Nothing annoys me more than an unfinished thread.
I took the car for a good 50 mile drive on Saturday morning, got it home and checked the fluid level. The enigine oil cap has been weeping oil for some years prior to me purchasing the car so the gearbox was covered in old dried oil. I will eventually give the engine a thorough clean, but for now I just cleaned the filler/dip stick area. To my surprise, the level was bang on the maximum mark!
The oil drained out was dark and had a brown tinge to it. No burning smells though! I don't think it's been changed before but I was surprised to see how clean it was. I do think the drain plug was missing a magnet though? I posted a picture below, anyone able to shed any light if there's supposed to be a magnet in it?
I let it drain for around 2 hours while I had some new tyres fitted to the Volvo. When I got back home the fluid drained out had cooled down to ~20°c so I began measuring what had drained out. Surprised, 4.1 litres drained out! I was expecting 3 to 3.5 litres.
I measured out 4.1 litres of Seafoam Hydra Trans and Comma MVATF. What I also found odd was in my 473ml bottle of Seafoam, I measured out 590ml! Maybe my jug is out?
I know people on here say the Seafoam Hydra Trans is little different to the standard Seafoam but I can confirm it is significantly more viscous, smells different and is dyed red.
I used some garden hose flushed out with a little IPA on the end of a funnel to fill the gearbox back up. It worked surprisingly well! The 4.1 litres of ATF/Seafoam mix went in with no issues.
The dipstick had a hot and cold scale which was handy. The Saab WIS seems to suggest there is only a hot scale on the dipstick. The oil level was a smidge under the max mark on the cold scale.
Took it out for a drive and instantly the 1-2 shift is much much smoother, as smooth as the AW71-SC in my V40 with only 10k on the clock. There's a delay going from 2nd to 3rd to the point where by the time it gets into 3rd it's almost changing into fourth within a second or two, it's not improved by much and I'm starting to wonder if it's a characteristic more than an issue. Shift flares on downshifts have been reduced significantly, if they happen then the RPM jump is around half of what it used to be and it slips for less time.
I'll be leaving this mix in for the week, my Wife will be doing around 100 miles in the car this week. I'll do another drain and fill next weekend. I'd like to do a total of 4 drain and fills but I only have 11.5litres of ATF left. Even with the 300ml of Lubeguard Red, I'm going to be slightly short. I think I'll do one more drain and fill next weekend before the final drain and fill with 10oz of Lubegaurd Red. Or maybe I'll just stop being so tight and buy another 5 litres of ATF for £23.
Anyway, it seems there's a little life in the gearbox yet and hopefully and I can nurse her along for another 3-4 years.
Annoyingly, after I took it for a drive again yesterday I got the car home and noticed a trail of rainbow oil rings that had followed me home. I assumed I'd left something loose on the gearbox, but found the PAS cooler had rusted through!
