Today I helped a friend of mine to do the initial fluid changes on the aforementioned parts of his 2019 ram classic with 26k miles on the clock and I'm laying out the process used and some observations.
We started with the diff that had a 14mm allen style drain plug and a rubber/plastic fill plug that I had never seen before which I just popped out with a flathead screwdriver. It did not inspire much confidence in the longevity but I haven't heard of problems with them however that might be my naivety. The fluid that came out was green and milky like there had been water entering the system so he was ecstatic to get that out of there early. We used Valvoline synthetic 75w90 in the pouch and it took more or less 2.5 quarts including some spillage involved and reusing the plastic plug did not result in any leaks.
The transmission is one of the zf8 variants and my friend did not want to get a new pan at this time for the filter change so it was a drain and fill. This is a hemi version where the exhaust crosses over right beneath the drain plug and makes it a real pain to get to. My solution to this was a 6 dollar set of harbor freight Allen keys which I grinded the shorter end of the 10mm down to just long enough to fit in-between the plug and exhaust to drain. The plug doesn't have to come all the way out for fluid to drain at a decently slow pace so we just left it partially in with the special key still attached and waited it out. Came back after 10 minutes and it was just a couple drips so it wasn't too bad a wait. The fluid came out basically the exact translucent green that new ZF8 fluid, always happy to see that.
The real pain comes in the filling and leveling procedure. The rear of the truck has to be jacked up a substantial amount to level the transmission, the fill plug is also right next to the exhaust and the procedure involved is pretty tedious. After the fill, starting of the truck, fill, reverse, drive, 2nd, neutral and back to park, check and fill all before the transmission gets to 122 degrees from a start of 100 is a test of speed on the ground. All in all we used around 6-6.5 quarts of transmission fluid.
My friend opted for maxlife in this change as a true Valvoline purist (his motor oil also shares the brand). When we went on the test drive the first couple shifts through each gear seemed a bit wonky but everything smoothed out real quickly and he is happy with the overall procedure.
Feel free to chime in and tell me how wrong we did this
We started with the diff that had a 14mm allen style drain plug and a rubber/plastic fill plug that I had never seen before which I just popped out with a flathead screwdriver. It did not inspire much confidence in the longevity but I haven't heard of problems with them however that might be my naivety. The fluid that came out was green and milky like there had been water entering the system so he was ecstatic to get that out of there early. We used Valvoline synthetic 75w90 in the pouch and it took more or less 2.5 quarts including some spillage involved and reusing the plastic plug did not result in any leaks.
The transmission is one of the zf8 variants and my friend did not want to get a new pan at this time for the filter change so it was a drain and fill. This is a hemi version where the exhaust crosses over right beneath the drain plug and makes it a real pain to get to. My solution to this was a 6 dollar set of harbor freight Allen keys which I grinded the shorter end of the 10mm down to just long enough to fit in-between the plug and exhaust to drain. The plug doesn't have to come all the way out for fluid to drain at a decently slow pace so we just left it partially in with the special key still attached and waited it out. Came back after 10 minutes and it was just a couple drips so it wasn't too bad a wait. The fluid came out basically the exact translucent green that new ZF8 fluid, always happy to see that.
The real pain comes in the filling and leveling procedure. The rear of the truck has to be jacked up a substantial amount to level the transmission, the fill plug is also right next to the exhaust and the procedure involved is pretty tedious. After the fill, starting of the truck, fill, reverse, drive, 2nd, neutral and back to park, check and fill all before the transmission gets to 122 degrees from a start of 100 is a test of speed on the ground. All in all we used around 6-6.5 quarts of transmission fluid.
My friend opted for maxlife in this change as a true Valvoline purist (his motor oil also shares the brand). When we went on the test drive the first couple shifts through each gear seemed a bit wonky but everything smoothed out real quickly and he is happy with the overall procedure.
Feel free to chime in and tell me how wrong we did this