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Hi this is another video by Pet Rock. I'm working on my '03 Dodge Durango, 4.7L and
today we're going to be changing the transmission fluid and filters. There are two in this transmission.
Specifically this transmission is a 545RFE hopefully I can give you guys some tips along
the way to make this job easier. Sometimes doing transmissions is a fairly messy job,
hopefully I'll be able to make it so, show you how to do it so that you don't actually
spill a drop on the floor. This truck did not come with a drain plug for the transmission
so the way the manual says to do it is to basically drop the pan and basically try not
to spill the oil out of the pan as your lowering it. Anybody who's tried to do that, its not
very simple. Its a balancing act and often times you end up spilling the fluid on yourself,
the floor, or you know and hardly any of it in the pan in the drain pan. So a better way
I have come up with is to use a suction pump. So instead of getting the fluid out by dropping
the pan, you suck the fluid out through the transmission fill tube first that will get
most of the fluid out and then once you've got most of the fluid out you can drop the
pan and have maybe a quart left in the pan, not very much at all so you don't have to
worry about balancing it and spilling it on yourself and stuff like that. So anyway, so
the first thing I'm going to do is set up my suction pumps, suction pump and we'll get
to it. I've covered up my air filter with a towel. I've brought up a nice catch pan
and here's the suction pump that I will be using. I picked this up at a local auto parts
store I think it was $5 or $10, I bought it a while ago so I don't remember the exact
price anymore. Anyway, so the outlet is the bottom part the inlet is the top part on this
pump so I basically shove the outlet into the catch pan and shove the inlet down the
filler tube as far as it will go and that's it. The just basically pump. So the bubbles
you hear now are just air being sucked up so if you watch, let me see if I can get this
without splattering everywhere, yeah its just sucking up air, now I just got to pull out
the hose as carefully as possible without getting oil everywhere, tear down my catch
can, and now I'm, now I go underneath the car, underneath the truck and start unbolting
the transmission pan. Most of the fluid is now out of the transmission, it took less
then, less then a minute to do and hopefully it will save me a lot of mess. Here we are
underneath the truck, I've put it on ramps to, just for simplicity, here is the transmission
pan, here is the exhaust, there is the main oil drain plug, anyway, so basically right
now there should be very little fluid left in here because we have sucked it all out,
a long time ago I installed an oil drain plug just to make my life easier you can pick these
up at most auto parts stores they are not, they are just universal. They are basically
just a bolt with a hole in it and a little plug. So you can just install it whenever
you want. You don't have to the suction method gets most of the fluid out although there
still is about a quart or so in the pan, ok so I've got my catch pan underneath the drain
plug and I'm going to just remove it. I don't expect a lot of oil to come out but you never
know. So there is still a little bit coming out and I'm going to wait for it to finish
draining. So I'll be right back. ok so it stopped draining. As I said earlier only about
a quart came out. So it only really drained for maybe 30 seconds to a minute. So anyway,
I've replaced the o-ring on the end of this plug, I just put it back in so now that its
plugged up we can start undoing all these bolts here. They are 5/16" or an 8mm, the
5/16" fits a little bit better but an 8mm will do in a pinch. Anyway, so you want to
undo all the ones in the front and leave two of them in the back partially undone so maybe
half, half way out or so the whole point is so that when we pry it open we want the pan
to drop this way first and any fluid that still in the pan, but shouldn't be now that
I've drained it, but for those of you who don't have a drain plug there is still going
to be about a quart of fluid in the pan you wanna drop the front first so that if there
is any fluid in the pan then it will spill out the front and you can catch it in a catch
can. I don't have a catch pan that is big enough to cover this entire pan. So what I
do is I go out and I get a, I get a, wow that was loud, I get a turkey baster pan from the
local shopping mall, sorry, local supermarket and just flatten the edges a little bit to
make it wider and that fits pretty much perfectly underneath this transmission pan. The entire
contents of the transmission pan will fit in there. This is easier then using a drain
pan that only fits half of it because you'll, you're bound to spill something that way.
Anyway, so use a little aluminum pan like this with a larger metal pan, this is a pan
you can pick up at your local auto parts store or whatever, I use one of these underneath
my grill to protect the deck but you can also use this for automotive reasons like I'm doing
here. Anyway, so you put a large pan underneath as a catch pan and start undoing the bolts.
