'95 960. Which line is which going to the trans cooler? Which one is the feed, and which one is the return back to the transmission? Thanks!!

 

I believe it is the top one, my volvo is out on errands so I cannot confirm, but do think it is the top one that I had marked for future flushes.

DanR '94 964 352,000 miles (117,000 on the new engine)

 

OK.....is the top one the feed to the cooler or return to the trans???

 

The top one is the feed to the cooler.

 

Excellent, thanks. I'll do my flush from the bottom line then. I'd rather flush thru the cooler rather than have a cooler full of old fluid.

This is probably wishful thinking, but when doing a flush, is there and vacuum/suction on the other end of the line? For example - lets say I cut that bottom line. One side, comes out of the cooler, and into a drain bucket (for old fluid), would I be able to put a hose on the other side of that line (going back int the trans) and put that hose into a bucket of fresh fluid and expect it to suck up the fresh fluid at the same rate as it's being expelled?

 

That would be great if could work that way, no there is no suction on that other end, it just is pushed into the oil pan, the trans then sucks it up from there. Make sure you don't exceed the amount that is normally in the pan, if the trans sucks up some air it makes a mess when that air comes out your drain line, splashes everywhere.


DanR

 

FYI - turns out you're wrong. The bottom one feeds to the cooler. I found this out when the bottom pipe that I cut started shooting trans fluid all over my garage floor. Luckily, it was maybe only a quart tops. I moved my clear tubing to that side of the hose and continued on with my flush

 

Kendogg, very sorry, I even went out and checked my hose before answering the second time, now I wonder if attach my drain hose to the top fitting on the cooler?

Sorry about the mess, I know clean up is a pain.

DanR

 

Ok, so how often should the transmission fluid be changed?
Why are you flushing it? Is that necessary to change the fluid? Can the cooler be drained and the trany pan then fluid added back? Is there a filter in the pan that can be cleaned?
I guess I need DIY for dummies in this one.

 

Oh, it's cool. Now that I think about it, it works out well this way. The external cooler is now plumbed inline BEFORE the cooler in the trans. Meaning the external cooler will attempt to cool the fluid, and then the cooler in the radiator will stabilize the temperature before it goes back to the trans. Keep in mind (for those of you reading) warm oil is happy oil. The faster you can get to operating temperature, the better. The cooler in the radiator helps with that, because the coolant heats up very quickly, effectively acting as an oil heater on initial startup, helping to bring the trans fluid temp into operating temperature faster. Then, acts as a cooler once we're up to temp and the trans fluid attempts to pass ~200*F.

rspi, ATF should be flushed every 30k. There is a filter scren inside the transmission. When you drop the pan, the filter is bolted in with 3 bolts. I dropped the pan and replaced the filter, and cleaned the magnets off that were inside the pan. There are magnets inside an auto trans pan to pickup any stray metal particles in the fluid. To my surprise, there was very, very little metal on the magnets....my fluid was just black. General rule of thumb for most people is flush every 30k, drop the pan and change the filter every other flush. As clean as mine was though, and with the miles on it - I'm not exactly worried about it. I'm only hoping to get another 20-30k out of this engine so I can swap an LS1 in :P

A simple drain of the trans pan and refill is adequit if you're doing it on a bit shorter schedule, since that only gets a small amount of the fluid out. There is maybe 3-4 quarts tops in the pan. There is said to be 4-6 quarts or more in the torque convertor. Then there is whats in the cooler lines, locked into the valve body and clutch packs, etc. I plan on doing a simple drain and fill every other oil change, since I'm changing the engine oil every 7500 miles. Every 15k pull the drain plug and just re-fill, will be plenty to basically enver have to drop the pan again. Now, if you've enver dropped the pan and serviced the transmission, I would recommend dropping the pan and changing the filter. Worst thing you can do is leave a dirty trans filter in place to get plugged and starve your transmission for oil.

 

As you can see my car has almost 100k. I got the car with 53k about 2-1/2 years ago. So the 1st 11 years, it only got 53k on it. The manual says to inspect "I" the trany fluid, not replace it, that's why I never thought about changing it. I had another 960 that had 200k on it and I never changed the fluid in it either.

I guess I need to look up the instructions for flushing it and do that within the next 30 days. Probably need to do it on my S70 & 850 as well. Yikes!!!

I replace the oil every 7500 miles as well. I am using Synthetic Castrol Oil (in all of my cars now).