Good morning fellas,

1990 xjs 3.6 auto

Is this normal. When my car is cold and on its first run of the day I set off and it takes longer to shift into the second gears than when its warmed up. The rpm is well past 3k before that first shift.
It pretty much sorts itself out after half a mile or so so I'm not concerned and presume its quite normal ?

I must confess I have no idea how the auto transmission works but I kinda of figured out in my own head that the fluids need to circulate and loosen up a bit before proper operation ?

Carl

 

Nope. It should work straight away so you may have a problem.
When was the transmission fluid last changed?

 

Cheers Steve,

Not sure when the oil was last changed as I've only had the car a couple of weeks.

Apart from that initial first gear change the car drives faultlessly after that. Guess I will change the oil as a matter of course and see what happens then.

What oil should I be purchasing ? Any recommendations ?

Carl

 

Agreed.

The 3.6 is a 4HP22, with cable shift control (kickdown cable), as versus's the later 4ltr with electronic change.

Fluid integrity is waaaaaay up there on my concern list.

It is simple to drain and refill (about 4ltrs), and the pan can stay in situ for this at the moment.

These transmissions are "tuff", but they thrive on clean fresh fluid every 12 months or so, regardless of distance travelled.

 

Standard auto transmission fluid does the job; if you check the level on yours (the engine has to be running and up to temperature and you need to cycle through all the gears before checking) it should be nice and pink and clean; any other colour and it is shot.

 

Cheers guys,

Am I being thick here, I can find the dipstick but not the fill up point !!
Ill get it sorted and see what that does, it is low, and not pink !


Must get a service manual !

Cheers

Carl

 

Fill up through the dipstick tube; use a small funnel!

 

Your pulling my pud arnt ya ?

 

Filling/adding fluid via the dipstick tube/hole is the typical arrangement. I'm hard pressed to think of an exception...but there might a few out there.

Cheers
DD

 

Well you learn something new everyday, seems a bit of a strange way to get a load of oil in. It take 4 ltrs I believe ?

I had MGs before and filling the overdrive unit was performed by filling it directly. I know they are totally different cars but imagined that the top up of transmission oil would be similar...

I better buy that little funnel then :-)

 

Yeah, I seem to recall that my MGs had a little access door in the transmission tunnel for adding trans oil!

The true total capacity of your transmission is probably about 10 quarts...but the sump only holds about 4 quarts. If you repeat the drain-n-refill process several times with some driving time inbetween you'll eventually be rid of all the gunky old oil. Very easy if your trans sump has a drain plug. My understanding is that some do and some don't.

Often refilling is easier with a l-o-n-g slender funnel rather than merely a small one. You can buy 'em for this purpose. They have a small diameter tip/opening to fit into the dipstick tube

Cheers
DD

 

So, off I trotted to the local auto store to get some oil. Draining it was easy enough and filling up through the dipstick tube worked surprisingly well too :-)
I think I have the required amount in the sump but will check tomorrow when its cold.

When shifting into drive there is more definite engagement, what I mean is it gives a good jolt when when shifting in the D and reverse, more than before.

I understand there will be a jolt but don't really know how it should feel as I have nothing to gauge against.

Is it usual to have a good jolt ?

Thank you

Carl

 

I know on my 86 xj6 which has the Borg Warner 66. I had the same problem. Mine ended up being so dirty inside it would clog up the governer which is the second part of determining which gear to be in. I would clean up the governor and it ran well for about a mile or so, until it was clogged up again. I ended up replaceing the fluid multiple times. So my question would be to see how much crud was on the magnet in there. If it was completely covered you might want to change the fluid a second time, since you can't ever really change all the fluid at once in a transmission.

When you mean jolt, are you stating it shift real hard into gear?

 

Carl,

A "jolt" is probably a good thing. The word "jolt" in open to all sorts of understanding, but a definative uptake is quite normal.

All this is also dependant on idle RPM, and too high an idle will "jolt" savagely and do other damage eventually. A nice "firm uptake" is what is considered "normal".

Check that fluid at operating temp, that is after about 10 miles of driving (ZF spec not mine), engine running in "P", and always use the "hot" scale. The "cold" scale is only a guide at refill time.

 

Nobody seems to mention changing the filter, this is very important too.

 

The filter is especially important if it is clogged, yes . The thing is, they almost never are.

If the car/transmission has an unknown history it's never a bad idea to drop the transmission pan for a good look-see of what's going on. You can clean any gunk (hopefully very, very little) from the bottom of the pan and replace the filter. After that, if everything looks hunky-dory, periodic fluid-only replacements will do the trick.

If you see a big load of clutch material, sludge, or, god forbid, metallic content in the in the filter or pan.....well, that's cause for a bit of hand-wringing over the longevity of the transmission. In these cases, new fluid and filter certainly can't hurt....but of course it won't renew worn out parts.

So, yes, although new filters are never a bad thing, in many circles filter replacement has been de-emphasized. A clean filter doesn't need replacing. A contaminated filter indicates problems that new fluid and filter are unlikely to solve.

Cheers
DD

 

I want to change the transmission fluid in my XJS, it has the Getrag 290 manual transmission. Has anyone done this and is it pretty easy?

Thanks,

Allan