Rob Edwards

I changed the tranny oil today. I managed to loosen the fill plug and then both drain plugs without too much drama. FWIW, the plugs take a 10mm hex socket. The 'old' fluid looked pretty good- the PO said he'd had the fluid changed 'recently'- he'd only owned it for 20K miles over 5 years), but there was a bunch of crap on the magnets. Interestingly, it seemed like there were more filings on the rear plug than the front. What's the greyish crap, some sort of ferrous additive in the oil?

Rear diff plug:



Front tranny plug:



Is this appropriate for a relatively short oilchange interval (granted, I don't know whether the interval is 2K or 20K, but either way it seems like a lot of crap to me.....)

As a data point, the $2 plastic bottle pump I bought worked nicely for adding fluid, though it was quite a forearm workout. 4.5 quarts of Redline 75W90-NS. The car seems to shift a little smoother, but that's probably the power of rationalization having expended the effort to change the fluid.......

danglerb

Seems like kinda "big" junk from the front plug. How did the goop look, like it was recently changed?

Some mechanics seem to hear "check" instead of change on anything but the engine oil.

Rob Edwards

The gear oil looked really good, actually. The PO had had it changed, not exactly sure when, but certainly less than 20K miles ago.

Mike Simard

Don't lose any sleep over it, it may be a little more stuff than normal but there's no telling what the PO did or didn't do and there's always some stuff that comes out in any car anyway.Who knows if the PO removed both plugs, wiped them off or even changed it at all. You could always send your oil to Blackstone labs for analysis if it would give you peace of mind. So how do you like that pump? I remember considering using one for 2 seconds, I wound up snaking a hose out the wheel well with a funnel fitted, it took forever to fill it that way, next time I'll use the biggest hose/funnel possible and get a comfy chair.

Imo000

Don't worry about them, they look fine.

Fabio421

Looks normal to me. There are a couple of "big-ish" pieces but nothing I would worry about.

Shane

Not quite as hairy as my plug was:



I know mine was changed at least once prior to doing it myself, as the plug was nicely wallowed out where the allen fits in. Don't know how many miles were on the gear oil though.

SwayBar

I concur; perfectly normal.

Ed Scherer

Separated at birth? (sorry, that pic just reminded me of those fiber optic lamps)