ATX Woes

[FrancisPennysac]

OK, Again i am going to start off by giving credit to all those b4 me, for their time and patience of posting what they did with these horrible atx's. I have read every single post on this website and your "sister" site regarding the ATX...I must saying being a fellow car lover/driver that i truly appreciated the overwhelming wealth of knowledge on this small niche of cars...

CEG you kickass ;p EVERYONE HERE thank you for your dedication/time to these cars.. your time has helped myself and plenty of others SAVE tons of OUR time on repair and or mantain these fun cars. It is truly one of the best car forums websites Ive ever seen on such a small amount of vehicle production. AWESOME JOB keep it UP and ALIVE

With that being said I am experiencing a strange readng on the dipstick for it when i take a reading of the ATX.

Would i be correct in saying that overfilling (by say a quart or 2) of ATF would in turn cause "typical" Cd4e problems i.e. 1-2 bang shift, longer periods of driving reslut in TrqCcnvtr to slip pulling away from the first stop. I understand i need to have the TSS replaced and the Vavle body replaced with a Sonnax kit... With that being said.... i know how to check trans fluid and i seem to be getting a above normal, by quite a bit, my question is...
Is there anyway this could be a false positive??

also DOES it require you to remove the trans to..... replace the pan gasket and gasket that holds the halfs of the atx itself together?? Ive checked into gaskets and can do most things with cars but currently have no room to pull the atx... any suggestions?? I also saw that installing the sonnax kit ran someone about 90$ back a couple years ago.. anybody know what something like this roughly runs to install now adays????

 

[BrApple]

Can't comment on the fluid level. I would think that if the level reads high then there is to much fluid in it. I would also think that it would spit out extra fluid via the vent tube if it was overfilled.

From what I understand the atx has to be pulled to replace the pan gasket.

Again I am not positive since I have never owned a Contour with an atx but from what I recall reading the TSS is the cause of the 1-2 bang shift.

 

[amc49]

If checking oil level with engine stopped the level will be way too high, you check it with trans hot and idling in park. Barely warm will not work either, the trans has a temp controlled valve that raise/lowers fluid level as trans heats up. It allows more or less fluid into the side compartment which affects the level where dipstick goes. Make sure it's GOOD AND HOT, not just warm. Running with fluid too high will aerate it full of air and good way to tear these up as they are not that stout a trans anyway. The air in fluid can imitate the TSS being bad from the air hitting then fluid or hard hits to clutch packs. You CAN remove and change the SIDE pan gasket and there is no conventional bottom pan on that trans, the trans must be out of car and split in two to change filter and that middle case-to-case gasket.

Reading dipstick is a pain, let the stick rotate in as you install it, holding back on the spin in affects your reading. Wipe stick completely clean every time and use strong sunlight, the stick will put fluid all over one side of it but the other will clearly show a level. The bad side wipes the stick against side of tube as it rotates in, you have to figure out the bad side (too high or too much fluid) out from the good side to read from. The good read side will generally show a lower level, hard to see because in their cheapness like everybody else the fluid makers have pulled much of the dye out of fluid to make it cheaper in cost to make. Much harder to see the level though now.

 

[cclngthr]

You can pull the valve body pan without pulling the transmission, you have to remove the battery, battery tray and radiator fan assembly to get it out. On the case half gasket, pulling it would be necessary, but if you go that far, you would be better off getting a rebuild kit and upgrading the transmission in a rebuild.

 

[amc49]

One should know that this trans is one of the harder ones, even the experts at the trans shop do not like to rebuild them, they usually fail quite a few more parts than most if they have torn up in the classical manner, i.e., the forward clutch cylinder has shed its' snap ring groove. No sense in even trying to rebuild one without the modded cylinder that has that problem fixed. One can generally spend a $1000 bill just on parts prices alone on these suckers. Many rebuilds shell out quite rapidly after the work is done as well. The trans nixed the Mazda 626 line because it had so much trouble and Ford even though making mod after mod didn't do much better themselves. It has several deficiencies.