I am thinking of replacing all of the lubricants in my truck with synthetics for better mileage and longevity. How much more difficult is changing the tranny fluid and rear lube than a simple engine oil change ?

01' Ranger
4 cyl
5 speed

 

Changing ATF and differential lube is a bit more difficult since there are gaskets and a lot more bolts involved. The tranny change may be messy unless your pan has a drain plug.

The diff is the easier of the two. Usually you need to remove the diff cover. undo the bottom bolts completely and loosen the top and side ones. Pry the cover open at the bottom and let the fluid drain into a pan. Once the fluid is drained remove the cover completely and check inside. Look for metal chunks, and wipe the insides with a clean cloth and get as much fluid out of the bottom of the carrier as you can. Take a look at the magnet, it should have a light to medium coating of silvery fuzz, no chunks. Check the fluid that you dumped into a pan, any chunks of metal there bigger than a grain of rice? Look at the gear teeth. They should all be smooth and shiney on their contact patch. check for broken or chipped teeth. Smell the fluid, it should smell sulfery or oily, not burnt. If you are lucky, it will be dar or light honey color.

If everything is OK, put on a new pan gasket, I like to use some sealer, some people don't, check your shop manual for sure. When I use a sealer, I clean the surfaces really good with a solvent(non greasy) then I put the gasket on and torque it down to spec(I think most are 25 Inch pounds?) then let it sit over night. Then use a tranny fluid pump and put the fluid in the fill hole on the side. When the fluid starts to drip our, put in the plug. Run it around for awhile and check for leaks and top up the fluid if you need to. Stick your finger in the hole the fluid should be within about an inch of the hole.

For ATF, much messier potentially. Same general procedure as with the diff. If there is no drain plug, try to have one corner of the pan lower and opened first so the fluid drains from that corner. If you are lucky, you will only spill a little. WIpe things out, look for the same kinds of things as with the diff. The fluid should be red and smell chemically, not burnt smelling or black. Get a new filter install it. Same general procedure to close it up and fill. If you really want to do it right drain the torque converter and refill it too.



Good Luck.

Jim Henderson

 

Jim, thanx for the info. Looks like it's more than I want to fool with. I'll sit at work on a Saturday reading FTE for time and a half and pay friend to do it for me !

 

Yeah, it's not hard to do but takes more time and is messy. This is a grey zone for me, do I let a shop do it to save myself the hassle, or do I do it so I can inspect everything? You can tell a lot by looking at and smelling the fluid and the bottom of the pan and drain pan.

I usually will do it if I have some time and the weather is nice. If you do it yourself, be sure to have a bag of kitty litter handy to soak up any spills.

Jim Henderson

 

for automatic transmissions, i suggest getting a pro to do it. I suggest pep-boys etc. My reasoning for this is that when you simply drain the transmission the torque convertor (which holds up to 30%?) of the fluid remains unchanged. Pro's have machines that can effectively flush the entire transmission (including torque convertor) doing a much more effective job....plus they can handle the mess!

my $0.02

 

If you have a C6 or C4 tranny you can change the fluid in the TC real easy. Refilling is a little harder. I bought one of the little pumps that they use to put fluid in lower outboard motors. Screws right to the bottle of tranny fluid. Just had to turn the converter a little ways and was able to put about a quart in. Then put an extra quart in the tranny and let it run a little check it and kept repeating until the level was OK.