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My RallyCross class trophies tell a different story

One of the plaguing issues with the Transit Connect is the transmission. Countless stories of transmissions biting the dust at or around 100k miles. We’ve all read about it. I’ve even been a victim of my van’s trans acting up. This ultimately led to the retirement of the van from racing competition. That was 4 years ago. Van still runs and has 190k miles. Every now & then, with no consistent factors or patterns, transmission will act up and give me troubles. Never once has it left me stranded. But it left me limping to my destination one way or another. Sometimes, if I cycle power on the car, I’m able to get by. It’s a ticking time bomb at this point. One of these days the van won’t recover. It’s one of those scenarios where I can’t front the $3k—$5k for a new transmission. It would be more reasonable to drive it until it dies then pick up some cheap shitbox or finance a used car with a low payment. Until I came across these kits in the attached photos. Apologies if the photos are not in order or they don’t work. I’m posting off my phone for the first time. These kits claim to restore functionality in the transmission. They claim to rectify the shift issues (have those), the ratio codes (have those), and other trans issues (have those). This isn’t a full rebuild kit. This doesn’t include clutch packs or bushings. These kits also claim the transmission does not need to be dropped to perform this repair. It’s basically a bunch of components to rebuild the solenoid/valve body. Which makes sense when I think about what may be causing my sporatic drivability issues. This also may not fully repair my issues. It may need a full rebuild, especially knowing that I used to beat on this van for racing. But a $200 repair kit is a much more approachable option to start. I like to think I’m a 7/10 wrencher. I can do most of anything depending on resources, tools, time, and money. I’ve pulled motors and dropped trans before. But I’ve never messed with anything internal in auto trans. Trying to figure out if this is within my scope of work. if anyone has experience using kits like these for these vans or other applications, I’d love to learn more.

Check for misfires using a scan tool. You may have an ignition problem that can be solved with plugs and/or coil packs.

The scrapyard I purchased the parts from was far enough away that it was cheaper to pay them to pull the parts and ship them to me than for me to drive out and pull the parts myself. I don't know the actual part numbers; I just called the scrapyard and told them what I wanted: both the 60 and 40 parts of the seat (some scrapyards will sell them separate), including the metal anchors that go behind them on the floor; the right and left seat belts that go with the seats (the center belt is built into the 60 part of the seat); and the plastic steps that go between the seats and the doors, which are shaped differently than the ones that go with the false floor. Based on how easy it was to install everything (just bolted right in), I suspect it was pretty easy to pull the parts. I'm guessing the crux of removing them was pulling the paneling off the walls to get at the seat belts or ripping up the floor to get at the anchors behind the seats. After that, it's just a matter of having the right size socket wrench. Speaking of which, the bolts that came with the seat belt pillar loops were T40 torx - same as the bolts in the false floor I had to remove to install the seat (see Mike Chell's post for details).

Here's the post I did on the fluid change it should make every thing very Clear

Just don't end up with your van sounding like an anemic Fast & Furious Honda. And if you put stickers all over, I will slap you. Stickers do not increase horsepower.