Transmission Fluid level problem

[JaredI]

Ok, long story short I replaced my engine and lost quite a bit of transmission fluid but not tons and tons of it.

Button everything up and my last 2 tasks are to fill and bleed to cooling system and to top off the transmission.

Get the car up to operating temperature, remove transmission center plug and a solid stream comes out. Realize something is wrong and stick the plug back in but lose half a pint of fluid or maybe more all down my arm because I dropped the little plug in the gravel lol.

Anyway, this transmission was rebuilt about 60k ago and I considered that perhaps it was overfilled this whole time.

So I got brave and shifted from park to R and nothing at all happened. Nothing happened for any of the other gears either.

Did I lose more fluid than I thought and not have enough in it to reach the pump?

Ideas? I’m sort of at a loss right now.

Thanks guys,
Jared

 

[joegr]

It has to be level.
It has to be warmed up, but not overly hot.
The engine has to be running.
You have to shift through the gears (staying at each one five or so seconds) just before checking.
Some will dribble out when it is at the correct level (don't wait for it to stop).

2006 Lincoln LS Workshop Manual

 

[JaredI]

It was level and very hot. I’ll try this again tomorrow after shifting through all the gears and not being too hot. I didn’t shift through all gears before the check.

Thanks.

 

[112 LS]

Nice job gettin' er out the bottom! She looks like a Lincoln LS space shuttle ready to blast off.

 

[JaredI]

The nuts and bolts were pretty easy, it was wrestling the thing around on the ground that was the hard part.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I didn’t get the torque converter seated properly. I had to fight it to get on the dowel pins. I may have not been fighting the dowels but the TC. What kind of damage am I looking at if I had it bolted up and running with the TC not properly seated? TC and Pump?

 

[Spartan]

The nuts and bolts were pretty easy, it was wrestling the thing around on the ground that was the hard part.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I didn’t get the torque converter seated properly. I had to fight it to get on the dowel pins. I may have not been fighting the dowels but the TC. What kind of damage am I looking at if I had it bolted up and running with the TC not properly seated? TC and Pump?

When I had to pull my trans it was a bitch and a half to get the damn thing out of the car and back on. I had to be somewhat aggressive with it although I did it with the motor in the car. As long as you didn't damage any of the splines or let the torque converter sag when then the trans was out of the vehicle you should be okay.

 

[JaredI]

When I had to pull my trans it was a bitch and a half to get the damn thing out of the car and back on. I had to be somewhat aggressive with it although I did it with the motor in the car. As long as you didn't damage any of the splines or let the torque converter sag when then the trans was out of the vehicle you should be okay.

Yeah. Um. About that... This is where I made a major mistake. This is a rookie-tier screw up apparently. I installed the TC on the engine, then wiggled the transmission onto the engine and TC by rotating the engine until it went on up to the dowel pins.

This sounds really dumb, but let me explain myself a little. I only ever had manual transmission cars and trucks before the current crop I have now. Mustangs, Camaros, an F150, a K2500 all had 3 pedals and I had those transmissions out a few times doin clutches and various things. We always hung the whole clutch assembly on the engine and slid the transmission into it and rotated the engine to line up the splines. Easy peasy.

So I am now removing the transmission. If you have to do it again you may consider dropping the engine cradle. It’s 4 bolts that are easy to get an impact on. I supported it with a bottle jack and let it down nice and slow watching everything. It came down far enough for me to need to remove the ground strap from the cowl. But it gives me a ton of clearance

 

[Andrizzle]

From the original post, it seems like you need more fluid. Mine was the exact same after a refill (From Lincoln!). They gave it back to me with no reverse, so they put more in. I got reverse back. But then it would slip out of gear on the slightest inclines. Ended up pumping 2 more quarts in before it started working properly.

The fluid "check" with the little fill plug dripping is pretty garbage.


EDIT: Just saw your next thread about the TC. But I will leave this post for others in the future when searching.

 

[JaredI]

From the original post, it seems like you need more fluid. Mine was the exact same after a refill (From Lincoln!). They gave it back to me with no reverse, so they put more in. I got reverse back. But then it would slip out of gear on the slightest inclines. Ended up pumping 2 more quarts in before it started working properly.

The fluid "check" with the little fill plug dripping is pretty garbage.


EDIT: Just saw your next thread about the TC. But I will leave this post for others in the future when searching.

Yeah I ended up using a tranfer pump and pumping nearly a gallon into it and the. Letting it flow back out the tube into a jug. Almost 3 qts came back out. It seems to work pretty good so far. I’m going to drive it a few days and then repeat that procedure. The concept of that plug-in-a-plug system is for people with lifts in their garage.