumpster out back. The engineer slams his face against a desk for 47 minutes then makes the terrible napkin doodle come to life. And now you have a Ford Fiesta...

 

[8thTon]

Hard to see what is inherently wrong with the 3.0, especially in regard to the 2.9, other than not liking the tuning. It's a simple, and cheap OHV 6 of proven layout and modest displacement so it will have to rev to make much power, but like I said earlier, that's what gears are for. It wasn't a performance machine, it's a compact truck intended to haul stuff, and I find the engine to be quite well suited for that. I can assure you that engine power will not limit what I do with the thing.

It's a shame they blew it on the cam synchro, valve seats and timing cover gasket, but that isn't every unit and doesn't change the suitability of the design.

Now as an engineer, you couldn't pay me to own the SOHC 4.0! That insane timing chain nightmare was required only because they didn't want to cast a mirror-image head. What a dumb trade off in complexity that was, and I'll bet it cost more too if they really accounted for the costs.

 

[adsm08]

Now as an engineer, you couldn't pay me to own the SOHC 4.0! That insane timing chain nightmare was required only because they didn't want to cast a mirror-image head. What a dumb trade off in complexity that was, and I'll bet it cost more too if they really accounted for the costs.

As the poor bastard that has to fix it I have owned several 4.0 SOHCs and I'm not afraid of them one bit.

 

[8thTon]

As the poor bastard that has to fix it I have owned several 4.0 SOHCs and I'm not afraid of them one bit.

It isn't fear, I just think it a dumb design, and they do appear to have reliability problems due to it. It's not like chain driven overhead cams are a big mystery to anyone, including Ford. There is always a price to complexity.

Anyway, the 3.0 is so conventional it's almost comical, especially given it's not that old. I remember when it came out, about the same time as the HSC OHV 2.3 in the Tempo, and I wondered if Ford had fallen into a time warp where cast iron pushrod engines were something special. Clearly they were cheap. But if 150ish horsepower is sufficient (it is for me), then it's a fine engine for the application.