How do I fill my tranny?!

[Tyson0317]

I have a 95 E150 cargo van with the "big" V8 and auto tranny. A few blocks from my house, I notticed globs of black smoke coming from me! I stopped and saw oil pouring from out of the bottom of the van. I determined the fluid to be ATF (of some type) and in all I estimate that maybe 2-3 quarts have leaked out on the ground and God knows how much before I stopped - the smoke was from it hitting the exhaust pipe. It was coming out pretty fast...

I babyed it home and by the time I got there the leak stopped (likely ran out of fluid). Now the problem is that I cannot figure out where the leak was at. When looking under it, it seemded to be coming from the bell housing area. I looked at the cooler lines (at least what I think are cooler lines - 2 hoses about 1/4 OD leading to the radiator) - they look OK, but everything under there is a dirty oily mess...

I would like to top off the tranny, let it run and see if I can find the leak while its happening, but alas I cannot figure out where the hell the fill hole on it is! There is no dipstick, no drain plug and no fill plug that I can find!! How can that be?!

Also, any ideas on what could have broken are welcome (although that is secondary to figuring out how to add ATF to it...)

[rclarke]

You fill the transmission with oil through the dipstick tube. It should be located under the hood, passenger side, probably behind the air cleaner. It can be difficult to see but it has to be there.

[nukethewhales]

i know sometimes its real hard to find stuff but there has to be a dipstick at least??? once my tubes were not connected under the hood somewhere really obvious and i didnt notice after looking forever also

reply to last post; why put oil into the transmission?

[Dannym]

Tranny fluid, not motor oil. Actually tranny fluid is a type of oil and you can dispose of it at the recycler with the used motor oil.