Doing 2 drain and fills is not hard, in fact it is quite easy. Doing a drain and fill twice will get out most of the old stuff, you will need about 3 gallons (like I said maxlife dexmerc is a good syn choice and cheap). We like to help people help themselves and do not usually recommend paying to do something that can easily be done in 30 minutes in the driveway. Especially now since spring is here. Doing the filter is not that hard either. No way are you going to get a fluid exchange with synthetic ATF and a filter change for $125.

 

i do wish i could find a battery operated pump to transfer ATF and gear oil.

 

If I may...on the diffs - ALWAYS remove the FILL port plug FIRST! If you pull the draing plug and then can't get the fill port out for some reason...you figure it out.

 

Dude you have NO idea.
We have had people do this on their transfer case, drained it and then could not get the fill plug out and wound up stripping the hole that the fill plug goes into.

 

That would suck.

Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Land Rovers.

 

Yeah - rookie mistake. Guarantee they only do it once! If I save one guy from that hell then it was worth my posting.

 

"We" includes me, but if he really wants to switch to full synthetic for the benefits that it entails, I think you need to take other factors into account. At best you will only get half of the old fluid out if you drop the pan. So now you add your new (and expensive) synthetic fluid. It mixes with the old fluid and now you have an approximate 50/50 mix. You drain again, this time in essence draining 25% of the brand new (and expensive) synthetic fluid that you just added, thus throwing away about $25. You add more synthetic, but are still left with one part old fluid for each 3 of new synthetic. Why bother spending the money on synthetic fluid if you are in essence just going to water it down and lower the overall qualities you spent the extra money for?

I use Red Line fluids front to rear because I have had good experiences with their product. The D4 ATF is $42 a gallon. When I switched over, I had no interest in mixing fluids.

Your suggestion is a good one, and the most economical way to approach it. However, in an early post he stated he wanted to switch over to all Royal Purple which would lead me to believe he might want a complete flush for the reason stated above. Unless he works at a transmission shop, he can not do that himself. Based on that, I wanted to make sure he knew it was more of a process than what the shop said, and to expect the bill to be higher than $125.

 

Wolkesan, that makes perfect sense to me.

THANK YOU, guys.

Pat

 

Doing a transmission fluid exchange is pretty easy too. Undo the front atf cooler lines and put hoses on the ends. Put the intake line in a bucket of fresh ATF and the other in a waste bucket and start the truck. Run the truck until clean fluid comes out. Like you said though it will take about 3 gallons with either method. The drain and fill method is just easier and a bit safer. As far as wasting fluid with either method you are wasting fluid that is just the nature of the beast.

 

Don't you have to remove the cross member and lower the cats to get enough room to change the filter? I've already changed the fluid, but want to change the filter, but am unsure about lowering the cats?