I had promised Andy a review on my experience and here it is. Sorry it took so long.
My 03' Explorer had 92k+ miles on it when I got the dreaded Over Drive shudder when it shifted into OD. I was pretty worried about it based on every thing I had read about this issue on the different forums. I went searching for an alternative that didn't involve replacing the entire transmission (simply don't have the money for a new trans). I stumbled across a web site from AJ1E Superior Solutions, LLC that promised to fix the issues that Ford over looked with these transmissions and at a reasonable price no less!
After doing some research and reading numerous reviews, I decided that I would give them a try. I contacted Andy and ordered all the parts needed to complete the fix. The parts arrived quickly and in new condition. I called Andy again to ask about the extra o-ring's that were in the kit because I wanted to be sure that I didn't missing anything, He said that the additional o-ring's were extras 'just in case' some of the others get damaged during installation. I like the thought of not having to go and try and find new o-ring's if I messed one up. This was great thinking on Andy's part.
I sit down and read the instructions. Read them again, went over the process in my mind several times and then read the instructions again. The instructions were excellent, by the way. I determined that since I didn't have access to a vehicle lift, I would just use jack stands and a floor jack. After getting the vehicle up on jack stands, I realized that there wasn't anyway that I could do it with exhaust in the way, so I removed the H pipe and the transmission cross member from the Explorer. With the transmission tail shaft supported by the floor jack, I was able to move the trans around just a little bit and that helped with getting room for my hands. Once all of that was out of the way, I set about removing the servos one at a time. There will be a little fluid leaking out of the servo bores, but nothing more than a shop towel could clean up.
I put the new servos in one at at a time with Sil-Glide applied to all seals on both the servo and the servo covers. Then I put everything back on, exhaust... trans cross member.... you get the idea. Just replaced everything that I had taken off. I also took the time to adjust the bands since the procedures were in the instructions and it only took an additional few minutes.
Well it was time for a test drive. Almost all of the shudder was gone! Damn it! So I decided that since the fluid had not been changed (to the best of my knowledge), I would change the fluid and the filter. With the new servos and fluid change cured all but an very rare and occasional shudder. On the advice of a good friend, I decided to add a bottle of Lucas Transmission Fix after first draining the same amount of fluid out (don't over fill your trans - not good!).
I am super pleased to report that we have put an additional 6500+ miles on it since the fix and it runs as good or better than it did when it was new. That included driving in the south western deserts of the USA!
I can't thank Andy at AJ1E Superior Solutions, LLC enough for having the idea to fix an issue that Ford decided to over look. If you are having this issue, please check out his web site for the info needed to fix your shudder!
Thanks again,
Jeff
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