doublebase
Thread starter
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
- Messages
- 2,852
Update — Finished the job yesterday.
It was apparent that someone had serviced the transmission previously, which made me feel better because the SUV has 94,000 miles on it. Pan looked great, magnets didn’t have much on them. Fluid was dark but not horrendous...and it didn’t smell burnt. Which was great.
Pan wasn’t the easiest to get off because of the wire harness brackets towards the front corners, but not bad either (my 2018 Silverado was much tougher to do).
I ended up draining the torque converter too - you can really screw this up because the bell housing doesn’t allow you to fit a Allen socket into the bolt because it screws your angle up just enough where the Allen can’t go into the bolt cleanly. You’ll strip it...and I started to, so what I did was I decided to hammer the socket and extension right into the bolt and pray that I’d get it in enough to be able to loosen it. And I did. Bolt is not reusable...put the new one in just using an Allen wrench/key. That fit fine.
Drain and measured 9 quarts of fluid from the pan and torque converter.
Replaced my idler pulley while I had it on the lift. Easiest thing I’ve ever replaced on any car.
Up next I plan to do spark plugs and air cleaners and a wheel bearing.
Quick side note — A retired Chrysler tech walked over to me when I was doing the pan and said it’s the same transmission that’s in his jeep grand Cherokee. Not the SAME, but the same...as in Chrysler bought the transmission off of Mercedes and put it in their vehicles with “modifications”. Which means they cheapened it for mass production. Told me about a few problems Chrysler had because of those modifications.
It was apparent that someone had serviced the transmission previously, which made me feel better because the SUV has 94,000 miles on it. Pan looked great, magnets didn’t have much on them. Fluid was dark but not horrendous...and it didn’t smell burnt. Which was great.
Pan wasn’t the easiest to get off because of the wire harness brackets towards the front corners, but not bad either (my 2018 Silverado was much tougher to do).
I ended up draining the torque converter too - you can really screw this up because the bell housing doesn’t allow you to fit a Allen socket into the bolt because it screws your angle up just enough where the Allen can’t go into the bolt cleanly. You’ll strip it...and I started to, so what I did was I decided to hammer the socket and extension right into the bolt and pray that I’d get it in enough to be able to loosen it. And I did. Bolt is not reusable...put the new one in just using an Allen wrench/key. That fit fine.
Drain and measured 9 quarts of fluid from the pan and torque converter.
Replaced my idler pulley while I had it on the lift. Easiest thing I’ve ever replaced on any car.
Up next I plan to do spark plugs and air cleaners and a wheel bearing.
Quick side note — A retired Chrysler tech walked over to me when I was doing the pan and said it’s the same transmission that’s in his jeep grand Cherokee. Not the SAME, but the same...as in Chrysler bought the transmission off of Mercedes and put it in their vehicles with “modifications”. Which means they cheapened it for mass production. Told me about a few problems Chrysler had because of those modifications.