Oh Lordy, I now own a Fordy (a Lincoln actually)..

[roadster]

Nice car , before you change pan gasket look at selector shaft seal . Common leak , torque converter drain back into transmission causes fluid to get higher and higher the longer it sits the fuller the transmission gets till it reaches selector shaft seal/linkage and ends up on the ground . Not difficult to replace , have to remove pan then selector shaft to access seal . The other most common leak is dipstick tube o ring . Gravity causes pan gasket to appear to be leaking . Brake clean can be very helpful pinpointing leak .Also warm hot fluid thins out and can help locate leak quicker after brake cleaning suspected cause of leak .

[njsteve]

Yeah, I was looking online for C6 common leaks. I think the sitting for 4 years and the resultant draining of the fluid into the main area of the case is what caused the leakage, as you said. There were initially some drip marks around the selector shaft as well as the entire pan gasket. I ended up tightening the pan bolts and brake-cleaning the entire area. Haven't had any more drips since then.

Here's a couple shots after brake cleaning the entire area. BTW, is that black plastic spacer on the selector shaft supposed to have that slot in it? Or is it a crack?

[roadster]

The plastic piece is seldom seen probably a Lincoln item for protecting the o ring behind kick down lever and am sure it came with the split or crack . There is a small o ring on the kick down shaft they didn’t leak very often and very easy to change , if you remove nut holding lever to shaft the o ring is behind plastic piece. If car sits for a week or longer the converter starts to Fill the transmission more and more that is why so common for automatics to only leak after sitting extended period . Factory used cork gasket dry just want to make sure pan rail straight from over tightening pan bolts over the years (torque to 16 ft lbs) The kick down shaft contacts valve in valve body past 3/4 throttle or so and only moves 1/2 inch or so is spring loaded . Those are neat cars , friend of family bought new 2 door like yours , except his was a 74 give or take a couple years .

[njsteve]

Yesterday I brought the Lincoln in for a long delayed front end alignment. I had replaced the entire front end with new parts 7 years ago and assembled it back together totally by eye. It tracked dead straight with zero pull so I never wasted the time to get an official alignment done when I had the old tires on it. Since I just bought new tires and I had a free day, I brought her in. After a few minutes the tech comes in and says "You really want me to charge you for this?"

It turns out that by some miracle I had gotten everything within the green spec zone except the right front toe which was off by 1/16". I laughed and said yes, please adjust as needed and print me out a before and after spec sheet. I was happy to pay him the $129 since he seemed to enjoy working on something way out of the ordinary. I even bought the correct vintage Snap-On WA-171 alignment tool on ebay for $25 but he ended up not needing to use it. The tool has a point at the tip that slips into an alignment hole in the frame next to the A-arm and the claw moves the A-arm in or out depending on what you need to adjust.