Hey Don,

I still have it sitting with the new fluid and pan on. I've been researching before I do anything. At this point, I'm positive I overfilled it. I figure I'm as much as 2 liters too high. The plan is to drain the extra fluid and do the fluid check very, very carefully. If it still gives me issues, I'll have to bite the bullet and drop the pan again and buy more fluid. I'll also purchase the sleeve if I have to fill it from scratch again.

 

Hi oleschoolb,

At what temperature did you reinstall the fill plug, and how much fluid was trickling out?

If you decide to drop the pan again, consider also purchasing the rectangular bridge seal and the three tubular seals. They come in a kit along with the electrical connector sleeve if you buy from thectsc.com.

Cheers,

Don

 

I'll be honest, I should have had a helper. I know I didn't monitor it closely enough and it was a big learning experience. I tried to get it back in around 40, but I know it was probably a bit off. I also got it over 50 once and had to shut it down to cool. I now have roughly 9 liters in there, which is way too much by anyone's estimates. So what that tells me is the temperature was too cool and so the car seemed like it needed more fluid. It was quite a failed experiment on my part.

 

Update: I took the car to a local Euro shop and had them inspect my work. Unfortunately, they don't work on Jaguars, but they USED to work on BMW, and many of those shared our transmission. Anyway, they said everything looked good. The fluid was a tad high, but nothing crazy. They drained it and drove it a little and it felt fine. Buuut, of course when I went to pick it up it was jerking/searching for gear again.

The car isn't storing any codes at all, which seems odd. Would it not store codes if it was an issue with the solenoids or something mechanical? Another issue, I wasn't sure where my original leak was coming from. It seemed like the pan gasket to me, but I couldn't tell for sure. It doesn't seem to be leaking any longer. But I didn't change the mechatronic sleeve when I changed the pan and fluid. Would it be worth changing it all again to see if that sorts it out?

 

I just got done transmission oil change, mechatronics sleeve change; bridge seal and valve seals. I was getting ready for this for 4 months, waiting for getting access to car lift.
Any way, it went reasonably smooth.
I took a large wheel hub socket to push on new sleeve so I could lock it in place. I cold not push it hard enough just with my hand and I did libricated o-rings with oil.
When I took mechatronics package out I discovered that one pin on connector is bend a little. I guess I lucked out: I did not breack it when I put connector back on. I was tempted to straiten it out, but did not do it. Those pins are nickel plated hard bronze and do not take much of deflection before they break.
When I filled it initially, started car and was shifting gears, on two occasions there were message from TCM something about wrong gear ratio. After I finished filling it on running engine at temperature message did not appear. I cleared messages in TCM. On the way home I went through all gears and no errors. OBDII scanner Icarsoft did not show any errors in TCM.
All in all it was not a difficult job. I would not do it without car lift, though. If there is an advise to anybody who will follow: Respect aged plastic and aluminum surfaces! Do not use brut force, use brass sharp owl to remove rubber valve seals they will not scratch aluminim.

 

I'm only experienced with older, less complex vehicles, but upon driving it more it feels a lot like a bad valve body. Would a failed mechantronic sleeve mimic the symptoms of a bad valve body?

 

A leaking Mechatronic connector sleeve can allow transmission fluid to contaminate the connector pins, which can interfere with proper communciation between the Mechatronic, Engine Control Module, Instrument Cluster, ABS Module, etc., all of which can lead to poor gear shift quality.

In your case, it may be more likely that your valve body bridge seal is cracked or compressed and your tubular seals are compressed, allowing pressure loss between the valve body and gearbox. It might be worth dropping the pan and valve body and replacing those seals. It's not a difficult job, and I've done it many times with the car on jack stands rather than a lift.

One thing to pay careful attention to is the lever or yoke that engages the Park solenoid - be sure the parts are aligned the same way when you reinstall the valve body.

Cheers,

Don

 

Many thanks, Don. Your knowledge and advice here is invaluable. I appreciate your time.

 

If you drop the valve body again put in the sonnax zip kit that matches your valve body. Makes a world of difference

 

+1 on the Sonnax bits. Two years ago I did the Zip kit, along with new valve body to trans seals and installed new, genuine ZF solenoids when I ran into flare shift issues (between 2-3 and 5th-6th gear changes). Since doing the work, it's been working well since -- 50k miles on, as the car is quickly approaching 200k miles.

Paul

 

Great info. Thanks. Are the seals sold separately or in a kit? Any places you prefer to order from?

 

I bought mine from fcpeuro.com but they are almost local to me.
On west coast I heard good words about thectsc.com, both were mentioned in this thread earlier.
Theese folks can answer many question regarding fits, compatibility and part numbers:
https://zftranspart.mypinnaclecart.com/index.php?p=home

 

I have not run into a 6HP26 that needed solenoids yet (and the solenoids are easy to test and expensive to replace), but the cars are getting to the age when more and more solenoid failures will occur.

So far, I have been able to resolve rough shifts in 2004 and early 2005 cars by changing the fluid, valve body seals, Mechatronic connector sleeve, and pan/filter, then updating the Mechatronic to the latest firmware with SDD.

Eriksson Industries, the company in the link Big Koshka posted, is a major supplier to professional transmission repair shops, and they know their stuff. Another major supplier is Transtar at https://www.transtar1.com. They list ZF parts in their Import transmission catalog. I also use fcpeuro.com (lifetime warranty on most parts they sell) and thectsc.com (an authorized ZF parts vendor).

Cheers,

Don

 

Solenoids failures. I do not want even to ask for symptoms for two reasons:
I do not want my initial conclusions being biased;
but most important: if you don't know it, it diesn't hurt you! (RIGHT?))