I hope this helps anyone having the problem with their FORD. Your car will idle fine and start good but when you place vehicle in gear it stalls/surges. Sometimes when you come to a stop light it will surge or stall as well. I have the AX4N and 3.0 dohc in my Sable. I removed the airbox and on the top of the tranny there are two wire harnesses, unplug the white one( this harness is the smaller one with 9 wires) if their is tranny fluid in the harness it will cause a false signal to the Torque converter solenoid. All that needs to be replaced is a small o ring on the inside of the tranny. The hard part is putting it in. You have to remove the side cover on the tranny. I called my transmission guy and he said he won't do it to much labor for a $1.00 o ring. I fixed this problem myself. I unplugged the harness and put gasket sealant inside and plugged the harness back in and it has worked fine for 6 weeks now. I know this is a backyard mechanic fix but nothing else wrong with my sable and i am not going to pay $900.00 to fix a o ring gasket.

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for taking the time to report details on what it took to fix your problem! You're one of the few people who's first post is to help others rather than ask for help from others.

-Rod

I also welcome you mattski77. That is a good piece of information. Might save someone some time and money in their repairs. We are looking for any information that helps anyone that visits the forum. Hopefully the information is correct or close to it. And Rod, I have not seen you have a question on repairs. Just answers. Enjoy the forum mattski77 and don't be a lurker. Jump in if you have a suggestion or answer.

My '96 Taurus - 3.0L vulcan - is doing the same thing, and my scanner says code P1742. The car has to warm up for about 20 minutes before i can put it in gear without it immediately stalling. Once it gets going it almost stalls at every stoplite. The local tranny shop says the lowend price starts at about $1200 and can go up from there. The car is worth fixing - only 70,000 miles - but I like your fix a lot better. But, I don't know what an airbox is!
Thanks for the great tip on the fix. Roberto3

The airbox is the black rectangular box that houses the air filter.

-Rod

Thanks, Rod.

my wiring harness was ok. I checked the trans oil and it was real watery. I hand-pumped out about 6 quarts and put in new synthetic mercon V. After running for a few datys it gradually improved - did not stick so often. About 2 weeks later i pumped out another 6 qts, hoping to get some of the oil that had been in the torque converter. Added 6 more synthetic. Got better still. Checked plugs. Looked like originals - gapped at about 70 thousands. Spec is for 44. Replaced plugs. Now, after another month, car runs pretty good. Problem must have been with the trans oil causing the torgue lock-up to not let go. Will change trans oil again before summer out, this time will get filter too. I think my problem is fixed. Will now change trans oil evry 2 years minimum. Thanks all.

I hope this helps anyone having the problem with their FORD. Your car will idle fine and start good but when you place vehicle in gear it stalls/surges. Sometimes when you come to a stop light it will surge or stall as well. I have the AX4N and 3.0 dohc in my Sable. I removed the airbox and on the top of the tranny there are two wire harnesses, unplug the white one( this harness is the smaller one with 9 wires) if their is tranny fluid in the harness it will cause a false signal to the Torque converter solenoid. All that needs to be replaced is a small o ring on the inside of the tranny. The hard part is putting it in. You have to remove the side cover on the tranny. I called my transmission guy and he said he won't do it to much labor for a $1.00 o ring. I fixed this problem myself. I unplugged the harness and put gasket sealant inside and plugged the harness back in and it has worked fine for 6 weeks now. I know this is a backyard mechanic fix but nothing else wrong with my sable and i am not going to pay $900.00 to fix a o ring gasket.

Thanks for this Mattski,

You described my problem almost identically minus the stalling but it will idle so low it seemed like it would stall, my goes a little further though as now the car doesn't move at all, anyways heres my story.

A couple weeks ago the weather warmed up here in Michigan, it was a Tuesday night my wife comes home from work complaining the car is running funny. As she tends to exagerate things I took the car for a ride, started it, backed out of the driveway and started driving down the street thinking she must be imagining things again hehe. I stopped and the stop sign then it happened. While stopped the car started idleing high and low and started surgeing. I put the car into park and the idle evened out, put it in drive and the same thing, once I got going it was fine, caught a side street to get home and stopped the car, took my foot off the brake and the car was surging forward - it would go then stop go then stop. I noticed it would stop doing this if I applied light pressure on the gas which idled the car faster. it would act fine then, anyways I bring the car home and in the driveway I play with it some more, my driveway is on a slight incline and I notice when in drive the car would lurch forward then start rolling back. I'm thinking it could possibly be the trans.
The next day it is colder out and the problem seemed to go away.
Two days later I use the car and drive about 25-30 miles and the engine light comes on, as it does this the problem again comes back but seems a little worse. I get the car home and scan it and it only has the 1744 code for the TCC. I research this and find it could be a number of problems.
The next day all is good again. and remains the same until last week when I get a call from the wife saying the car won't move. I go out there and get in start the car and it slips a little but grabs and start driving down the street at the point where it should go into 2nd gear it stops grabbing all together and I coast to a stop. I do this a few more times until I come to a parking lot where I can safely leave the vehicle, to get the car home from here doing what its doing would be too un-safe so I parked it. later my brother and I tow the car home.
Two days later I decide to pull the car into the yard and again it is slipping, I am able to get it back there but it seems unlikely that I will be able to drive it onto the ramps. so I just leave it.
Yesterday I go out and pop the hood, after reading several posts and with the intermittant nature of the problem I decide to check the wires first. I found the plug that matt mentions above and after a few seconds I am able to disconnect the plug. First thing I noticed was the trans fluid in the connector. I blew out the connector and plug with some air and got in the car to try it, everything started working fine then, went about 10 feet forward and reverse about 4 times. Then I left the car idleing and moved all the toys and garbage cans from the driveway and got my wife to watch the kids as they were playing in the yard, I got back in the car put it in reverse then nothing. checked the plug again and there didn't seem to be any more fluiud in there but I did notice the connector going into the trans was easy to wiggle and move. So I left it sit over night

Today I tried and it seemed a little better, I was able to drive it up the ramps with no problem. I drained the fluid which was a dark red, smelled funny, and noticed the side cover and realized how much fun that'll be to remove. I did notice some fine shavings in the pan but I read that this is normal. Then I found this post. I ordered a couple trans manuals from ebay (before reading this) and will figure what to do next.

I plan to remove the side cover and check the wiring further, I will probably go ahead and replace the tcc solenoid as it is fairly cheap. and check out the wires as well. and go from there. I feel reasonably sure that this with the fluid/filter change will fix the problem. I'll keep you updated.

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