Hi All,
Thanks Methodical for making this post- your information, along with the artical from Mark made this quit easy.
I'm lucky enough to have access to the Heavy Repair Shop at my office, so it was VERY nice to drove over the pit and be able to work standing up.
Following the directions, I was a little intimidated, but with many wrenching hours behind me everything made sence. One of my mechanics tried to talk me out of this proceedure suggesting that running the engine was dangerous without adequate fluid in the tranny. He insisted that if I wanted to continue anyways that I watch for the cavitation very closely and stop the engine as soon as I see any evidence of bubbles coming from inside the trans.
After draining & removing the pan, I changed the filter. On the top of the filter inlet tube (the part that stick into the trans) there's a small orange rubber o-ring that stuck in the trans when the filter came out. Since the trans was still quite warm it was a bit of a job to get it out but my mechanic insisted that I wasn't to use any tool but my finger. (with a rag around it if it was too warm for my pensil pushing fingers - I'm a salesman
) it came out after a minute or two.
I reinstalled the pan and tightened then torqued each pan bolt evenly.
One advantage of draining the hot ATF direcly into the collection barrel was that I didn't loose the drain plug in the fluid, and was a "fairly clean" proceedure. The down side was that I really had no idea how many quarts (litres) of fluid had been drained. My mechanic suggested that my initial fill should consist of about 10 quarts and he was right on.
I tried twice trying to run the engine and watch the tube by my self, but I kept hearing the return / disposal tube leaking and didn't trust where I was going to see the bubbles from. I got the assistance from my mechanic to start and stop the engine while I attended to the connection below. It was very hard getting a good seal but a much better seal when I was able to hold the connection straight.
The first evidence of cavitation was a what I would consider to be a "very large" bubble in the line. It was very easy to see.
I then filled 7 more quarts, and started to flush again.
The second part of the flush, I had my mechanic shift into drive & reverse to help flush out those chanels. The second portion of the flush took what felt to be approximatly the same amout of engine idle time for the fluid to change colour, as it did the first time to produce the cavitation. I was worried that I was going to miss it but it was very easy to identify when the change happened. However, once all of the fluid in the tube that I could see changed to the brigher red of the new fluid, I began to second guessing my self, thinking I was worried about flushing out too much fluid, and running out of ATF. Since my mechanic did stop the engine as soon as I recognized the colour change right at the beginning of the tube, the flow of the fluid stopped before the end of the 10' hose, and I could see "the line" between the old fluid and the new.
After the flush was complete, I reconnected the return line and cleaned off the underside.
Restarted the engine and let it run for a few minutes watching for leaks. Upon checking the fluid level I needed to add 1 more quart.
Excluding a 1/2 hour worth of clean up, I took 2 hours to complete using only hand tools and waiting for a few minutes for assistance. (The trany shop quoted me 1.5 hrs).
I was slow and diligent with everything and didn't get frustrated, mainly becuase I didn't have any time constraints and nothing went wrong. It was very easy and straight forward and I used exactly 18 quarts, as was stated in the instructions above.
On the drive home - the rumble when shifting under load was gone !!!!
In addition, when testing on the ride home, my Expy appeared to rev higher before shifting, as opposed to where I was expecting it to shift. Smooth shifts and no rumble !!!
Thanks guys!