My 2-3 flare solved

[Mike Roncarati]

O.K., So I had the infamous 2-3 flare. Had the Solenoid replaced and that worked great for like 2 weeks, then it came back. Had tranny flushed and had the EPC adjustment done, still slipped from 2nd to 3rd. Now I DO have the ESP but no dealers would commit to covering this problem, which led me to think they were going to screw me. My father in law does tranny's, so he just dropped it, took it apart, and found the valve body gasket had pretty much disinagrated. Even tweaking the EPC didn't work because the seal was shot. The seal condition caused the slip, which in turn damaged the gears, burning the fluid. I've been telling him some of the things I've been reading in this forum, such as the sticking valve theory. He said he checked the valves and the seemed free, and suspects that the seal itself was the culprit. His opinion: If you have this flare, and the fluid looks good, change the valvebody gasket. If the fluid is burnt, too late and time to replace internal parts. The replacement gasket was a bit thicker than the original. I got out of this for $340.00 for all the parts including valvebody, just in case. Again, I know squat about cars, just going by his word and he is an expert in the field. Just another thing to think about for anyone who has this issue. I do want to say I really enjoy this site and have learned alot from everyone's posts, especially getting to know my tranny a little better. I am now awaiting the arrival of my new Clarion CD player fom Crutchfield to be installed Tuesday!!

 

[Richard L]

Mike,

I'm glad you got your tranny problems solved.



I have said several times that the two most common problems related to the 2-3 shift flare in the Sport Trac transmission is the valvebody. It's either the sticking valves or a leaking valvebody gasket.



If the valvebody gasket leaks the gasket surface on the valvebody is not perfectly flat causing the pressure to blow out the gasket. If you don't buy a new valvebody, the old one needs to be lapped flat with 1000 grit sandpaper on a flat glass surface.



...Rich

 

[FlipTrac_511]

I'm assuming that the valve body gasket is different from the pan gasket. Please correct me if I'm wrong.



My Helm shop manual has a neat diagram of the tranny but I could tell there are errors with part numbers not matching up with their descriptions.

 

[Tom Schindler]

Yes, the valvebody gasket is totally different then the pan gasket.





Tom

 

[Bill Lukus]

Mike

Your father in law is correct about the value body gasket going bad and the problems that it causes. The value body design is what causes this gasket to go bad. Ford wanted to sell me the upgrades value body that the TBS calls for to correct the entire problem. The value body lists for $740.00. I did the quick fix also and replaced the gasket.I then trade in my ST.

 

[Todd Z]

Yup,

The earlier 01-02 ST's tranny had a different valve body gasket,

Todd Z

 

[Dave King]

If you have no engine braking in first gear the gasket on the valve body is shot. The pressure is blowing by and not letting your transmission down shift. You can also tell by driving in first gear and letting off the gas. The engine should pull your speed down. If the truck just slows down like when driving in drive, you have no engine brakeing. You have blow by in your valve body gasket. This happened to mine at about 12,500 miles. There was a post about it on this site back then. I checked mine out and found out I had no engine brakeing in first gear. I took it in and they replaced the valve body with a new one that has the gasket bonded to the valve body. Thanks to this site I found out I had a problem before I knew there was a problem. No damage was done and everything is working great yet.

 

[Rodger Tellefson]

I'd also repost the lack of service directly to Ford, and name the dealers who should have fixed the problem but did not want to bother with it.