Dorman trans pan for Ford F150 E4OD no more leak!

Replaced my battered OEM pan on my '93 Lightning with the Dorman 4x4 pan I purchased on Amazon. No sense trying to fix the old one at the low replacement cost. Part numbers for the pan, OEM Ford gasket and NAPA longer filter you'll need are shown in the video. Keep in mind you will need additional quarts of ATF for the pan's larger capacity. I was not paid nor given anything free for the production of this video.

[STBRetired]

Well, my simple drain and refill is turning into quite a project. I have a 1994 F-150 cab on a 1993 chassis. It's a junkyard Frankenstein. I sucked out all the ATF with my MityVac and pulled the bolt on the torque converter and drained that, too. I refilled with Motorcraft Mercon V (much expensive). At 78 years of age, I've seen a lot of dipsticks but this Ford vehicle is the hardest to read I've ever seen. It seemed to my buddy and me that we were getting a reading on one side of the dipstick while the other side was bone dry. So, we kept adding ATF and test drove the truck around the block. On the last trip back, after we shut off the engine, the tranny puked out a quart of two of transmission fluid past the pan gasket. I had bought the expensive NAPA gasket/filter combo kit for $ 45 so I figured I was safe from such happenings. I only have one bolt that doesn't seem to tighten but that location isn't where the fluid seems to be leaking out from. I'm thinking that it is that damn NAPA rubber coated steel gasket. I don't think that's a good gasket to use on the E4OD aluminum case. You just can't torque down the bolts adequately to squeeze the hard rubber flat without possibly pulling out the threads. So now I've got to suck and fill all over and try a different type of gasket. I'll probably go with the FEL PRO TO18688. It's a cellulose/nitrile rubber composite. Maybe that is more "squeezable". AND THANKS FOR THAT TIP ABOUT USING A LONGER BOLT. I thought for sure that I'd have to drill out the hole and install a Helicoil. I even bought a new Home Depot (Husky) torque wrench to replace my Harbor Freight wrench to make sure I didn't over-torque the bolts. In addition, I bought a couple of ACDelco torque adapters so I could test my torque wrenches and see how close (or far) they come to the torque setting. If I knew for sure that I'd have to be doing this over and over, I would be inclined to get that deep pan with the drain plug. That would be a lot easier and faster than sucking the ATF out with a MityVac. If you were a pal, you'd come over and do this job for me.::))

[lamarwilson]

Thank You! I've tried 3 different gaskets and they all leak. Having a pan with a drain plug will be nice so I hopefully never have to remove the pan again.

[STBRetired]

Well, I'm learning the hard way but your video is making it a lot easier. My original pan looks like your original pan - a lotta gaps. I put in one of those rubber coated metal NAPA gaskets and it leaked like a sieve. I think the reason being is the raised bolt holes, raised runners plus the wavy mating surface on the original pan. That particular gasket needs two completely FLAT mating surfaces, I think, to seal completely. That's probably why my original pan had residue of old cork gasket. It had to be a soft cork gasket to squeeze down and fill in all those gaps. While I had the pan off, I used a thread chaser and cleaned out all the bolt hole threads. You can go deeper than what the original bolts reach which will allow the use of longer pan bolts. Plus, replacement bolts will have threads all the way to the end whereas the original bolts have a 3.6mm threadless gap on the end. Longer bolts and more threads should allow better torquing down. I do have one bolt hole with damaged threads. The chaser wouldn't go in so tomorrow I'll try my M8-1.25 tap. I just sent a note to Dorman about including these older E4OD transmissions on 1987-1997 trucks on their listing for that pan number. The comments on Advance Auto say guys are putting them on their older Broncos and F-150's and they are fitting perfectly. Dorman only goes back to 1998 and ignores all the other older vehicles.

[DogDaze]

I bought a Dorman pan for my crown Vic and it is black also, are you sure it’s powder coated?

[DogDaze]

Would it be good to add a few coats of good paint to the inside and outside of the new Dorman pan?

[SnakeTail]

Just to clarify, if all my trans pan bolts came out fine. I am ok to use the original bolts with the 4x4 pan and rubber gasket or should I get longer bolts?

[gibbysobs]

Do you have to get longer screws or was that just your preference to do so