Transmission problems when climbing uphill

[Adrian_B]

Hi there...I have a 1999 Ford ranger 3L with the automatic transmission. It has 130,000 miles on it. I recently purchased it off Facebook marketplace place and have slowly fixing it up. I have been having an intermittent issue with the transmission. When I put it in drive when it is cold sometimes it will not go into gear immediately. Then when it does it jerks a little. The second issue which I think is related is that when I am off roading and climbing up a pretty serious hill my truck will all of a sudden start slip and will roll back down the hill. Once the truck is on level ground again it immediately re-engages and is good to go again... I have replaced the transmission fluid and put a new filter in. I also put some Lucas oil anti slip oil in but that did not make a difference. Thanks in advance!

 

[Adrian_B]

One thing I have considered is that the torque converter is starving for fluid when on a steep incline. If that is the case should I slightly overfill the transmission to see if the issue goes away? I saw a few jeep guys getting rid of that issue by over filling the transmission.

 

[Shran]

Is the fluid at the correct level? Check at operating temp in park, shouldn't be low or over full. Only one side of the dipstick is accurate.

Doing a band adjustment on it wouldn't hurt, pretty easy procedure. I think if you're SURE your fluid level is OK, I might be tempted to have a transmission shop do a line pressure test. Low pressure can cause a lot of problems. Sticking valves in the valve body can do weird stuff too.

I would not overfill it by much if at all. The automatics in our trucks are very sensitive to fluid level.