So I've got the, all the bolts undone. I left this one in just a couple threads and this
one and this one over here are done, undone about half way. Now the reason I left this
one only half, a couple threads was so that when the pan does drop a little bit it's not
going to drop completely and it won't bend these, bend the pan on this side. It's just
a little bit of a safety precaution. Anyway, so now that the pan is done the only thing
that is holding it in is the, holding it onto the transmission is the RTV that was put on
there previously. So it comes from the factory with RTV and the previous couple times I've
done this job I did it with RTV as well. And it seems to work really well. Recently, or
relatively recently Fel-Pro has come out with a nice rubber gasket, or rubber-ish gasket
for this application and so I picked it up and I'm going to try to use it this time and
see how it goes. But anyway, now you've just got to pry, pry into, into the pan to get
the, to disconnect the RTV. Ok, its been a couple of days since I last recorded it is
the holidays after all so the last point I was at was basically getting the pan off.
I also in a moment of stupidity bent the pan a little bit as you can see right here it
is a little bit distorted. That's not horrible I can *** that back out again, its not the
end of the world, just try to avoid doing that as much as you can. So if you followed
the steps I suggested in the beginning of the video and sucked all the, as much of the
fluid out as you could before even starting on the pan there should be maybe one or two
quarts left in the pan basically whatever in this section here maybe a little bit more.
And once you drop the pan a little may spill out but not nearly as much if you didn't suck
out the oil initially. The oil when its at normal full level is way above, like way up
here that's where the oil level is compared to the bottom of the oil pan so just do the
math and you'll figure out that its easier to suck it out first, or install a drain plug
and drain it. Alright so I positioned my pan underneath the transmission as much, as well
as possible, as well as can be I should say and then I. Now if this pan was full of oil
as I was trying to do this it would be sloshing all over the place. I would be coated in oil
right now but thankfully it's not so now I can wiggle it a little bit to clear the back
and drop the pan. As you can see this whole area is still covered in oil even though its
been drained for a couple days. So be wary of that. Make sure you have a big enough pan
as I suggested. So here is the transmission pan down I just wanted to let you see that
there is still a good amount of oil in there even with my drain plug I probably could have
drained it a little more before I dropped it but still there still is a good amount
in there. So as you can see it is still dropping even though it has technically been drained
for a couple days so next I'm going to try to get as much of this gasket off as possible
make it as smooth a surface as possible. First I like to get all the big chunks of gasket
off I usually use a nice big paint scraper to scrape as much of the old gasket off as
possible before getting any deeper and using a razor blade or whatever, I use a paint scraper
it gets all the big chunks off first. I use a little bit of, get that in camera, gasket
remover made by Permatex, this stuff is pretty nasty stuff if you look its actually corroded
the pan, sorry corroded the can where it has actually sprayed out of this thing. So yeah,
you don't actually want to get this stuff on you it will burn your skin if you leave
it on there too long. And it stinks to high heaven. Anyway, so you want to do this in
a well ventilated area, you want to keep this, keep this stuff obviously away from pets and
kids and whatnot, anyway so you apply this stuff in a nice bed around the gasket, where
the gasket was I should say try to avoid getting it into the transmission area itself, maybe
use a piece of cardboard or your hand to block it I'll be using a piece of cardboard and
apply a nice even coat, let it sit for a couple minutes, come back and it will turn the RTV
into a goop that you can literally scrape off with a paint scraper as I was showing
before. So here is the transmission pan, here is the drain plug that I installed a few years
back that as you can see is not flush with the bottom of the pan so there would still
be a little bit of oil in it if I let it drain all the way. Right here is the magnet at the
bottom of the pan that is designed to pick up any metal fragments. Right now if you look
at it there is a little film of black stuff on top of it that is normal and expected that's
just the clutch plate material from inside the transmission. Don't worry about that.
If you see metal chunks or big metal flakes like glitter, a glitter type substance in
that goop, or attached to this, attached to this magnet then you need, you probably have
some transmission problems that need to be addressed and should probably be addressed
shortly. You've got metal on metal wearing and that shouldn't be happening in the transmission.
