Had my transmission serviced over the winter (part of 60k service), fluid and filter replaced because I didn't have a place and it was too damn cold outside. So, yesterday in doing regular maintenance (oil, grease fittings, etc) I decided to add some lucas tranny additive. did the usual, ran the truck, went through gears, put in park and pulled the plug. Probably a quart came forcefully gushing out before I could even do anything. Was it overfilled? How did they do it, fill the pan and before putting it back on? Any, I pulled the front end of the truck up on some bricks to elevate it a bit. Then, removed the fill plug again, quickly shoved the spout into the hole and put about 1/2a bottle of lucas in. Fluid was still running out, I replaced the plug and sealed it up. Question is, did I let too much fluid out or was it just too full to begin with? Runs fine now, 90 plus degrees here and ran it on the highway for an hour driving home.

 

it may not have been up to temp. there should be more fluid in the entire trans system than the pan (up to the fill plug) can hold. When the vehicle is running, fluid is picked up from the pan and circulated through the system. When the vehicle is not running or cold, the level in the pan is above the fill plug. hope that makes sense.

 

Agreed, makes perfect sense. It was up to temp and then some, even burnt and blistered my thumb on the fill plug. How could they have overfilled it so much?

 

it wasn't necessarily overfilled, but I can tell you how to purposely overfill it because I almost did it myself by accident! I recommend using a hand pump ($8 walmart auto section) to pump the fluid into the pan. The hose fits snug inside the fill hole. If you really tried, you could pump in a ton more fluid than the tranny should have in it and plug the hole quickly before it all rushed out.

 

Could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the tranny fluid has to be checked when cold.

 

There is a happy medium with trans temp, to cold and it isnt all up in the transmission, to hot and it has expanded to much.

 

That's what I meant, too hot and the expansion of the oil will definitely cause the oil to gush out the size of a finger out the fill hole.

 

So, sitting at idle, about how long does it take to get to the correct temp?

 

The truck was running when you pulled the plug, right? If not, there is you problem.......

 

I'd say a couple of minutes idling from coldand a few selection of all gears during those 2 minutes without driving should do it. But maybe someone could confirm that.