Since I have no past records of if or when the fluid in my 1970 Series II automatic was changed I plan to accomplish this soon. Shifts fine but a bit of a tiny stumble at each shift. I have never been in another XKE so I do not know how smooth each shift should be.

Reading past information on the Net it appears much of the old fluid stays in the unit even with the pan removed. One report of only getting 3 quarts to drain of a total of 9 quarts in the unit. Anyone else have this experience? I have no idea the ratio of manual to automatic owners are on this forum so answers may be sparse!

 

https://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?t=12372

They're saying most of it stays in the torque converter.

 

This is true of most vintage automatics. What I used to do with my Mercedes was to use a vacuum tank to suction out the pan through the dipstick and replace whatever I extracted with fresh fluid. I'd do this every oil change, I figured every four oil changes I was accomplishing a complete change of transmission fluid. So at that point, I would drop the pan and change the filter.

 

I have two of those suction units and will use one as you suggest to measure what I can get out and plan to change the filter also. No telling how long it might have been there and a inspection of what may be left in the pan sounds like a good idea.