At least not that excessively that it causes chunks to come off. Anyway, this pan looks
pretty good, the magnet is OK. So the first thing I'm going to do is apply that same gasket
remover to the outer edge of the pan to let the, to get the gasket off of it. So you spray
the gasket remover just like before, just spray it on, hopefully I'm getting all this
on camera because I'm not really looking at the camera screen so you just spray it on
like that, a light coating, let it sit for about 5 minutes make sure you cat doesn't
get in it, and then, or lick it because its toxic and let it sit for about 5 to 10 minutes
and when you come back the RTV should be in like a putty form that you can just scrape
off with a putty scraper. So I'll be right back. While you wait for the RTV to dissolve,
you want to, now is a good time to clean up and inspect the bolts that you, that you took
out from the transmission pan. If you see that little nub on the top right there you
don't want that on the bolt because if that hits, if that bolt bottoms out then this will
compress and then it will cause extra force onto the threads that the bolt is trying to
go into and you can easily strip out your bolts. Strip out the bolt holes. The body
of the transmission is made of aluminum and these are stiffer metal I'm not really sure
what probably steal so you want to make sure that they are as clean as possible and that
there is no obstructions in the way. So you just take a wire brush I like to use a pair
of vise grips to hold onto the nut, or bolt I should say and just work around it get as
much of the crap and oil as you can off then just wipe it off. Now as you can see that
one is nice and clean and that one is ready to go so I can put that aside and work on
the next one. Now enough time has past for the RTV to dissolve so now I just take a nice
paint scraper like this one and just scrape around, just scrape as much of the big stuff
off as you can like that. Should come off fairly easily the big stuff will tend to be
around the edges. As you can see it comes off pretty simple, pretty easily I should
say with just a simple paint scraper. Then you go back with a razor blade style, excuse
me, style scraper and just scrape the remaining, remaining stuff off. Making sure not to cut
yourself in the process. You may need to apply multiple coats of that chemical especially
to get into these little grooves right here because its, they were probably covered by
other, but I like to take the corner of my, I don't think you can see that, but I like
to take the corner of my, of the scraper and just gouge it in there and it will scrape
the stuff right out. So you just do that all the way around the perimeter of the pan and
do the same thing to the transmission. And make sure not to gouge the transmission pan
or the housing as your doing it. If you do gouge it a little bit you can get some emery
cloth and smooth it out. And a couple different grades of sand paper like 800 count, 1000
count that kind of thing to get rid of the scratch marks that the emery cloth will leave.
You want to have the surface as smooth as possible so that the gasket has the ability
to seal properly. Now that you've got the pan, not completely clean but as clean as
you can get it with a scraper take a wire brush and brush off the remainder of the RTV
until you get down to bare metal. You don't want any of that old RTV on there because
that will prevent the gasket from sealing properly. So now that its, the outer side
is scraped its time to clean out the inside of the pan. First thing you want to do is
take the magnet out and inspect it to make sure there are no metal chunks in it like
I mentioned before and then take, and then take a can of brake clean and clean it off
like that and then put it in a rag to wipe the remainder off. Get as much of that gunk,
as much of that stuff off as possible and then set it aside. Make sure not to loose
this, make sure not to loose that. Your going to need to install it later. So next you want
to take the pan, let me get this on camera, take the pan and spray it down, hose down
all the crap, RTV, gunk and whatever else is at the bottom of the pan out of there.
And then take a nice clean rag and wipe it out. In my case I have a drain plug hole so
I need to open that up as well and clean out any gunk that may have gotten in there. And
then we'll move back to the transmission, make sure the outer perimeter of the transmission
is nice and clean. Your primary concern with this pan is one that you don't damage it.
I've already done that, I gotta clean that, I'll fix that up in another video, but also
you want to make sure that it is clean. You don't want any oil on it at all. If there
is any oil or transmission fluid on it the RTV and/or the gasket won't seal properly
especially the RTV the RTV will actually not seal at all and you'll just get an oil leak.
