One of the biggest pain in the whatever is accurately measuring the level of transmission fluid you have in your car. This is an. easy and accurate way to do it. Once you get everything ready, the actual work takes only a few minutes.

Note: This assumes that you have TOO MUCH fluid in your transmission. If you aren’t sure, add some fluid so that you do.

Purchase some clean, new tubing. I used “Low Density Polyethylene tubing” This is the translucent plastic that is fairly stiff. My local hardware store had it in ¼ diameter for .13/foot, 5/16 for .19/ft and 3/8 for .25/foot. Buy about 3 feet of it to get you up and out of the dip stick area so you can hook on your suction pump. While you are in that section of the store, talk them out of a ½ inch long piece of a bigger size tubing that your tubing will barely slide into. This will be used as a “stop” to mark where the tubing will stop when inserted into the dip stick tube. By the way, I first tried using ¼ inch copper refrigeration tubing but it simply would not slide down the dip stick tube, so plastic is the way to go, but don’t use the soft, transparent plastic.

Get a suction device. I used a rotary “Jack Rabbit” pump, or you could use a suction brake bleeder rig or any suction device you have that won’t make a mess. Don’t even think about mouth sucking it out!!

Mark your tubing. Pull your dip stick, lay the tubing onto the stick, with the tip against the bumper that hits the inner shoulder of the dip stick tube. Do this carefully! Holding the tubing against the dip stick, next mark the tubing adjacent to the “Max Hot” mark on the dip stick.

Slide the small scrap of tubing onto the tubing to that mark. Now you should have a piece of the plastic tubing that will be inserted into the dip stick tube to the “stop” and be the exact length inserted that the dip stick is when measured to the Max Hot mark.

Get your suction pump ready to be attached to the top end of the plastic tubing and have your collection bottle ready.

Drive your car until the transmission fluid has been thoroughly heated.

Park your car in the level area, keep it running in Park.

Pull your dip stick, carefully wipe the new plastic tubing thoroughly clean with a lint free wipe. Insert it into the dip stick tube to the “stop” so the bottom of the tube will be where the Max Hot mark would have been.

Attach the suction device and pump out the excess fluid. You will now have the exact amount of fluid you should have in the transmission.

Pull the tubing, replace the dip stick and carefully clean up everything. If you are going to reuse the tubing, blow and wipe it clean and store in something like a clean zip lock bag.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I heated Dexron II to over 200 degrees and immersed a piece of the tubing for about 10 minutes. It held up well. Wear eye protection against drops of hot fluid flying around and wipe up any spills.

If it works well for you and are grateful, I drink Cabernet!

Best of luck,
Ron Johnstone

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'76 240D-Sold
'78 240D-Sold
'85 300 SD, 165K-Sold
'88 300 TE, 165K-Sold
'64 Porsche 356C Cabriolet- under restoration
'86 560SL 124K Miles-Sold
'94 320E Wagon, 74K Miles-128K Miles JUNKED
'06 E350 Wagon, 84K Miles
07 SL550, 14K Miles