Lessons from changing manual transmission fluid.

1. Filling via the shifter hole is much faster. Tried using turkey baster on the normal fill hole and it would have taken 45 mins to get all the oil in there. It wouldn't go down because it was near impossible to hold funnel or baster at a downward angle.

2. Not all the fluid drains and it takes a few days of riding to feel the smoothness of the new (old fluid and new fluid mixed) fluid while shifting.

3. This is a good time to replace your shifter bushing while you have the shifter hole open.

4. Also replace crush washers.

5. Under carriage sees moisture. Spray some penetrant on the fill/drain bolts a few days ahead before to help with bolt removal. I used 3-in-1 oil.

 

Thank you! I'm about to do this and I bet you saved me from a major headache.

 

I don't have a carpet so I didn't worry about spilling trans fluid on the floor too much, but if you do, you might want to surround the shifter opening with garbage bag to avoid spills onto carpet.

 

Next time if you have an empty Amsoil bag after doing the front and rear diff,
Use the empty Amsoil oil bag and it takes 3 minutes to do,
A regular bottle it needs to be hand pumped in,

You should do the diffs,transmission,Tcase all the same time and this is what you need

 

I used Redline. Will use Amsoil next time.

 

I like redline better for the transmission,
But the Amsoil I use for the font and rear diff and Tcase.
Then I use the empty Amsoil bag and filler up with redline to squeeze into the transmission and tcase

 

I just changed my transmission, tcase, and diff fluids on my Tacoma. I bought this fluid hand pump from O'Reilly to use on the bottles.
Performance Tool Fluid Pump W1139 | O'Reilly Auto Parts (oreillyauto.com)

The cap on the pump fits both quart and gallon bottles. It made the job much easier.

 

I bought a handy fluid transfer pump. Works great for taking old fluid out and new fluid in.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hopkins-Si...V8QutBh3QUw4KEAQYAyABEgIyJ_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

My lesson was save the "old" fluid. I dumped the manual trans fluid once on a customers vehicle at his request only to find that the replacement fluid was difficult to obtain and if you did find it it was $30 a quart. It was a GM product and apparently any fluid other than the GM stuff would cause synchro issues.