We have a 1995 Chevy C2500 pickup 5.7L with a remanufactured engine installed last winter due to a catastrophic oil leak. A bushing in the front of the transmission was replaced while the engine was out, and the rear transmission/differential was overhauled in 2019 (I know very little about transmissions, so please excuse any lack of correct terminology). Yesterday, my husband noticed a tap-tapping or ticktickticking noise and decided to add quart of automatic transmission fluid without checking the level first. He said the truck ran much smoother and felt more powerful after that, but I'm an overcontrolling wife, so I checked the fluid levels and found a) ENGINE oil was down 2 quarts, and b) TRANSMISSION fluid was overfilled beyond the crook in the dipstick with the engine about 160 degrees F and running.
So, I headed to Harbor Freight for one of those siphon pumps and after topping off the engine oil I sucked out ATF (with engine off) through the dipstick tube until it seemed like about a quart, but the dipstick was still showing overfilled, which didn't seem right, but I sucked out some more anyway. Then I had my husband turn on the engine and go through the gears, and now of course nothing showing on the dipstick at all. So I added some Dexron VI, but it seemed like I had to add a lot and next thing it's looking overfilled again, plus now the gear selection lever is loose and doesn't shift anything any more. After YouTubing and with my husband's description of what he felt as he was changing the gears, I suspect the shift cable/linkage/bushing up near the steering column has failed with all of this gear changing after 26 years and several hundred thousand miles of nothing but Park-Reverse-Neutral-Drive. Nice little complication, that.
So, now while I wait for my husband to make arrangements with the IID monitoring company so we can have the truck towed to the stealership get fixed (it needs some other unrelated work as well), I actually measured how much ATF I moved. I have in the oil collection pan approx 1 quart + 3 cups that I removed from the transmission at the beginning, and I put back about 1 quart plus 9 oz of fresh ATF. So now it's overfilled by about a pint, assuming it was correctly filled in the first place.
Should I have just left well enough alone? Should I go back and remove another pint of ATF, or have the dealership adjust the level while the truck is there anyway? Generally speaking, which is worse, one quart low, or one quart high?
Thanks,
Rebeccah
So, I headed to Harbor Freight for one of those siphon pumps and after topping off the engine oil I sucked out ATF (with engine off) through the dipstick tube until it seemed like about a quart, but the dipstick was still showing overfilled, which didn't seem right, but I sucked out some more anyway. Then I had my husband turn on the engine and go through the gears, and now of course nothing showing on the dipstick at all. So I added some Dexron VI, but it seemed like I had to add a lot and next thing it's looking overfilled again, plus now the gear selection lever is loose and doesn't shift anything any more. After YouTubing and with my husband's description of what he felt as he was changing the gears, I suspect the shift cable/linkage/bushing up near the steering column has failed with all of this gear changing after 26 years and several hundred thousand miles of nothing but Park-Reverse-Neutral-Drive. Nice little complication, that.
So, now while I wait for my husband to make arrangements with the IID monitoring company so we can have the truck towed to the stealership get fixed (it needs some other unrelated work as well), I actually measured how much ATF I moved. I have in the oil collection pan approx 1 quart + 3 cups that I removed from the transmission at the beginning, and I put back about 1 quart plus 9 oz of fresh ATF. So now it's overfilled by about a pint, assuming it was correctly filled in the first place.
Should I have just left well enough alone? Should I go back and remove another pint of ATF, or have the dealership adjust the level while the truck is there anyway? Generally speaking, which is worse, one quart low, or one quart high?
Thanks,
Rebeccah