DIY: Transmission Oil Change

Mandingo

I found a little trick to making the hockey puck pads quickly a couple years ago. Clamp the puck in a vise horizontally, then take a wood saw to it to make the slit. When you take the puck out of the vise and it decompresses to its normal shape, the slit will actually be 3-4 times the size it was when you sawed into it

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some mods

NS370Z

Thanks spearfish for the DIY. I did both the manual transmission and differential fluid changes this weekend.

I first did the differential using the pump with the inlet and outlet hoses similar to what a lot of people have displayed in this thread. Around $16 a Walmart. I thought I'd start with the diff as it seemed like I would have more room to work with at the rear of the car. The fill plug was fairly easy to free up and the drain plug same with no issues with drainage. You are all correct, the fluid is stinky. There was a bit of sludgy material around the magnetic tip of the drain plug. The fill was not as well as I had hoped. I ended up using almost 2 quarts. The real pain was switching quart bottles on the go. Luckily I planned for this potential outcome so I had a very large surface area but thin piece of scrap wood to catch any mess and lots of rags to soak up. I left the car on ramps as well as 4 secure jack stands over night and then the thoughts of doing the transmission Sunday morning. I came up with a much better idea. I thought to have all the required fluid in one, see through stable container would make this task much easier and less messy. I found an old semi-transparent windshield washer fluid bottle that could easily hold the almost 4 quart volume. The wide, flat bottom area to vertical height I thought was a better plan. I cleaned it out and made sure it was completely dry. Same relatively easy deal removing both the fill and drain plug on the transmission but I have to admit the claustrophobia when I first went under there was intense. I switched pump methods and went with a cheap $5 siphon pump from crappy tire that I cut so that the bulb part was just outside the container and long enough to reach the bottom of the container. Once I slid the outlet into the fill hole it went without a hitch. I used a Sharpy marker to indicate volume graduation on the side of the container so I would visually know when I was getting close to 3 quarts. I then slowed and was done with a trickle running out of the fill hole. I made sure the car was level both front-back, side to side so I'd have an accurate refill and of course used 4 new plug washers from Nissan. Used Redline MT-85 for the transmission and Redline 75W90 GL-5 for the diff.


Thanks again to all who have posted on the DIY and especially spearfish for taking the time to initiate it.

A couple of pictures of the cheap *** pump and container.

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