Greetings All

I have a strange problem that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. I have a 97 EL fairmont s/w which has now done 355000k and still going strong except for the problem outlined below.

When the car is cold in the morning I have all the gears and the torque convertor locks up correctly. After about 50k the car goes into limp mode and only sorts itself out the next morning.

I have had the automatic transmission rebuilt by a local repair shop and they have replaced clutches which were pretty bad plus the balls in the valves. We believed then that the worn clutches were causing a sensor reading error which then caused the box to go into limp mode. The car now changes as smoothly as when it was new and is great except for the limp mode problem occuring after a short while each day.

I got the guys to replace the oil with the modern shell equivalent of TQ95 as mentioned in the manual.

I have taken the car back to the repair shop but as luck would have it I could not get the car to go into limp mode.

My mechanic and I are now suspecting the possibility of a dodgy electrical connection between the box and the computer. This may have been my problem all along because I am now back to the exact same problem I had before I had the box rebuilt.

Any guesses or advices would be greatfully received. I shall try and find someone to look at error codes but our local Ford dealers have removed the relevant software / diagnostics from their computers.

Regards

Tony Aimer

Johannesburg