Re: To drain or not?

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/7/21 9:30:48

While we were enjoying a rainy day outside the garage, I did take down the pan. The only problem noted, and the probable reason for the new leak, was a broken cork pan gasket in two places, possibly aggravated by my re-torquing the bolts. The drained fluid of uncertain vintage still looked red (but darker than new) and did not smell burnt. Just a touch of mild slime in the pan, much less than I'm used to with GM automatics. All looked clean around the untouched valve bodies. The one observation with regard to the valve lever and pin was that mine now has one of those bifurcated split pins as the rod connector. So maybe the transmission has been opened sometime in the past. The screen, once I figured out how to remove it, also looked clean, but was cleaned again for the next 45 years. Put it all back together, meaning than I'm down to four NOS cork pan gaskets left, and hope to have a dry day sometime soon to do a test drive.

I did not get around to adding any of that "miracle" Lucas transmission additive because I followed the Service Manual's instructions on refilling. Full mark came up sooner than anticipated. So I may still have some old fluid hiding somewhere beyond the valve body and converter. Once I drive it on dry roads, I will determine if I should drain about 20 ounces of Type F out of the pan (oh how I wish modern, non-Allison GM transmissions had a drain plug) and add the Lucas stuff. All in all, a dropped pan (after 45 years or more?) yielded no unpleasant surprises.