BroncoII4x4.com

Hello Everybody,
I have a well broken in '86 Bronco II with an A4LD that's been going schizo for a few days. Anyway, the biggest issue on hand for me right now is that I believe that I've overfilled the tranny. I yanked the pan off this morning and changed the filter. This afternoon when I filled it I heard fluid dripping so I jumped under the beast and began snugging up on the bolts with the old torque wrench. I put some more fluid in and same thing so I again snugged up the bolts slightly. Well, I repeated this a few times and then after a few minutes of deep thought I had my brother pour fluid in while i watched underneath. I pressed my hand to the tranny housing above the pan and atf poured over my hand and down my arm, my hand was well above the pan. Vent tube? I'm guessing that when you drop the pan you're not really draining all of the fluid out? The new atf is so clear, Valvoline Max Life, that it's hard to tell by the dipstick if it's overfilled plus I don't know if I'm picking up atf from the dipstick tube. I have a Mustang with and AODE but I always let the shop mess with that because of all of the high RPM stress I put on it. Automatic transmissions are about the only part of my vehicles I've never played with. Thanks for any help.

Tim

Where exactly is it leaking from? Check the cooler lines and dipstick tube, their both on the right front side. There is a vent tube that goes over the top of the tranny then routes up to the bellhousing and down the left side. I dont think this is it though, it seems to be too high up for leaking. I have to know where exactly you can find out where it is leaking.

When you drop the pan, no you are not getting all the fluid out. Probably about half of it is still in your torque converter. So if you were trying to add the capacity call for in the manual, then you are probably way over full.

I'm not familiar with your tranny, so I can't really say where it's leaking from. As mentioned, I would check the dip stick tube, but it could be coming out the vent if it's way overfull. That would also account for not getting a read on your dipstick, because fluid is probably half way up the tube.

Do you have a drain plug on your pan? If not, you might be able to access the drain plug on your torque convertor through the inspection cover. Otherwise, you'll be dropping the pan again.....DOH!

Maybe you can suck it out the dipstick tube with something.

This would be drivers side, front or back though I can't tell because it seems pretty high up. I assumed vent tube because it wasn't leaking anywhere before the removal/replacement of the pan. I figured there was a bunch in the torque converter and a little in the cooler. No drain plug, I was going to make one myself yesterday and install an oil plug but the pan is so thin you'd have to weld metal inside to build it up enough to tap for a bolt. I guess it's easiest just to pull that pan loose again. Hooyah... I love the smell of atf in the morning!!!

You can take a suction pump of some kind (vacuum, giant serenge tube, etc.) with a long enough hose and suck the excess fluid out through the dipstick tube.

I'm thinkking that I should probably try to drain out that converter. At least then I'm getting as much old fluid out is I can. No sense in draining out new fluid if I can get some older fluid out yeah?