Dick Berg
Active Member
- Joined
- July 28, 2005
- Messages
- 64
- Reaction score
- 17
- City, State
- San Jose, CA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1997 Explorer EB 4L SOHC
I changed the transmission fluid, gasket and filter recently by dropping the pan. It took about 4 quarts of Mercon V fluid.
The fluid was quite dark with about 50K miles since the last fluid change.
My grandson, who drives the vehicle, said it was driving fine.
This last weekend, we attempted to remove the 4 quarts in the pan by hand-pumping it out via the fill tube, to replace it with new.
The problem was we were only able to remove one quart before we started just pulling air.
This was surprising since I thought we would have been able to pull at least a few more quarts out.
We tried orienting the vehicle on a slope, both front end higher and lower, but it was no help.
Does anyone have an explanation for this?
I have read about disconnecting the transmission fluid line at the radiator, and running the engine while putting more fluid in the fill tube. This supposedly would make it relatively easy to replace all of the fluid, including that in the torque converter, short of going to a place that has all of the equipment to do it and pay through the nose.
Is this a recommended technique or is it too risky for us to do it?
Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks,
stepdadbob
The fluid was quite dark with about 50K miles since the last fluid change.
My grandson, who drives the vehicle, said it was driving fine.
This last weekend, we attempted to remove the 4 quarts in the pan by hand-pumping it out via the fill tube, to replace it with new.
The problem was we were only able to remove one quart before we started just pulling air.
This was surprising since I thought we would have been able to pull at least a few more quarts out.
We tried orienting the vehicle on a slope, both front end higher and lower, but it was no help.
Does anyone have an explanation for this?
I have read about disconnecting the transmission fluid line at the radiator, and running the engine while putting more fluid in the fill tube. This supposedly would make it relatively easy to replace all of the fluid, including that in the torque converter, short of going to a place that has all of the equipment to do it and pay through the nose.
Is this a recommended technique or is it too risky for us to do it?
Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks,
stepdadbob
