changing power steering fluid

[biggs85]

Yeah, use the regular Mercon ATF. The stuff I bought was Castrol Dexron Mercon ATF. It's great because for out trucks the ATF is good for the Automatic transmission, the transfercase, and the power steering. If I were to do it again I would use the turkey baster. It sounds a lot easier and less messy than the stupid pump I bought.

 

[aldive]

Originally posted by VairKing
and I dont really see much of an advantage to it (no offence Al!) I would just use regular ATF...

The only advantage is its ability to reduce noise.

 

[Ranger Digger]

couldn't you pull the return line to the PS pump and stick it in a bucket and then with the engine running, just keep filling the PS Pump until clean fluid starts coming out the return line.

 

[94expo]

You could make a home made device to remove the fluid from your Power steering and your transmision. Use a container that won't colaps under a vacuum condition. Attach a small rubber hose (like a vacuum hose) about 6 to 8 feet long. do this by drilling a small hole in the container just big enuf for the hose to slide in. Then use some type of seal/bonding compond and seal in place. next make or use a current opening on the top of the container and atach your shop vac. now you can place the vacuum hose in any thing you may want to remove the fluid and turn on your shop vac and wala. this also works great to do a partial transmision fluid change by sticking the vacuum hose right down the dip stick tube on your tranny. Hope I gave clear instuction on this if not let me know. Ill clean it up.

 

[dogfriend]

this also works great to do a partial transmision fluid change by sticking the vacuum hose right down the dip stick tube on your tranny

I don't know if this works on the A4LD, but I tried to do this on my 5R55E, and there is something blocking the dipstick tube that prevents getting a hose all the way down into the transmission pan. I wasn't able to siphon any appreciable ATF thru the dipstick tube this way.

I wanted to get out most of the ATF before dropping the pan for a filter change, but ended up giving up on this idea and doing it the regular (messy) way.

 

[94expo]

It has to be a very small Vacuum type hoes and it helps to somewhat Round the end of the hose to keep from catching on andy flanges on the way down. If the dip stick will make it then we know a small tube will. (SMALL)

 

[Rydin Dirtay]

damn, how come when i ask a stupid question i get dissed and like 2 posts from moderators telling me they're gona delete them... alwell.. to pump the fluid out i got one of those hand pumps. you stick one end in and pump the bubble. i did the same thing everyone else did but i was wondering.. is there any other type of liquid you could put through that does a better cleaning job?

 

[dogfriend]

Originally posted by 94expo
It has to be a very small Vacuum type hoes and it helps to somewhat Round the end of the hose to keep from catching on andy flanges on the way down. If the dip stick will make it then we know a small tube will. (SMALL)

Yes, but the dipstick doesnt have to go all the way to the bottom of the pan, only enough so that it registers about an 1inch to 1 1/2 on the dipstick which is slanted at an angle, so the fluid depth at that point is even less.

I'm pretty sure that I had the tube in at least as far as the dipstick, but I wasn't able to suck much ATF at all. You really want to get the tube all the way to the bottom to be effective doing a partial change, but there is stuff blocking the path including the trans filter. If you sucked everything out of the pan, that would be about 4 quarts, the whole transmission holds about 10 quarts.

I wish it were this simple, but it didn't work for me. Maybe this is unique to the 5R55E?

 

[94expo]

Why did no one ever put a drain plug on those things????????????

 

[dogfriend]

I think that some people have. There is a drain plug kit from summit that is pretty cheap. I didn't bother to add one because I used syn ATF and I'm going to add an external filter, so I don't plan to drop the pan for another 40 to 50K miles (hopefully).

Also, aftermarket pans have drain plugs but I haven't found one yet for the 5R55E but there are a couple available for the 4R70W (5.0L engine)