So, I recently bought a new-to-me FD with 15x,xxx miles.

I had a shop swap out my fluids, and the mechanic reported that he filled the transmission past the recommended(4qts?) capacity to 6qts.

Just wondering if that should concern me. I know overfilling the oil is a no-no. Rudimentary searching indicated this would not be a problem, but I wanted to check with the peanut gallery.

Thanks in Advance,
Barban

PS: I'll put up some pics of my progress with this basket case as I actually make some.

 

Automatic or manual?

Either way its not cool. I would have made the so called mechanic fix the issue... Which makes me wonder why he told you, and simply didnt fix the level.. Pretty rediculous.

 

Manual.

Yes, not confidence inspiring. I'm looking for a good mechanic in south bay area california, if anyone wants to recommend one/some.

I'd like to do most of the work myself, but I don't have a great space/tool setup at the moment. So, I'll be outsourcing a fair amount of work that I either can't or wouldn't like to perform myself.

 

On flat ground, jack up the car. Remove the fill plug. Lower the car. The excess fluid will drain out. Replace the drain plug, and you are done.

Rick's Rotary has a good reputation.

 

I'd be concerned about foaming. Also an unnecessary power loss in cold weather.

 

When the transmission is over filled the oil foams. That puts air bubbles into the oil so instead of oil between your gears you just get air. It can destroy a transmission. There is no benefit to running it over full. The transmission shouldn't drink oil like your engine so the "top it off" logic doesn't apply here. I really don't know what that mechanic was thinking...

 

This dosent make sense to me....
Pretty hard to fill it above the fill hole isnt it?

Unless they put the oil in while the tranny was not on the car, which dosent make sense either as they would need the drive shaft in to stop the gearbox leaking its oil.
And we know you cant put the tranny in with the driveshaft still in it, lol

me thinks its not over filled...
either way just loosen the fill plug and let the oil drain out untill it stops at the fill hole level..

 

4 quarts doesn't reach the fill hole, apparently. Because, they got 6 in there somehow. It is possible they started filling it with the drain open to force the old fluid out, but I'm really reaching here. I can't for the life of me understand why a professional mechanic would completely disregard the recommended procedure. Now I have to wonder if they fucked up my oil and/or differential, too.

 

Manual Trans capacity is a little over 2 quarts last time I checked.

 

It's easy to overfill. When you fill it you have to either use a pump, or a tube and funnel and pour it in from above. If you put a big tube in the fill hole it's easy to overfill it and have nothing leak out until you remove the tube. Now at this point, that should be a sign that it's overfilled. But I guess you could just stick the drain plug back in and call it good. I haven't the slightest clue why someone would do something like that unless it was their first time filling a manual transmission. But I've seen some crazy stuff including pouring 4 qts down the timing check hole onto the clutch.

 

yep. Manual trans capacity is 2.4 or 2.6 quarts. some ppl use the T55 star bit hole to fill, but I still don't think you could get six quarts. Something doesn't add up here.

 

Well I just got a bunch of peripheral parts in today(fuel filter, FC fan switch, thermostat). It's gonna go OOS next weekend anyways. I reckon I'll swap the fluids while I'm down there.

If you want something done right...damn I hate changing fluids so bad.

 

my transmission has 2 fill plugs and 2 drain plugs.

add 1 to this picture

 

Paul at rotorsport is great. I've heard Ivan is really good too.

 

hey, thought this was the appropriate thread to post my question. So is 4 quarters of oil ok for the transmission, given that it does not reach the fill hole? If 4 quarts is the appropriate ammount of oil, then how come the FSM states 2.6 quarts?
And is it definite that anything more than 2.6 quarts of oil will cause damage to the transmission? (Aaron Cake's websites mentions the risk of the gearbox exploding, as far-fetched as it sounds).

 

 

 

So assuming the service was done properly and the level of oil reached the oil fill plug, it could mean that the gearbox was completely dry?