3rd Gen Differential and Manual Transmission (6MT) Fluid Change

O'Reilly's is running a 20% off sale right now for home shipped orders. In my excitement to save money, I incorrectly ordered MT-85 for my trans.
To my surprise they don't carry MT-90? Weird. Oh well, the "rainforest" had plenty.

 

Just wanted to input that I’ve been running Motorcraft

$34 XT-M5-QS Full Synthetic Manual Transmission Fluid - 1 Quart , black

XT-M5-QS for a few weeks in the manual and I like it. On the factory fill I would be blocked out of 1st occasionally and the truck only had 4-5.5K miles up until I swapped it. Bought 3 quarts of the motorcraft stuff and used about 2.5. I’ve used Redline on my Jeep AX15 for years but honestly I think RL is overhyped. I’m going to try the Motorcraft on my Jeep next.

highly recommend filling up through the top of the transmission rather than pumping in fluid like a peasant. Pumping sucks, it’s uncomfortable and it feels like an eternity of pumping and usually makes a mess as you move the pump bottle to bottle, plus it never gets all the fluid out of one bottle so you end up pouring remaining fluid into the next bottle. It’s a losing situation and pains me every time I have to do it.

It’s easy: disconnect the outer shift boot from the knob, spin off the knob, take off the console upper trim, remove the two bolts and two snaps for the inner shift boot, push down and twist CCW on the little collar holding the shifter down into the trans. Remove the fill plug, remove the drain and drain it. After draining just pour in your fluid until it comes out the fill plug hole. Let the level stabilize and stop dripping out the fill hole and put humpty dumpty back together.

for the front and rear diffs I put in 85W-140 Currie Conventional gear oil. I like to use heavy stuff for 1) Texas heat 2) extra gear protection and 3) slight noise reduction. The fact that it is conventional and thick almost guarantees I’ll never have leaks as well. Synthetics in axles leak fairly often in my experience.

prob will do the Toyota expensive can of stuff for my tcase as a baseline and won’t change it again for a while after that. Or I may do Ravenol. I like to get the factory fluid out soonish to remove break in material. Probably will leave the trans and diffs for 20-30K now.

 

...You're kidding right? Took me maybe 5 minutes of pumping, total.

 

I have never been able to fill 2+ quarts of anything in less than about 20-30 minutes…..I was not really kidding (the peasant part sure)….you leave like 1/4 of the bottle down in the bottom, then need to pour it into the next one, sometimes the pickup tube falls off the pump and then you can get less than half a bottle out until you fish the tube back out, etc. It’s just a hassle every time I do it the pump method. You must have a really good pump to be able to go that fast.

On the other hand I can have the top of the transmission open and collided back up in about the same 5 minutes, and I can pour the fluid right in. My process is to get the transmission draining while I disassemble the top so that it’s ready to fill by the time I’m ready to pour.

 

To clarify, I haven’t pumped a transmission in years. I always do it through the top. My disdain lives on by working with axles though, and I usually use a heavier fluid which is slower and harder to pump. So maybe the transmission would be a better experience, but even when I used to pump into my transmissions, I always disliked it then too. I just see no reason to go that route when I can be comfortable and pour it in from up top.

 

$17 Slippery Pete Fluid Pump for Gallon Bottles and Wide Mouth Quart Bottles (Not for Standard Quart Bottles) - Transfer Gear Oil, Transmission and Differential Fluid, Antifreeze with This 30cc Hand Pump

https://www.amazon.com/Slippery-Pet...&qid=1656266557&sprefix=dif+flu,aps,88&sr=8-6

Works great - I got the pump for the gallon bottles since I had a mix of gallons and quarts, and the Red Line necks are smaller than a standard quart anyway.

 

Planning on finally doing Lucas 85-140 in front and rear diffs, how much do I need to pick up?

 

See the 1st Post. Quantities, crush washers, and torques are all there.

 

As said above, quantities are in the main post. For my locker MT rear I needed about 4 quarts (probably a 5th one since you can’t get it all with a pump). Up front I needed two quarts. I think buying 6 quarts and the leftover from the second one up front is enough to get the rear done. The rear takes a while, being a third member it needs a lot of fluid.

 

Transmission pump took 4 min flat for me. Much easier and quicker than taking half the interior out just to get the trim around the shift boot off.

 

Half the interior?? Lol it’s one panel, a knob and the boot….it’s literally like 2 minutes.

 

Yours must be magical. The trim around the boot requires half the front to come off and the center console on mine.... That's one biiig piece of plastic

 

What's this transmission pump drain business?


Forgive me if I come in mid convo

 

There’s one long piece of plastic that holds the outer boot, cupholders etc. it comes up in one pull. Undo the knob before you pull up on that and it comes right off. After that it’s just the inner boot (2 bolts 2 clips) and then undo the shifter stick from the trans. It’s very easy. I don’t think 2018 is different from 2021.

 

I prefer the pump, as painful as it may be, to trim removal. Definitely don’t want gear oil anywhere near the interior either.

points for creativity though.

for me, just turn up the Aerosmith and flex the guns till it’s done.

gonna try the squeeze packs next time. Just to see how they are.

 

Wait...there are people that don't do this from under?

 

Yes.

 

Interesting

 

Clearly not a popular decision, but I’ve always found it easier/more relaxed for myself so I do it that way.

 

Hey man, whatever works tho...

Clearly unorthodox to be certain