So after reading all the horror stories about PTU fluid and how bad it looks, I decided I should probably do mine since I have 85k miles on it. And I bought it with 32k, and shortly after did the Livernois stage 4 tune, and ive used to tow trailers a lot, and random stuff like that.
So in a nut shell, my fluid looked practically brand new.
I had the car up on a lift, Didnt remove anything, just reached up with a 3/8s ratchet, removed plug, used a Mityvac Fluid extractor and pulled out around 10oz (spilled some), and then refilled with Royal purple.
I did have some silver paste type residue on the fill plug, but that was about it.
I was expecting a huge pain in the ass, and black tar to come out of this thing. Looked pretty clean to my naked eye.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Kolk1/EFEB30B9-2EFE-4ADB-A01B-02A61A7C602F.jpg)
Good info Kolk... And good for you. This has started me wondering what is going on with the PTUs full of chocolate syrup if yours looks like that at 83K! There has to be something going on in the actual FMC build with some of the PTUs.
What is the build date on your SHO, Kolk? There ARE a few other folks who have had little to no problems with the PTU fluid. Like BiGMaC said, Ford must have slipped up and made a few good ones filled correctly from factory ;)
I had the PTU service performed by a local shop that does the BG Services. My Ford dealer refused to service the PTU.
At 60k miles, the fluid was black with small clumps that were a little larger than pepper flakes. The BG guys said they had never seen gear oil look so bad. There was almost 1/2" of material stuck to the magnetic plug. They flushed out twice.
Interesting that there are such wide reports of the status of the gear oil.
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Mines an 11, besides that I'm not sure of the date, I'll check tomorrow.
Mine did have some silver paste on the plug, but maybe 1/8th inch at most. But that's it's job, and the fluid looked pretty good.
http://eb-cat.ds-navi.co.jp/enu/jtekt/tech/ej/img/no1004E/1004e_07.pdf (http://eb-cat.ds-navi.co.jp/enu/jtekt/tech/ej/img/no1004E/1004e_07.pdf)
Testing gear oils - infomercial :)
http://www.lastgreatroadtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/gear-oil-comparison.pdf (http://www.lastgreatroadtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/gear-oil-comparison.pdf)
I do aplologize if this is in the wrong section,figured might benefit somewPolice-Only Power Transfer Unit
Since the Power Transfer Unit operates all the time to spin the driveshaft to the rear, the PTU can get hot. On the police version, a number of steps are taken to assure reliability and durability in police use. First, a cooler is added to the front of the PTU housing. The police-only PTU housing has an integral water jacket connected with water lines that run to the bottom three coils of the radiator. The jacket receives engine coolant from the radiator to maintain the correct PTU oil temperature.
Second, the PTU has a gear lube temperature sensor. A module keeps track of the gear lube temp, and how long / how often it was at that temperature. When a threshold is reached, a change PTU Oil light activated.
Finally, the AWD system has a two-stage way to protect itself from damage during extreme, prolonged use. The ATC as a heat protection strategy based on a number of factors, including wheel speed and duration of activity, to determine if overheating is occurring. If the ATC detects overheating, it will lock the clutches together to cool them. Clutches that slip to provide partial torque transfer get hot from the friction of the slippage. Locking the clutches stops the slip and cools the entire unit. In a locked condition, power is transferred to the rear wheels.
If the temp continues to rise even in a locked condition, the PCM disables the coupling altogether. The vehicle operates only as a FWD. AWD OFF is displayed. On the Police Interceptors, the PCM will automatically exit heat protection mode and clear the AWD OFF message when the temp returns to normal. This whole process is sped up by turning the ignition off and allowing the vehicle to cool for 10 minutes.
The ATC/RDU used on the Police Interceptors uses fluid-filled "wet" clutch packs. The retail Taurus and Explorer use dry clutches. The PI wet clutches can withstand higher temps and withstand higher temps longer than the retail unit. The ATC and RDU are not field serviceable. In case of a problem with either system, the whole unit is replaced.hat. Z
Considering the failures in the PI application (as mentioned in the one video on YT), seems their strategy is overly optimistic based on the actual hardware constraints.
IIRC when my contacts at the Dship compared part numbers PP and PI were the same.
That is one of the reasons I traded up, for a long term keeper, PP is the way to go for longevity.