So you want to make sure it is as clean as possible. Ok, now that the transmission is
clean do not forget to put the magnet back in. A lot of people forget to do that and
it causes problems because this magnet, the whole point in the magnet is to pick up any
of the clutch material from inside the transmission. Pick it up and make it so that it doesn't
filter through the transmission making it wear out faster. So make sure to put that
magnet back in. Once you've got the pan all clean you need to move onto the, you need
to clean the surface, the mating surface on the actual transmission. Again use a nice
sharp, preferably new razor blade, paint scraper and a maybe a little bristle brush. Make sure
not to make it a, you don't want a steal brush cause then you'll scuff this up so you need
to be careful with it. One thing to also take note of while your cleaning this surface is
to check out the holes. Each one of these bolt holes. You want to make sure that there
is no RTV left over from the previous oil change in there. Because if there is RTV inside
there and its a sealed off hole like these in the back for example that RTV will prevent
the new, the bolt that you will be inserting back into it from tightening down all the
way and that will basically, a loose bolt is going to be a leaky bolt, so a leaky spot
in your transmission pan. So make sure they are nice and clean. Use like a small pick
the gasket remover is also good for this make sure it is nice and clean. Make sure there
are no RTV blobs inside. Just give you a little lay of the land. This one of the, one of the,
the primary filter all the oil is sucked up through here and then this is a secondary
filter for the oil cooler, the transmission oil cooler that this vehicle is equip with.
I don't know if all vehicles with this transmission has a cooler or not, but this one does. So
its got a nice screw on, screw on oil filter similar to like your normal engine oil filter.
And also to give you more layout. This is the dipstick, this is the oil pan dipstick
when you were shoving the tube, the hose for the pump earlier in the video down into the
pan this is where it was coming out. So one thing to keep note of is this thing has been
sitting here for a couple weeks because I had some other things come up that needed
attention. So its been sitting here just dripping away I had my oil pan, giant turkey baster
pan underneath it and it picked up a good amount of oil so as I was stating, as I was
saying there is oil all over this transmission. Just because you dropped the pan doesn't mean
you changed all the oil. There is oil in the torque converter, there is oil in the cooler
lines, if you have it, in the cooler itself, there is lines, there is oil pretty much everywhere
it just loves to hide inside of a transmission. That is why these jobs are very messy. And
as you can see there is even some drops that are getting ready to fall even though this
truck has been sitting for a few weeks. So yeah, this is why this job is messy. You want
to make sure that you try to limit the amount of mess as possible with a nice big pan under
the transmission. Ok next you remove the oil filter. There is a single T-25 torx head bolt
right here that you just remove. Now be careful because the filter will also be holding fluid
in the transmission so once you remove it around this point where the inlet, sorry the
outlet to the filter is oil may come out so make sure you have a catch pan underneath
it will be a significant amount like maybe a quart or so. But since my truck has been
sitting for a while that fluid may have already drained out I don't know but either way you
should be prepared for it. So very very little came out. But inside the filter there is still
alot so be careful of that make sure it goes straight into a catch pan of some form. Now
when this is removed there should be a little rubber gasket with a metal ring around it
at the very tip here. Make sure that it comes out with it. Or if not make sure you go in
and get it. It is very important. You'll see that on the replacement filter there will
be a, it will either come with a little o-ring gasket for this spot or it will already be
installed. So here is the tip, here's the new filter that I have. If you notice this
metal ring around it, around the top. That is the gasket that you need to make sure comes
out of the transmission. So to gain access to that little gasket ring you might find
it easier to remove this filter first so you can come at it from the side. You can use
just a regular oil filter wrench, the strap style or this type that I have here. No idea
where I got this I've had it for I don't know how long and it fits this guy perfectly. Anyway,
so just spin it off like a normal oil filter, again be prepared for fluid to come out like
that. So now that the oil filter is out of the way you can use some kind of pry device
like a screw driver I'm actually using a 5/8" open end wrench just jamming it in there and
dropping it in my oil pan and jamming it back in there and hopefully not dropping it this
time and leveraging the opposite side to pry it out. Like that and dropping it back in
the oil pan. So there is not a lot of force behind it so you want to make sure that you
don't mar up this area right here the lip of the open end screw driver, sorry open end
wrench, wow, the open end wrench will fit perfectly over it and you can use it to pry
with. So here are the new transmission filters. Here is the main transmission filter and the
transmission cooler filter the part numbers for the transmission cooler filter is FK-331
and the main one is FK-319. I think I got these from one of my local auto parts stores
I can't remember which one I tend to go with which ever one has the lowest price. Probably
Kragen, O'Reilly's, AutoZone, PepBoys, whatever. Any one that you get will work just fine.
