This was in the Squash.
I have been putting this off due to the recent monsoon season we had, but today, it was time!
First, I went with the Royal Purple made for manual trannys that use transmission fluid/engine oil types.





I like everything about Royal Purple except paying for it!
First, I put the car up on ramps and secured the emergency brake. Used my favorite wheel chock rock.
Now, just like the diff, you need to make sure the fill plug is loose before you drain the old fluid. Well, here was my first issue. My 14mm Allen socket fits beautifully, but there was no room for the ratchet to attach.






Well, I went brain dead and ran to Northern Tools to just get a 14mm Allen. Waited in line behind a woman with the absolute nicest implants, but that is a story for another day. Money so well spent, though. I digress......
Got home with an Allen kit of larger wrenches when it hit me: Hey Stupid, why not just use a 14mm wrench on the allen socket?!?!
Well, like my hero says, "Stupid is is stupid does....."



Got the fill plug out, so on to the drain plug. Well, let me warn you a little. When you remove that drain plug to the tranny, that fluid just gushes out of there. Seems like 5 times faster than the engine oil! That is where that oil in my ear came from. Splatters everywhere.
I can't believe my pic didn't take for this, but you cannot just pour the new fluid into the tranny after you have replaced the drain plug of course. No room for that either. So I had to use my handy dandy Harbor Freight $3.00 siphon {regularly $9.00, but who buys non-sale items at HF?}



I put the suction tube into the bottle of Royal Purple, and of course put the fill tube into the fill hole of tranny. Fits fine, and stays in place. I wish the pic had worked, because it was way cool seeing that very Purple liquid being pumped through those clear lines!
When both quart (near liter) bottles were as empty is the siphon would get them, I drained the tubes and the bottles into a cup, and turkey basted the rest in. 2 bottles was perfect, as it just started to dribble out the fill hole when finished.
We'll see how it goes. I wasn't really having any shifting issues related to the fluid, just a linkage situation that will be in next post.
All in all a super easy process.....

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Well, my biggest tranny issue on the Squash was a real binding of the shifter, usually when down shifting from 3rd to 2nd. Was also difficult to move the shifter to the left, for either 1st or 2nd gear {say at a stop light from neutral left to get to first}.
When I first brought the car home and finally got her running, it would not shift from 2nd to 3rd or 4th. At all!!
Well, for a little background, 1980 and prior trannys, as far as I know, have shafts that stick out of the side of the tranny for the shifter linkages. Well, on the 1981 and later manuals, the shifter arms are "made" onto the shafts, ie: all one piece. Well, on the earlier models, the shifter arms fit on shafts that come out of the side of the tranny, and squeeze onto the shaft with a built on collar.





Ahh, here are pics of the other style tranny and the shifter arms...








Just added these above to see the differences.....


One of my shifter arms (horrible terminology) was not centered on the shaft and grabbing it fully. That caused the linkage rod to rub up against one of the other shifter rods, causing my binding. I had to dremel out the opening of the linkage arm so that it would fit on the shaft correctly. It is like driving a completely different car, because coming up to a stop, I never new how much trouble I was going to have getting the car into 1st or 2nd.
A productive day.
Now I really need to get the engine out of China, and get the other one in. Hey Dan, come on over.....
My last week of vacation until October......

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

I need to change the manal trans fluid and the differential fluid in my 240D. Nice write-up I'll be using it in the near future.

__________________

If you are going to have one arm off, you might as well do all three to give them new o-rings.

I didn't remove the shaft that goes into the tranny. Only the arm coming from it. And the other two were centered on the shafts correctly.

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

There is a little pump that is made to fit the top of a standard tranny oil bottle, and another size fits a standard gallon jug - much like the plastic pump on a bottle of hand soap. I have one of each ... I decant Mobil 1 into a gallon jug, then pump it into the tranny, and I pump gear oil right from the original bottle into the diff. There is a 2 foot clear plastic hose on the nozzle of the pump to stick into the filler hole.

I got mine in a marine supply place - plenty of those online if you live inland. Maybe $6 each.

I used to put a hose on the end of the little nozzle on a tranny oil bottle, hold the bottle higher than the filler hole & squeeze. Yes, the hose would come off & dump that lovely smelling oil on my chest. My wife loved it. The marine pumps are much better.