Well, what should have been an easy tranny filter/fluid swap turned into a huge debacle. I started at noon on Saturday, got to experiance the idiot linkage bracket which uses tranny pan bolts. Then I got to pull the pan, dump fluid everywhere[&:] and then clean up the pan.

Debris was minimal. Only minor clutch material and no metal shavings. I was pleased. I bougth the truck with 34k and it now has 77k and so far as I know, hasn't had a tranny service. The fluid looked good and didn't smell burnt.

I cleaned the pan and magnet, and then noticed I couldn't pull out the old seal. No problem, I'll just shove the new filter back in place. Well, I bolted everything back up , put in four quarts, nothing. [:@] Turns out the filter fell back down in the pan since my dumbass didn't put the new seal in. I couldn't get hte old seal out to save my life so a mechanic friend got it for me. Trade secret, he says. I bolted it back up at midnight last night. still need to stop and get more trans fluid......


What a day.

To top it off, my front diff is leaking REALLY bad....[:-]

 

Sounds like you had a fun weekend...

I don't think I have ever replaced the seal for the filter. I just clean up the old one and feel for defects. Then I put some atf on the new filter where it presses up in and make sure it seats properly.

Too bad you didn't install a drain plug. No fuss, no mess... Just pull the plug every 25-30k miles and replace the drained out fluid. No need to mess with the filter.

 

I wish I would have just waited and ordered a B&M Deep Pan with a drain plug and extra capacity. That's what I should have done! I'm an idiot....