Idled the car for 10 or more minutes, went through the gears a few times. Lines have no heat at this point. Should they? Engine at 195, tranny has a separate cooler.

 

The separate cooler will likely keep the trans cooler than necessary. Factory setups ran the external cooler in series with the cooler inside the radiator in order to bring the trans fluid up to temp, especially in the winter.

 

Temps at idle without an aux trans cooler are around 170, with possibly lower.

 

Way back when I went to a lot of Ford factory training. The engineers said you start hurting the trans when the temp gets over 240. As long as you are under that you are golden. Cooler temps might firm up the shifts. But it won’t hurt anything.

 

Took off the pan to make sure they used the longer tube, looks like it. But doesn't look like it was sealed, could have happened when the pan came off? What's with two nuts spacing the filter downward?

This is definitely wrong, bolt fell out or wasn't installed so the filter came off essentially.

 

Looks like they used that as a spacer to force the filter to the bottom of pan,definitely not right.

 

There is suppose to be a special shouldered bolt and spacer. The filter will flop around. While the setup you have now isn’t 100% factory/correct, it will work just fine.

I have a few of those bolts and spacers. If it helps, I can measure them tomorrow. I’m sure you can find something at a good well stocked hardware store.

 

Thanks for the offer, I actually did search and get the required parts to make it right.