I’m currently performing maintenance on my transmission (2004 Vanden Plas). I’ve drained the transmission and have removed the oil pan and cooler lines. I’ll be refurbishing the cooler lines. It appears the previous owner has replaced the transmission fluid because it came out red. I don’t believe this was Lifeguard 6.

my question is should I also drain the torque converter. When I fill the transmission with Lifeguard 6 is there enough of the different brand of fluid in the torque converter to cause any kind of a problem?

 

I would and I am pretty sure I did when I did my tranny service years ago. If it is red, then it is not the right fluid...

 

ok that makes sense. Let’s say I do go ahead and drain the converter. Are there any extra steps I should take when filling the transmission with new fluid? Any caveats?

 

Be sure and follow the procedure for filling. Once you have fluid in the transmission, raise the car and run it to get it warm, then open the fill hole plug, add fluid until it spills out. Temperature of the fluid should not exceed 50 C. during this or you have to stop, let it cool, then warm it up again and resume. The car has to be level while raised for this, and the plug bolt is inches from the exhaust pipe... I do almost all of my own maintenance, but for this I took it to a well-respected local indie shop as I have no way to safely raise the car and keep it level.

 

6hps don’t care about fluid they will run on anything.

converter can’t be drained. start the engine wait minimum 5 minutes fill till you get a stream. fluid expansion difference is pretty much a non issue but if you’re concerned use a scan tool and wait for 40C to start filling.

nothing you do is going to stop it from wearing out bushings and eventually smoking clutches. any kind of maintenance on an early 6hp26 other than stopping large fluid leaks is a certifiable waste of time

 

already on its deathbed?

 

125k is the max realistic lifespan of an early 6hp26 before you start hitting 3-4 gearbox faults all the time. 06 and up can go much longer

 

Had 2 oilchanges over 225k miles on xj8.
the normal oilchange kit from Zf has 7 liters new pan with magnets and filter. Wich is enough for normal oilchange. About 3 Liter will stay in the torque converter. I did it that way and it helped a lot on an 2003 xj6 3.0 with 90k( so 23 years old oil ) . Drove 2k miles on it then drained the fluid again just through the drain plug on the pan and filled up again with new oil zflifeguard 6 around 4 liters .
the other parts changed when the pan was off is the seal tubrs bridgeseal and connector sleeve for the electric plug .

 

Zf6hp 26 oilchange kit would be 1068.298.062