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Too much transmission fluid - ATX

8K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  Bar 
#1 ·
I recently checked the level of the trans fluid and it needed a little bit. My brother was with me and he added the fluid, but he added a little bit too much. Is there a way to drain the fluid without dropping the pan?
 
#2 ·
Find someone with an oil extractor (used to change oil via the dipstick), a vacuum bleeder (mity vac is one brand), or a suction gun (used to suck the oil out of rear ends on RWD vehicles). With any of these and a long length of small tubing, you can suck the fluid out via the dipstick tube. Don't do it with the engine/transmission too hot, as there might be a risk of melting the tubing, depending upon what type of small tubing you are using. I suppose you could rig up something with a turkey baster, duct tape, and small tubing as well, but I'm not sure you'd get enough suction to get much, if any, out using that "handyman's special" approach.
 
#4 ·
Ok here's what I did on my 2000 ZX3 to get rid of some of the fluid.

Ispi
Hay FORDZX32000 With a gasket in place the next pan drop should be a much easier If a leak does develop then we can re torque, up to 10 ft.lb. if necessary, right? I did consider a DIY tranny flush as suggested by others on this forum: Pull the upper cooler hose, run the car in neutral until 3 qts is pumped out, refill and repeat. This is supposed to be safe, especially as a way to flush the torque converter after a pan drop. May do this at the 90K pan drop.

So from there here's what I did.
1. I pulled the car up onto the car ramps.
2. Took a look at the pan bolts and then looked at the tranny cooler lines.
3. I went for the tranny cooler lines as they appeared to be the easy route.
4. There are two tranny cooler lines that run into the tranny cooler located in the front of the car behind the radiator fans. (A) Top cooler line is the supply line. (B) Lower cooler line is the return line.
5. On my car the top cooler line had a rubber hose that connects to a metal line that runs into the cooler. The rubber line was connected with a hose clamp.
6. I unscrewed the hose clamp and slid the rubber hose off.
7. I had a bucket there to catch any fluid.
8. I put the car in neutral with the parking brake on.
9. Had a friend start the car while I'm directing the gushing fluid into the bucket. FYI, Once the car is started it will pump that fluid out real quick!!!
10. I let it pump out about 3-4 qts of fluid and then shut the car off.
11. I reconnected the hose and added 2-qts of new fluid.
12. Back the car off the ramps and let it get to operating temp as well as shifting thru all of the gears.
13. I then added fluid as needed until I had the corrrect level.
I can tell you it was not a bad job to do in order to remove the overfill of fluid.
However I would advise being careful as not to mess up your tranny by pumping all the fluid out of the T/C which is what I did not do. I don't know if it could screw something up or not with the car running with all of the fluid out of the T/C.
Anyway I hope this will help you and others.
Good luck!!!!

Here's the full thread.
http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124533
 
#5 ·
Thank you so much for all who replied. I think I am going to try your method FordZX32000, it sounds like the easiest way to do it with the tools I have on hand.
 
#10 ·
I forgot about this thread. I did get it drained out. Thanks to all who helped.
 
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