The drain plug is easy. That's a 6 mm allen wrench. The fill plug is located right on the top of the transmission. It has a 3/8" square hole that your socket extension fits right into. After removing the air filter cover and air hose, you can see the fill hole right on top.
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| The fill plug is on the top, next to the sticker. |
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| Here's the fill plug. It even has a nice, green o-ring. |
Getting to the high pressure filter is a little more involved. You pretty much need to take out that motor mount.
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| Here's the motor mount that was in the way. |
Now we can easily get to the torx screws holding the filter in. There are three screws that need to come out. Then pull on the thing and pry a little until it pops out.
Did I mention that the fluid would drain out and you'd need a bucket? That fluid looks like it was due for a change. There's an o-ring on this housing that didn't come with my filter. So I re-used it. I hope it doesn't leak.
And here's the original filter with 126,000 miles on it. The thing should have been changed at half that many miles. The element is starting to collapse. There's the new filter next to it, just for comparison. I had to pry and pull on that filter to get it out because of the o-ring. The new one was just as hard to put in. I put some new CV fluid on the o-ring so it could actually go in.
The rest of the job is pretty much like a standard transmission fluid and filter change. Just make sure you buy both filters, and fill it up with CV fluid. I used Valvoline. Get six quarts, just in case you need some of that sixth quart to get it up to the correct level.
The dipstick has the normal indicators for fluid level.
I also have a Ford Freestyle SEL. Mine is a 05 with 79.000 miles. Thank you for putting it out there, Now i will do it myself. Thanks.
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ReplyDeleteFrom what I read the Ford Freestyle cvt takes a very special motorcraft cvt fluid, only available from ford, LOL. How's your valvoline holding up? Is it better? I need to drain/change out my freestyle cvt soon. I ws hoping it would make it through this winter but my car doesn't like the cold Wisconsin winters and it's been 50k miles since my last trans oil change(which I made the dealer do) . Thanks for the pictures! Good writeup.
ReplyDeleteWell, I doubt it was the Valvoline fluid because I changed back to Motorcraft and still have the exact same problem. I have to let the car warm up for at least 15 minutes. Then I have to shut it off and turn it on again so the wrench light goes out. The codes are for low transmission fluid pressure.
DeleteI forgot to say that it has low fluid pressure when it's colder than about 40F until the engine warms up.
DeleteJust curious how many miles you have placed on yours since the low pressure cold weather problem occurred? My mother's freestyle with 106k just started doing it the other morning, it was 38 degrees or so. Actually shifted fine then fell out of gear. Wrench light came on. I restarted it , light was off and it went into reverse (only gear I tried). backed a mile home. Tested it when it warmed up works fine in foward/backward. Darnedest thing. I was worried it was the "chopper noise" issue, but it seems pretty quiet other than a power steering noise in park, which it has always made.
DeleteI've been running it since this post with this problem where I have to warm it up if it's below 40F. I put over 43,000 miles on it since then. It still runs fine after it's warmed up.
DeleteJohn, can't thank you enough for this. Mine is an 05 freestyle with 168k on it. I bought it from the original owner in Florida, and I don't believe he'd ever had it serviced except he was really proud of the fact that he had the engine oil changed every 3000 miles. It still has the original struts transmission fluid, haldex fluid, Etc
ReplyDeleteso forth and so on. At any rate, because of your excellent tutorial, I was able to put my car up on the lift and do the transmission fluid/filters change out. Originally I bought Valvoline at Walmart, and then after reading all of the information on the internet I decided that the Ford fluid was the only way to go. So having said all that, I really appreciate the information that you put out on the internet. Thanks again, Semper Fi, Robbie
John, I don't know if you still follow this forum or perhaps anybody reading it can tell me. I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out what the transmission pan bolt torque is. At this point I'm just ready to take all the bolts up with my quarter inch ratchet till they touch and then just keep doing quarter turns in a Criss-Cross pattern starting in the middle until I figured that it's tight enough. Mine didn't have a rubber gasket, it was a fiber material(and a witch to get off of the trans AND the pan !). At any rate, thanks again for all the information... truly appreciate it. Semper fi, Robbie.
ReplyDeleteAgain, if anyone is still following this thread, the transmission pan bolt torque is 9 foot pounds, (108 inch pounds)this is from the Ford garage. I use the crossbolt tightening method, because I couldn't find anything on that either. Have fun, and again appreciate this thread, it really helped.
ReplyDeleteI have a 2006 Ford Freestyle AWD Limited 169k miles and I changed the Trans fluid and HP filter fall 2017. after the fluid/HP filter change I now have the cold Trans problem. I read on other forms that the pan filter seal will get weak and crack and when it's cold enough out it will cause a pressure problem in the trans which is why it throws the pressure code when it's cold out. I don't know the exact truth to this, but for $30 and a lil time changing the pan filter I'm gonna give it a shot. Worse that'll happen is I got a new pan filter.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious if you used Motorcraft CVT fluid, or generic? I changed it back to Motorcraft. We'll see how it does this winter. Last winter, I had to let the engine warm up at least 15 minutes before driving.
Deletedid new pan filter solve the warm up issue
DeleteI decided to change the transmission oil too, even it's not dark as yours, I have 2007 Ford Freestyle with 162k miles, transmission oil was changed once years ago at Ford dealership, but I'm sure they did not change that oil filter. My question is do i have to somehow support the engine after I will remove that motor mount? Process looks pretty easy and with no unexpected problem I should be done in couple hours. I want to keep Freestyle for couple more years, I love it, probably will pass it to my daughter. Thank for help.
ReplyDeleteJan
Can anyone tell me what the size of the CVT transmission pan bolts are?
ReplyDelete06 Ford five hundred.
are you needing the thread size? or what socket to use? I have all 21 of mine out right now.
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