Transmission Flush

[daveyboyz]

I was reading the stickied notes on Transmission issues, and seems mine is starting to act up a bit with the hard upshifting. I want to replace the filter and do a transmission flush through the lines to the rad. Anyone have any reccomendations its a 98 Intrigue with 164,000 KM. I was thinking to replace the oil with Mobil 1 synthectic and a bottle of conditioner. I have done this before on my old Chrysler Intrepid and it cured my tranny problems on it...and I drove it for 365,000km before I totalled it. Any advice appreciated.

[Jimmy Olsen]

Originally Posted by daveyboyz

I was reading the stickied notes on Transmission issues, and seems mine is starting to act up a bit with the hard upshifting. I want to replace the filter and do a transmission flush through the lines to the rad. Anyone have any reccomendations its a 98 Intrigue with 164,000 KM. I was thinking to replace the oil with Mobil 1 synthectic and a bottle of conditioner. I have done this before on my old Chrysler Intrepid and it cured my tranny problems on it...and I drove it for 365,000km before I totalled it. Any advice appreciated.

I would just do a regular transmission oil change with Mobil 1 and the red bottle of conditioner. I did the flush once and it caused problems.

[daveyboyz]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Olsen

I would just do a regular transmission oil change with Mobil 1 and the red bottle of conditioner. I did the flush once and it caused problems.

Well yes, thats what Im doing but in order to replace all the fluid you need to flush out the torque convertor.

[Jimmy Olsen]

Originally Posted by daveyboyz

Well yes, thats what Im doing but in order to replace all the fluid you need to flush out the torque convertor.

I don't think that you have to get all of the old fluid out at one time unless you have gone a really long time with a transmission fluid change. I read somewhere that if you have the time and place, you drop the pan, drain out all of the fluid, reattach the pan with old gasket and new filter, fill it up with tranny fluid, idle the engine for 10 or 15 minutes and then drop the pan again. Then you put on the new gasket and fill her up with Mobil 1. You got 75& of the old fluid out.

[daveyboyz]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Olsen

I don't think that you have to get all of the old fluid out at one time unless you have gone a really long time with a transmission fluid change. I read somewhere that if you have the time and place, you drop the pan, drain out all of the fluid, reattach the pan with old gasket and new filter, fill it up with tranny fluid, idle the engine for 10 or 15 minutes and then drop the pan again. Then you put on the new gasket and fill her up with Mobil 1. You got 75& of the old fluid out.

There is an easier way to do that...what you do is suck the fluid out through the dipstick to empty the pan ( saves on mess when you remove pan) then install new filter and gasket. Fill up the pan, and when that is full...you remove the line out from the tranny that attaches to the top of your rad and attach a clear plastic hose into a bucket. Start the car, and as the car runs, it pumps out the old fluid from the torque converter into your bucket as you continue to pour in the New fluid...keep the car running until your plastic line is producing clean fluid. Once clean fliud is coming out re-attach it back to the rad and your whole tranny has clean fresh fliud. It saves you any mixing of fluids and saves dropping the pan twice as you suggested. I have had good success in the past using Mobil1 synthetic and a good seal conditioner. My last car Interepid had tranny issues at 145,00 did it over with synthetic the way I described with the conditoner and ran it well over 300,000. A friend of mine says 90% of tranny issues involve seals drying out and highly suggests conditoner.

[Jimmy Olsen]

Originally Posted by daveyboyz

There is an easier way to do that...what you do is suck the fluid out through the dipstick to empty the pan ( saves on mess when you remove pan) then install new filter and gasket. Fill up the pan, and when that is full...you remove the line out from the tranny that attaches to the top of your rad and attach a clear plastic hose into a bucket. Start the car, and as the car runs, it pumps out the old fluid from the torque converter into your bucket as you continue to pour in the New fluid...keep the car running until your plastic line is producing clean fluid. Once clean fliud is coming out re-attach it back to the rad and your whole tranny has clean fresh fliud. It saves you any mixing of fluids and saves dropping the pan twice as you suggested. I have had good success in the past using Mobil1 synthetic and a good seal conditioner. My last car Interepid had tranny issues at 145,00 did it over with synthetic the way I described with the conditoner and ran it well over 300,000. A friend of mine says 90% of tranny issues involve seals drying out and highly suggests conditoner.

Sounds good to me although I think that many tranny problems are related to heat and and no maintenance. The stuff in the red bottle (can't remember its name) really reduces the heat element. I like synthetic tranny fluid. Subaru uses one in its vehicles.

[o2man]

DO NOT FLUSH !!!!! It will blow solenoid valves stuck and then knock down clutch residue loose which with high mileage can work for you. I did this @ 200k with original tranny any had to do a rebuild after the flush.

DO NOT USE LUCAS PRODUCTS !!!! I started with that for a very slight hard shift, after adding, I could not pull out of my garage which then I made the mistake of flushing after raising hell to Lucas Oil. THEY TOLD ME TO FLUSH, then said they never heard of their product causing a problem.
DO A blog search and see how many complaints are out there for their products ......a lot of them. Lucas are a bunch of liars and scammers selling snake oil to pay for race car sponsorships.

