I have been thrown a bit of a curve ball with regards to wife's health. I will not go into details on here other than to say it has taken up a lot of my time.

Anyway. I started the fill procedure the other day and have so far put in 7.5 litres. So by my calculations have another 3 litres to go.

Very painstaking because I am using a hand pump. I think I can finish the fill by Sunday.

A bit too cold in the garage right now.

 

Thanks for the update. Hope your wife is OK soon.

 

Praying for your wife, John.

 

So completed the transmission fluid fill just now and I managed to ONLY get a total of 8.5 quarts pumped in which I find a bit puzzling and worrying.

Bottles are labeled in liters so I did convert to quarts.

My manual states the transmission and cooler hold a total of 10.53 quarts.

I do not think the torque converter was totally drained but could it really hold 2 quarts after some drained out when I was moving it around?

The one thing I have not done yet is run thru the gears. That will likely pump more fluid into other "cavities" in the valve body and clutch plates.

So will look at that later.

 

So just ran thru the gears while car is up off the ground. Nothing seems abnormal and I can feel it go into reverse and a forward gear. Park and neutral just fine.

I am showing a gearbox fault which I was expecting since it was originally a hard fault so I would think running jlr sdd transmission adaptations would get rid of that IF the fault cause is gone.

The original failure code was a P0730. I have the same code now however I also have a P0736 failure code which is incorrect reverse gear ratio.

I may well have had that initially and I just did not see the 1/2 message.

There was no overflow of fluid when filling the transmission so thats one bit of good news.

 

Another job to do before going further!

I just discovered a trans cooler line leak. I must have made it worse by jiggling around the lines when taking off and putting back the transmission.

Its right at one of the crimps up front.

So have to make up my mind how to do this. Replace completely both lines or do the crimp cut off and replace with hose and clamps.

Getting at the connectors at the radiator seems quite problematic.

Any suggestions?

 

I will do the crimp cut off since I have the tools to do the job in situ.

I will likely do a slight flare at the end of the aluminum tube as well before pressing on the rubber tubing. will see.

 

It was very easy dremmeling the crimp off the transmission line however I could see trans fluid drips on two other crimps.

What is more the rubber hose is not in the least bit flexible its almost "petrified".

So will have to replace both lines.

 

Trans cooler lines ordered so will be a few days before I get those.

I have already removed the air filter box etc and will drain some coolant tomorrow so that I can remove the top radiator hose which I hope will give me access to the lower cooler line radiator connection.

The upper one is easy to get at. I know I will have to thread these lines separately both getting them out and the new ones in.

So will have these cooler lines out of the way ready for the new ones.

I removed the new oil filter to do the dremel work and damaged it with sharp indents so have ordered another one. I replaced the oil pan gasket a few days ago so replaced the oil filter as well!!

 

My new trans cooler lines came in just now. The plastic pieces that hold the lines together seemed to be way more brittle than my old ones. Broke two of them. Still have the old ones.

So will start the arduous task of "threading" the new ones into place.

I did not touch the upper radiator hose as just getting the filter box out of the way gave me sufficient room, albeit very very tight, to get to the lower radiator trans pipe connection.

 

John,

I recently replaced the transmission cooler lines. I had to disconnect all the plastic clips holding them together, install them separately and then reclip. I also could not find a way to get them in there without bending the aluminum sections to get them over the cross member and then re-straightening them once in place. Mine don't leak now so I guess got away with it. If you search my posts you can see my write up on it.

Jeff

 

I probably have seen your posts Jeff as I did quite a bit of research on the subject.

I took all the plastic clips off before taking out the old lines and did not have to "bend" the pipes much at all getting the old ones out.

I took the top line out first and then the bottom one and will put the new ones back in the same way bottom one first.

The lower radiator connection was the most difficult part of the job due to very limited access. I used a 19 mm wrench exactly as you did.

A tad too cold in my garage right now to do the job.

I note that you have a dealer appt to have the adaptations done so will be interested to see what happens with that.

I will do as you did and keep the protective caps on the lines when snaking them.

 

I did get the TCM reflashed and Adaptations cleared but my car still has problems. As I have posted here the 1-2 adaptation will not set and we still have a downshift problem when trying to find 2nd from a higher gear. I will keep the board posted on my progress.

Jeff

 

I managed to get the new transmission cooler lines "snaked" into place late yesterday.

However that is after dropping the steering rack AND lifting the engine about an inch!

No way could I snake the lines without significant distortion. Way too much in my opinion.

So then I dropped the steering rack which was very easy to do only 3 bolts. Still no joy.

Then I took off the two nuts on the engine supports and jacked the engine up from underneath about an inch. It took a lot more jacking than just that because the whole car would raise up as the engine weight was taken off the struts.

Once I did all that I was able to snake the lines thru one at a time. Still needed a bit of force but not much. Also fed the lines in from the rear.

Took about 30 minutes total to drop the rack and raise the engine and some of that was finding the correct sockets.

So today will bolt everything back up and finish the fill procedure.

One thing I forgot to mention was the fact the catalytic converter was in the way so did loosen it to move it about an inch which helped.

 

I dread the day I have to install the cooling lines that are sitting on my shelf. (With protective caps on)

So far so good on my current lines.

 

It is not fun that I can say.

I spent most of today finishing off the front suspension components on my Dakota including a new front drive CV axle. Guess what. I have a leaking trans cooler line.

This one I will have a go at repairing with new hosing.

 

Well, I spoke too soon. One of the lines is "wet" - definitely a slow leak for sure.

I'll deal w/ it during the summer. Have to decide if I swap out the lines or do the "situ" fix or take the new lines and do the fix and install in car.

Whoever had the car before me had the trans serviced (which is good) but never dealt with the mechatronic seal.

Pulled out the original w/ orange o rings. Source of the trans leak. Trans is getting the royal treatment this weekend...lol

 

If you do decide to renew the lines I would suggest raising the engine as much as possible and not to bother with dropping the steering rack.

If I had raised my engine another 3/4" my line replacement would have been a relative walk in the park. However because I jacked it up from underneath and the fact that the car raised quite a bit before the engine raised I was at the limit of my hydraulic jack's reach. I could have re-positioned it but chose not to.

So I did face having to "flex" the lines a bit to get them in.

The other thing is I did not pay enough attention to where the front flexible longer line ended up!

It ended up poked way up beside the radiator fan and was a bit difficult to get it positioned correctly. If I had realized at the time what was happening I could have avoided a bit more frustration.

 

Thanks for the tips..

 

Hi John,

So from your description, would it be easier to use an engine support bar from above that would lift the engine relative to the body?

Don