This Power Torque one comes with a little rubber gasket, a little rubber gasket that
I am not using. I'm going to be using one made by Fel-Pro. It is part number TOS18733.
Its the first time I have used this gasket for this transmission so I can't really say
whether it is good or not. It is noticeably thicker then the one that came from, that
came with the filter. And it also has this coating on it. I'm not really sure what that
is for. But anyway, so I like Fel-Pro gaskets they tend to work well. I haven't had one
fail on me yet. Knock on a lot of wood. So next what we'll do is we'll pop off this little
rubber piece right here and so you can insert it manually. It is easier to get this in on
its own. The reason being is that the, this is a little bit of a tight press fit. So its
just, yeah I found it easier to install this separately. It is also how the service manual
says to do it. Ok, before you install the seal you want to take a little bit of transmission
fluid and put it up in the bore that the old one came out of just to lube it up. And then
you want to take some more transmission fluid and lube up the entire little gasket thing.
Press it in slightly. You'll need to tap it in. I found that a 3/4" socket fits, is perfect
for it. So just tap it in slightly. And you'll here it, here it change once the thing is
all the way in. So that is all the way in. So now that you have it in, then you take
the new filter and take some oil just like before and put it around the little ***
thing and just slide it up in there. It will, once, you'll see it seat all the way. So once
you've done that then you can get the bolt and tighten it back, and tighten it back in
to the hole that it came from. So the torque spec for this little bolt is 40 inch / lbs
so I'm using my torque wrench now to torque it down. That s virtually nothing. There.
And I dropped the bolt, the torx head in the, in the pan. That's awesome. So now that you've
got that torqued down now you can install the screw in oil filter. First thing you do
is you want to clean off the surface that it is going to be screwing onto. Making sure
that there isn't any old gasket left over. Then you take, like a normal engine oil filter,
you take a little bit of old fluid and, I'm trying to get this on camera, and you put
it around the rubber o-ring. I also like to put it on the threads just to make it install
easier. Since these threads are plastic it is not really a big issue but for some filters
that are metal it is good to have a little bit of lubrication in there to prevent it,
to make it easier to remove later on. So then you just take it and screw it on in. Once
it comes in contact with the top, again, like a regular engine oil filter you just tighten
it down and additional half to 3 quarter turn. So one quarter, half, three quarter. You don't
want to tighten it down so tight that it squishes the rubber o-ring and deforms it which will
cause an oil leak. You don't want an internal oil leak in here because it is, this is trying
to do some filtration, if you've got a leak in here, if this is leaking into the oil pan
then that is unfiltered oil getting back into the oil pan and this, you're basically negating
the whole point in having this filter in the first place. So just be careful and install
it, install it like I just suggested. Now its time to install the pan back on the car.
So the first thing you need to do is one, you don't forget to put the magnet back in.
So as you saw in one of my other videos where I bent this back into shape after I had bent
it taking it during this job I got it as smooth as I could but I couldn't get it perfectly
smooth. I don't know if you can see it on the camera but there a little bit of ripples
in the metal right here. And since I'm going to be using this Fel-Pro gasket I'm afraid
that the gasket may not seal properly around this area. So what I'm going to do is in the
areas where I had to *** on it, which is basically this side here and in here I'm going
to apply a light coat of RTV only on the pan. I'm not going to put it on the transmission.
