I assume the 5 Speed manual transmission must be filled thru the drain hole.

I read that the auto trans has a filler pipe that can be reached from under the car but that you need to rig up a tube to put the fluid in. However, this info does nothing for me, I have a 5 Speed that needs a fluid change.

I plan on re-doing the TC and maybe the rear diff. this wknd, and I'd really like to replace the transmission fluid. I've got 2 liters of RedLine MT90 Synthetic ready to go but I'm having trouble finding a good refill procedure. I'd be grateful for even a hint!

 

Patterson, which item do you want the drain/fill procedure for? You talk about 3 different things in the same sentence. I just want to make sure I get you the info that you are after. All 3 are actually pretty easy. The big trick atleast with the TC is having the special valve. The other two simply take a little bit of your time.

 

Hi Thermo, I'm looking to replace the oil in my manual 5 speed transmission.

I'm wondering if it's like the transfer case, where you use the 1/4 turn ball valve to refill. There's a little background on what I've been doing on page 2 of this thread.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help!

 

I remember seeing a picture of the kit that someone had posted on this forum a few years ago. As I recall, it was taken down so that people couldn't easily replicate the kit.

The kit itself is actually pretty simple - with parts I'm guessing you can buy for less than $15 at an autoparts and hardware store. Most of the price differential between the actual cost and what's charged for the kit pays for Bill's ingenuity in putting it together.

 

I replaced the tranny fluid in my manual transmission today. I pulled out 1.25 liters of black tranny oil, luckily no metal shavings! I say pulled out b/c I used a siphon pump. Much better than trying to tilt the car sideways on jack-stands or what have you for draining.

I was able to snake the siphon tube about 24" deep into the trans and poke around for fluid to remove. The new fluid is RedLine MT90 Full Synthetic gear oil. The shifting seems to be a little smoother but nothing like night and day difference. However, I haven't had any trouble with the trans, it's just that finding first gear and reverse can be little notchy and tight sometimes. Now that I've done it I'll probably do it again soon to get a bit of a flush going. The piece of mind knowing that it's done is half the pay off.

I was worried about refilling the trans but it went very smoothly. The plug I found on the side of the trans that faces the front of the car was what I used for both drain & fill. I had the front of the car jacked up pretty high and when I removed the plug nothing came out so I knew I could refill thru that hole with a pump bottle.

Anyway, just keeping up on the un-prescribed maintenance of these gear boxes to extend their service. I've done all three now at least once: rear diff., TC, and manual transmission, thanks to the wealth of info here!

 

Also wanted to mention that the plug I removed was not magnetic! Maybe it is the fill plug?

 

Here it is now 2016 and I'm following up on this thread that appears to have froze up about 6 yrs ago. Well I'm back with clean gear oil.
I took the dive to change the transfer case gear oil on my day off and I wanted to mention some of the finer points that will make this job almost a quickie.

• Unlike the rear diff. and the transmission, a siphon hose can't enter the TC to suck out old fluid. The gears inside come right up to the inside face of the drain plug hole.

• To drain, jack up passenger side high as possible.

• To fill the case, jack up other side and have a ball valve with an NPT nipple

• Open the ball valve. You want to install it 'open'.

• Remove knob that opens/closes the ball valve and screw the whole thing, nipple side first, into the body of the case; semi tight; use an ASE crescent wrench.

• Drop the tube with ferule and nut from top to bottom down a line of site, and place near the TC drain plug hole.

• Get under the car and connect the dangling hose to the ball valve, using metric crescent wrench. The pic shows the approximate distance of the ferule to the hose tip. Be sure to have the nut facing the right direction and sitting before the ferule.

Once this assembly feels 'water tight', attach a funnel to the hose up top and fill. It takes a while...took 30 mins to get 600+ ml of Mobile 1 - 75W/140 synthetic oil in there. Gravity, thick oil, and small tubes, have their own clock.


Once the TC is full and the ball valve needs to be removed and replaced with the drain plug; this part sucks the most. You have to be swift and act with purpose not to let too much fresh oil hit the floor in the swap.

On this attempt, (I've done it one other time btwn 2010 and now) I might have lost 25ml, plus there was still 10ml in the hose when I plucked it.

After that, get the drain plug tight!

This is a piece of mind effort, a little bit like the Iron Maiden album. Unlike exchanging the transmission fluid, which I might feel in my 5 speed, the TC is simply serviced and noted in the log. 135,000 miles and going strong!


Ball valve from hardware store with a NPT nipple attached.

 

Thank you for the update and pictures!!!! I will be doing this in the next week or so and really wanted an image of the parts.

 

I could never get anything that long into my transfer case drain plug area..I was lucky to find a barbed hose to NPT threaded adapter and it had to be cut short just to get it to squeeze in with a plastic tube on it...I had an 03 Auto..does the Manuals trannys TC have a different TC than the Auto's?

 

The transfer case for both auto and manual trans have the same fluid capacity of 625 ml (18.6 oz.)

I imagine it is the same transfer case for both.

 

I'm sure the internals and capacity were all the same..but like I said..I may have had an odd-ball external configuration. The folks here in the past were selling kits with valves and stuff and seemed to fit real nice..but I could never understand why mine was so tight to fit anything in the area..I was lucky to remove the plug with a 3/8" breaker bar, as a regular ratchet was to thick to get in there to get on the Plug..

 

Ur not alone... I have that same "no room" set-up

 

This won't help the guys with automatics, but, here are some pics I took today when I replaced the gear oil in my 5 speed manual trans.

The 5 speed trans has a fill plug that is high. The drain plug is low and opposite the drain plug for the transfer case.



Transfer case drain plug takes a 3/8" square drive




Manual 5 speed drain plug takes an 8 mm hex wrench