Tranny Slip?? bad??

[RoB51988]

I had a leak in one of my transmission lines that I didnt notice for probably a while. I'm not sure how long it was leaking or really how much or bad. What happened was, a metal line rusted and broke probably due to the excessive salting that they do in the winter here in Boston. I replaced the metal lines with rubber hoses and clamped them back on to parts of the old metal line that weren't rusted (or bad). Now I'm having a really bad slip sometimes into second gear but mostly into thrid gear.

I went to my local auto parts store and got Mercon V, and topped the tranny off. I don't really know much about trannys, but could it be slipping because I have 2 different kinds of transmission fluids in there? Or, could it be because I cought the leak to late and now theres been damage done to the transmission itself?

[RoB51988]

By the way, I have a '96 Taurus GL 3.0 OHV

[Colt Hero]

Sure you got enough fluid in there? You're supposed to check the stick when the engine is hot. Low fluid can cause a transmission to 'slip'.

Another possibility is maybe you've got mostly new fluid in there now replacing fluid that was really old (and burnt). I did essentially the same thing with my '97 GL 3.0 wagon - completely transfusing original factory fluid with 97,000 miles on it with brand new Mercon V fluid. The result was a "check engine" code for a slipping torque converter ("Excessive Torque Converter Clutch Slippage Detected" ... code 1744 ???), followed by a tranny that just felt "mooshier" or soft. Today, almost 80,000 miles later, it DOES slip in the early gears if I step on the gas too hard coming from a stop - but I just try not to do that. Better than paying $2500 to "fix" the transmission.

By the way, the code went away for good after I completely flushed out my cooling system and re-filled with fresh coolant. My theory was the code was heat-related. The contaminated cooling system could sufficiently cool the burnt, blackened tranny fluid, but it couldn't do the same for the new fluid. Once the cooling system was working properly, the new fluid was cooled properly and the code went away.