And then I'm, so that will be pan RTV, regular gasket then transmission. If you don't use
one of these gaskets you would apply a light coat of RTV all the way around, all the way
around the perimeter of the pan. So for those of us who are going to be using a gasket one
of the problems as you can see is keeping the gasket in place because it may have formed
whatever way that it was when it came from the factory. The Fel-Pro gasket is kind of
cool in that they make the holes slightly smaller then the actual bolt holes so what
that does is you can basically put a bolt in there and it will hold it in place. So
that is what I'm going to do here. It also creates a good sealing surface because it
prevents the gasket from leaking around the bolt holes. Now an alternate approach is that
if you don't have a gasket that has the smaller size holes you can use a little bit of string
in some strategically placed locations to hold it in place as you put it up. And once
you put it up and get a couple bolts in you cut the string and pull it out and it will
be as if it was never there. Another approach is you can get some tacky spray on stuff,
I'm not really sure, glue I guess, that you can spray around the perimeter of the pan
to help hold this, hold it in place and you're trying to get it up onto the transmission.
Ok, now I'm going to apply the light coat of RTV around here. I prefer Permetex Ultra
Black. You can also use the Permetex red kind, what is it, the High Temp RTV Silicone just
be careful it is very sticky. I use rubber gloves when I, whenever I work with RTV. Primarily
because it is this sticky. It also has a, you have to put it on fairly quickly so once
you get it on, in place you want, you wanna get it mounted to the car in place within
5 to 10 minutes. You can buy this in smaller tubes I just happened to pick up a large tube
like this. It is easier for me to just use the hand pump rather then the tooth paste
tube style or the smaller tube style which my auto parts store doesn't carry. Anyway,
so I'm going to apply a light bead around the perimeter around where I know I have been
making, being bad I guess, making sure to go around the bolt holes. I don't need to
use as much as I would if I was only using RTV primarily because I also have the regular
gasket over top. That's about, that's good enough. Ok so, now that I have the RTV down,
whether I was going to be using the gasket or not, one of the things I like to do is
to take my finger and need it into place. Need it in like this. What this does is, I'm
making sure the holes don't get covered up. What this does is it takes out any air bubbles
that may be in the RTV and makes sure that the RTV gets spread out evenly over the entire
gasket surface. Now I just place the gasket and put it in place. The RTV will hold it
but I'm going to put a bolt through anyway. You want to make sure that you don't cover
up any of the bolt holes as your doing this. Because that will get shoved up into the holes
in the transmission and the bolt holes in the transmission while as I said earlier you
don't want to have RTV inside of them. So I am now ready to install this. So, yeah,
I am gonna work fast. So once you've got the transmission in place, sorry the pan in place
double check that it is nice and clean. You don't want any oil in the, in between the
gasket and the and the transmission pan. Anyway, so get a couple threads on your bolt holes
in a couple different spots. Ok once you've got them all started you want to tighten them
down, keep going around in a star pattern similar to how you do when you are installing
a tire. So it appears that my battery died when I was torquing things down. So as you
are tightening it, if you are just using pure RTV and you are not using a rubber gasket
like I am you just want to tighten them down until you start seeing the RTV start to ooze
out slightly. It will just start to bulge out a little bit at which point you stop.
you don't, you don't keep turning, you don't go till it stops you just stop. And go to
the next, go to the next bolt. Just keep going all the way around until it starts to ooze
out. Basically then you have to just wait. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to start, for
the RTV to start to cure. And then it takes about an hour for it to set. And to fully
dry it takes about 24 hours. So according to the RTV bottle it says that once you've,
once you've gotten it to ooze out a little bit weight about an hour then turn each bolt
about a half turn. The once, and then your pretty much done. Now you wait anywhere between
12 and 24 hours for the RTV to cure and then you put the fluid in. You don't want to put
it in before that because you need to wait for the RTV to dry otherwise you'll cause
a leak. With this gasket, as I was saying I'm using it on the front of the transmission
to cover up the dimples that I put in while trying to repair the pan. So with that, because
of that I'm also going to have to wait that 12 hours to wait for the RTV to cure. If I
didn't have the RTV at all and I was just using a pure gasket I'd just be able to torque
it all down to 105 inch /lbs, inch pounds, torque it all down to 105 inch/lbs and then
put the oil in and I'd be good to go. So its the next day. The RTV has had a chance to
fully cure and dry so now it is time to put the fluid back in the vehicle. It is not just
like engine oil where you dump in the required about and your done you have to go through
this procedure to make sure that you add enough fluid and add it properly. The reason for
this, at least this is my assumption, is that because the transmission holds so much fluid
and because it likes to hold pockets of fluid in various spots it is really hard to determine
exactly how much fluid is removed every time you drop the pan. Yes you could measure it
out and stuff like that but that amount that will come out will vary with every oil change
based on the amount of drips that occur. And you saw earlier that this car has been sitting
for quite a few, quite a while with the pan down and it was still dropping fluid so according
to the service manual is the first thing you should do is if you just replaced the fluid,
the filter and the fluid, your initial amount of oil should be about 10 pints which is 5
quarts of ATF+4 transmission fluid. If you completely disassembled the transmission and
allowed the torque converter and everything else to drain out then you want your initial
amount to be 12 quarts. Since I let this sit for so long and so much extra fluid came out
I know more then 5 quartz came out because, due to what I saw in the pan and on top of
that I don't think that all, that the entire thing got completely flushed all 12 quarts.
