Hi,
I may be late to the conversation, but perhaps my information may be useful later since transmission fluid and filter changes are common.
I am new here, so please forgive me since I am still learning. I have been reading the posts for some time now but only now joined.
If I do something that is wrong please let me know. I am here to share knowledge.
I have worked on my liberty for years, and have learned some tricks not covered in the FSM. Being a shade tree mechanic on a budget, I get creative, but only when its safe.
All the repairs I have done so far have lasted and had no adverse effects except for the satisfaction of getting the job done.
Some notes that may help you on your filter and fluid replacement...
The transmission pan and gasket are relatively easy to remove and replace. Use logic and reasoning and its simple.
You will have to loosen the pan, and let it tip to one side or corner for easier fluid removal. Do not bend or pry the pan to do this.
During your repair, use the proper torques listed in the FSM, or this site. People here are extremely helpful as you have probably found out...
Keep track of fasteners and make sure that if they are different or special, put them back in the same hole they came out of. If they had thread sealant, re-apply it after you chase the threads clean.
Do not over torque any pan gasket, its an easy way to make it leak.
Do not lubricate screw threads, this alters the torque reading and is misleading. Often leads to over tightening. Clean and dry all threads of fasteners and their mates with solvent.
Re-apply thread sealants/lockers only if they were there from the factory.
Use the largest area plastic storage bin from your local super store as a catch tray. Also lay down cardboard and or use a drip pan.
Make sure your catch tray is super clean as name-brand ATF4+ is expensive and you may want to re-use the fluid if its good/new enough. Have on hand 6 to 7 quarts of fresh fluid if you plan on replacing it.
Its a messy job. plenty of shop towels on hand. Do it with engine and tranny warm as you will get wet and don't want to burn yourself (let it cool some like < 120F).
The filter is simple, just find its screws holding it in, and remove the filter by puling down. It will be stuck in with the o-ring. You may need to rock it side ways.
Make sure the old o-ring comes out of the valve body before you attempt to jam in the new filter with its new o-ring too. (it makes it hard to place the new filter in
)
Clean the magnet in the pan and inspect it for mysterious items such as UFO's. If you find anything more than silvery slime on the magnet ( steel dust?), you may have some abnormal wear.
Use the method outlined by mattyvac for catching the oil and measuring it. So try not to spill any.
Use 90% of this amount as a good starting point for re-fill. If your old fluid is clear and red and smells okay, try to filter it out with filter media and a magnet and re-use it.
If there is any doubt to its quality, recycle it at the auto parts store with your used engine oil and use fresh fluid. Do not push your luck. Fluid is always cheaper than a new tranny.
The FSM states to use the engines Oil Dipstick to measure the fluid level, and measure the millimeters of fluid level on it with a ruler. Clean the dip stick before you use it. It is normal for the engine oil dipstick to protrude from the tranny fill tube. Let it bottom out on the tranny pan. This is the procedure in my FSM and it makes some sense. All you need is some sort of dip stick. Also cycle the gear selector several times through all gears to distribute new fluid and prime system.
Then you use a chart that relates fluid temp to proper filled fluid level. As the fluid heats up its expands, shrinks when it cools (much more than water). Therefore the chart is used.
I do not own the scan tool that can tell me the temp, so I improvised. This is where my method differs from others so use your best judgment.
Taking the temperature...
I had a meat thermometer with a remote lead with a metal spike on it (used it for thanksgiving turkey). It just so happened that the metal spike fell off the sensor device, and it was still working!
I put this sensor in a pot of new trans fluid on top of the stove along with a known good thermometer, and verified that the meat thermometer was still working. I tried several temps and saw that they were both within each other by 5 deg F. I also noticed that if the modified meat thermometer wires touched each other or broke apart, the reading was nonsense. So I knew what to watch out for.
Now that I have this "thermometer on a wire", I lower it down the fill tube and into the oil. Its tricky to get it to slide down in. I know its in the oil because I can see it covered in oil when I remove it, and its about the same length as the dipstick... I rest the thermometer base on the upper air intake duct. You can often see the temperature reading jump when the sensor hits the oil. That's another way to know its in the pan. so far, I have not had the wires get stuck in the fill tube nor get damaged or cause damage to the tranny using this method. Use your head here. If in doub't use the scan tool or the IR thermometer.
I let the sensor sit in there for 10 minutes to get the temp of the fluid in the pan.
(A word on IR thermometers... they rely on IR light (heat) being transmitted by objects. Not all objects send IR light equally well. This is called Emissitivity value. Clean the tranny pan or area of interest, and paint it with a thin coat of White Out corrective paint. This paint has a good emissivity value. Steel, aluminum and esp. copper are poor emitters of IR. They are good reflectors of IR light. This will make your readings closer to the ambient temperature than the hot object. Read the paint spot temperature, this is more accurate. Make the paint spot large enough for the IR spot size of the thermometer, which is larger than the red dot you see with your IR thermometer.)
This
may be close enough. You should read the chart and then determine the amount of fluid to add/remove.
My reasoning is that with the large volume of fluid in the pan, that the system will achieve thermal equilibrium there
last. That way, once the temp is constant there, the whole tranny is constant...
If you over fill it (bad), you may need to suck out some fluid with some thin hose through the fill tube. I would suggest using a vacuum bottle (home made) with a long length of fuel line hose for chain saws/weed whackers/ etc... The vac bottle can be made out of a large glass pickle jar covered with lots of duct tape and with two holes in the lid sealed to hoses with epoxy or hot glue. Apply full vacuum to the jar using a hand pump (takes time), and let it pull the fluid through the long thin hose into the pickle jar. Make the hose that moves fluid, stick low in the jar, and make the vacuum hose to your hand pump sit high in the jar.
This suction of fluid will be time consuming as it doesn't want to flow... just wait.
Repeat until fluid is correct level.
I did this 3 years ago, no issues so far.
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