Hey guys,
I bought a 96 F250 powerstroke in late july and have been doing some serious work on it. however now the cold weather is starting to move in and i am wanted to get my truck ready for this harsh indiana winter we are suppose to have. It currently have 144k miles on it and i doubt the previous owner did anything to it expect change the oil. So i was wondering since it has 144k on it if it would actually do harm to change the transfer case fluid like it would for a transmission or if it wouldnt have an effect on it.
thanks
lucas

 

There's no harm in changing it. It's just a pain in the rear.

 

Pain in the rear? It's gotta be one of the simplest fluid change procedures out there. Remove the drain plug and drain. Re-install drain plug. Remove fill plug and fill to the bottom of the fill hole. Re-install fill plug. Just be careful not to overtighten the plugs.

 

Ive never found an easy way to fill it.

 

Oh. Also. Remove the fill plug first. Then if you can't get it out your not stranded and can work it on your own time instead of the trucks

 

^^^^^ Good practice, checking the fill plug before starting. Applies to all "cases" - tranny, diffs, t-case, etc.

As for filling, I forgot to mention, I usu. just transfer a quart of ATF into an empty gear lube bottle, the skinny kind with the "tip" cap. Then just squirt it in.

 

i simply screw a gear oil cap on the atf bottle and squirt it in.if the fluid comes out deep brown metallic,the pump failed and unit isn't long for this world fyi.with it just taking a couple quarts,and just a couple mins,i just flush it every season.

 

awesome thanks guy i appreciate it

 

Pump? On the transfer case?

I have done the same thing with the ATF bottle and the tip from the gear oil. That seems to work pretty well.

Someone else has suggested that THIS is a great way to refill the fluid in this type of application. Clamp the line, fill the bag and hag it up on the mirror, insert tube into fill hole (oh, boy.. here we go) and remove the clamp. I think it's a great idea, but I haven't mustered the courage to buy one yet!

This should make for interesting conversation this afternoon, lol.

 

Doh!, never even thought to check if the caps are the same thread. Too easy!

Our city-fied, clean-fingernail, DIY-impaired neighbors already think we're a little weird, just seeing us tinkering with the trucks as they walk their designer dogs down the street. I could just imagine what they'd think, seeing one of these ^^^^^ full of a pink liquid hanging from the mirror. I'm tempted to try it, just to reinforce the notion.....

(So will the transfer case actually appreciate the "lubricated, non-traumatic tip"?.....)

As for the OP's concern about number of miles and perils of changing the fluid, that issue never applied to simple "bath" cases like a transfer case or differential or manual transmission. It was only with automatics, a concern that a flush would mobilize contaminants that would then plug up valve body passages and other small components in the automatic's byzantine structure. T-cases do have some sort of simple pump built into the mechanism, but there's no hydraulic pressure built up, and nothing internal that's susceptible to this like in an auto tranny. And from what I read, even with automatic trannies, it's sort of a holdover from a bygone era; modern (i.e. '90s or later) tranny designs aren't really susceptible to this.

 

I guess if we're going to be subjected to the stereotype, we might as well get a laugh or two out of it while we're at it!

For what that's worth I guess you could make your own version of this with some vinyl tubing and an old gear oil bottle... I've been known to push a piece of tubing over the funnel tip of a gear oil bottle for those hard to reach places, but if you cut the bottom off the bottle, I guess you could just hang it up and use it as a funnel too.

 

Complete the scene with a throwaway white Tyvek jumpsuit, a pair of nitrile gloves and a mechanic's stethoscope, all from Harbor Freight.....

 

I just bought a 97 4x4 with a manual transmission and was going to change all the fluids tomorrow so I decided to do a little research.

Is there a pump on a manual and it holds atf and not gear oil? I had and older ford but this is all news to me.

There seems to be some confusion about where to put atf or gear oil in them and it centers on whether or not the transmission is made of aluminum or cast iron. From what I have found I need to put atf in trans and transfer case.

 

No pump in the ZF5. ZF calls for SYNTHETIC ATF in the ZF5 when it's commissioned behind a diesel engine.

Borg-Warner 1356 transfer case has a magnesium case, and takes ATF (synth or dino).

 

Yes, Mercon ATF in the trans and t-case. You can also use a full sythetic ATF. There is a fill plug on the driver side of the trans. Fill it up to that point where it starts to run out. The fill plug on the t-case is on the back toward the rear of the truck. The higher one is the fill plug and same as the trans, fill it until it runs back out that hole.