So I'm going to put as my initial amount 8 quarts just to be on the safe side. So one
thing I like to do when I know I'm going to be pouring an entire bottle of fluid into
the funnel is I like to take a set of pliers, a large set of pliers, and so I'm using a
gallon jug of oil because I in bulk, and take it and crimp it to basically give it a little
pour spout. It makes it so that it comes out a little easier so you can control it and
you have less drips. Ok so once you have all the oil in the transmission, the initial amount
I should say, you need to let the fluid settle right now its probably, a good amount of it
is probably in the fill tube, as well as just sitting in the bottom of the pan. You want
to give the fluid a chance to settle and level itself out give it maybe a minute or two and
then once you do that you need to test the fluid level. To get an accurate reading the
transmission needs to be at operating temperature. Now remember the temperature gauge on the
dash that's showing you the coolant temperature in the motor which is a rough approximation
of what the actual temperature is. That doesn't tell you what the temperature of the transmission
is. They are two completely separate things. To get the transmission up to normal operating
temperature you need to drive it around, run it through its gears and let the fluid flow
where it needs to go. Before you actually test the transmission fluid level you need
to put the parking brake on, you want to put it into park and then you want to go through
each of the drive selectors so put it into drive, put it into second, put it into first,
put it into reverse, and put it in neutral and let it sit for a couple seconds in between
each setting, so put it into drive for 2 seconds, 3 seconds whatever. Put it into second for
a couple seconds, put it into first for a couple seconds, and so on. Then once you,
once you've done that put the, put the transmission back in park and then you can test the fluid
level. On mine there is no hashed area there is just a section for cold and a section for
hit. So you want it somewhere in this range here. This is low and this is where you want
it. So if your check of the transmission fluid shows that you need to add fluid add about
a half quart to a quart at a time. A little goes a long way. You don't want to overfill
this thing. If you overfill it however, it is not the end of the world, you can use a
suction pump like I used in the beginning to suck out any excess fluid once you get
it, so you can get it to where you need it to be. But once you've sucked that fluid out
it is useless, its garbage you don't want to reuse it so your just wasting the fluid.
You want to try to, you want to try to lowly bring the fluid level to where it needs to
be. In addition, once you've added fluid, especially if you've added a significant amount,
you want to, you need to give that new fluid time to heat up and get up to operating temperature
just like the initial transmission fluid you added. This will take a few minutes, so you
want to let it sit, you want to let it idle or just drive it around a little just to heat
it back up again. So this is a chart from the service manual for this vehicle. There
you go, 2003 service manual. And its a handy chart, it basically shows you where your transmission
fluid level should be at a given temperature. So like at 180 degrees, which is normal operating
temp you want it at the top hole. If its even higher then that you want it just a little
bit above. Its going to be expected to be there when its in the full range. So that
basically helps you test this. Ok, so that's pretty much it. I've got all the fluid back
in the vehicle and its at the right level, at the level I want it to be. Hopefully this
helped you out if you have any questions or comments please leave them in the comments
section below. If you want to see more videos subscribe. I've got more videos coming down
the pipe. I work on my own vehicles, I don't own a shop or anything like that so things
that I do are based on things that either brake or need maintenance on my vehicles.
My vehicles are 10 plus years old, all of them, so they have things, they need fixing.
They've always got something going on with them. If you have any questions, please leave
comments. If you liked it, click the like button and subscribe. Thanks alot.