[snshddog]

I would take the cooler line off and run the engine just until the fluid stops coming out, then drop the pan and change the filter and refill. I add lucas to everything now. I find it is the only additive that wont sludge up and mixes with the fluid completely. Only problem I ever had with it was when I started using it, Because it is so thick it takes a long time to force it down the dipstick tube, I dumped it in the pan before I bolted it back up, then added fluid through the tube, took 3 or 4 minutes for it to suck through the filter, now i add 2 bottles of fluid through the tube then the lucas and never a problem. In no time it will fully mix with the fluid. A friend has a shop that adds lucas to the 45 gallon drum of fluid and hits it with a paint mixer and it is already mixed for every job.

[MagicRat]

Originally Posted by o2man

DO NOT FLUSH !!!!! It will blow solenoid valves stuck and then knock down clutch residue loose which with high mileage can work for you. I did this @ 200k with original tranny any had to do a rebuild after the flush.

DO NOT USE LUCAS PRODUCTS !!!! I started with that for a very slight hard shift, after adding, I could not pull out of my garage which then I made the mistake of flushing after raising hell to Lucas Oil. THEY TOLD ME TO FLUSH, then said they never heard of their product causing a problem.
DO A blog search and see how many complaints are out there for their products ......a lot of them. Lucas are a bunch of liars and scammers selling snake oil to pay for race car sponsorships.

I agree....... do not flush.
Regular fluid and filter changes are the best way. Also, the cooler line removal trick works for me, too as mentioned above.

Don't use Lucas, imo. It works....... too well.

I used it in a THM 440 transmission..... and it reduced the internal friction to be sure..... the transmission started slipping in all gears as soon as it went in. I had to drain the transmission and pump all the fluid out to remove the Lucas.

When I refilled with new fluid again (NO Lucas this time), the slipping stopped.

[Jimmy Olsen]

The mechanic at the local shop advised that flushing the tranny WITHOUT CHEMICALS is the way to go since you get all of the old fluid out. He also changed the filter. It was expensive but I now have a "new" transmission without the shudder.

[panzer dragoon]

if you take the tranny pan off (easy to do) you will see all the sediment that a flush will not get out. And putting all that mud in solution (tranny cleaner, flush) is not good either. Your best bet is taking the pan off + clean, replace $8 filter, and reuse the old gasket.

Tranny fluid is very thin so synthetic tranny fluid is not needed. LubeGuard ($12-red bottle) is a great additive to use and keeps the solenoids from gumming up.

[dosintrigued]

Originally Posted by panzer dragoon

if you take the tranny pan off (easy to do) you will see all the sediment that a flush will not get out. And putting all that mud in solution (tranny cleaner, flush) is not good either. Your best bet is taking the pan off + clean, replace $8 filter, and reuse the old gasket.

Tranny fluid is very thin so synthetic tranny fluid is not needed. LubeGuard ($12-red bottle) is a great additive to use and keeps the solenoids from gumming up.

Ditto!!

[rkvons]

Originally Posted by panzer dragoon

if you take the tranny pan off (easy to do) you will see all the sediment that a flush will not get out. And putting all that mud in solution (tranny cleaner, flush) is not good either. Your best bet is taking the pan off + clean, replace $8 filter, and reuse the old gasket.

Tranny fluid is very thin so synthetic tranny fluid is not needed. LubeGuard ($12-red bottle) is a great additive to use and keeps the solenoids from gumming up.

Lubeguard by itself yields about 400 different additives. Which one are you referring to? Thanks.

[Renegade2k]

Originally Posted by o2man

DO NOT FLUSH !!!!! It will blow solenoid valves stuck and then knock down clutch residue loose which with high mileage can work for you. I did this @ 200k with original tranny any had to do a rebuild after the flush.

DO NOT USE LUCAS PRODUCTS !!!! I started with that for a very slight hard shift, after adding, I could not pull out of my garage which then I made the mistake of flushing after raising hell to Lucas Oil. THEY TOLD ME TO FLUSH, then said they never heard of their product causing a problem.
DO A blog search and see how many complaints are out there for their products ......a lot of them. Lucas are a bunch of liars and scammers selling snake oil to pay for race car sponsorships.

The concerns stated above are a powered flush machine and flush chemicals.

From the lack of maintenance, you definitely want to FLUSH.
This can be done WITHOUT adding chemicals and by NOT using the power assist on the flush machine.

After the flush is complete and all of your old fluid has been replaced with fresh fluid. Now you replace the filter. Don't replace it first because you will just contaminate your new filter with old fluid.

Doing it this way puts no more strain on the transmission than just letting the car Idle. If the new fluid frees up deposits and the transmission fails at that time, flushing it cannot be blamed as it is only the straw that broke the camels back.