Over the weekend, I installed a Dorman 265-801 automatic transmission pan with a drain plug. While I was at it, I also installed a new USA made MoPar 1-04864505AB filter kit. The whole job was mostly a quick and easy installation, with a few quirks worth mentioning.
I removed the OEM drain pan by first drilling a tiny hole in the low end and filling a clean paint bucket marked with pints and quarts so I'd know how much fluid to refill with. Then I removed the pan and the existing filter. Since I am the second owner, and the filter was a MoPar, I can't tell if the the filter was original or if a MoPar had been put in by a shop. The fluid smelled oily, not burned and it was bright red. I suspect that the pan had been dropped somewhere along the way because of the location where a leak developed that caused me to do the work this weekend. (See below.)
The Dorman drain pan is made in China. The steel stamping is flat where it mates with the transmission body, sturdy, at least as thick steel as OEM and the threaded part is spot welded in pretty well. The threaded plug is a JOKE, and it reminds me of a drain plug on a used Rambler I could never get to stop leaking. It's a 14mm by 1.5 thread. (The plug size will be important.) The plug comes with a hard copper gasket that's the wrong size and leaks. I didn't find it possible to tighten it enough to compress the copper gasket to the point where it would quit leaking. Naturally I didn't figure this out until I had the pan installed.
I refilled with the correct amount of Valvoline ATF+4 and drove it to and from work for a couple of days. I parked overnight on an old piece of plywood to catch the drips.
Today I bought a Motormite replacement drain plug with a molded on steel and rubber gasket, in 14mm by 1.5. It's a tad longer, but it doesn't interfere. Seems to work. I drained out 4 more quarts of the now mixed up fluid, and then topped it off with more Valvoline ATF+4.
I had purchased the transmission pan some time ago, but a minor stroke postponed all of my plans. I'm just now feeling up to getting under cars, and I am thankful
that I can recall how to use wrenches. (Many stroke survivors can't do that.)
My wife reported that the 01 was leaking, and I narrowed it down to the rear part of the transmission pan. When I dropped the pan, I discovered that a tiny stream of ATF continues to dribble out of the inner workings of the transmission for a long, long time after the pan is removed. There is no pan gasket in this application. Instead, the sealing is done by a thin bead of RTV silicone that's smoothed over the mating surface of the pan, which is then mated to the transmission body.
RTV silicone won't stick to an oily surface. Even the slight residue left by lacquer thinner is an oily surface as far as RTV is concerned, so it's important to do the final cleaning with denatured alcohol or 90% rubbing alcohol. (Vodka will also do, I s'pose.) But that tiny dribble of ATF just keeps on dribbling, and -surprise- it dribbles exactly where the leak was that had developed.
What I ended up having to do was find the place in the bowels of the transmission where the dribble was coming from, and wrap a lint-free cloth around a dowel. I stuck the cloth and dowel into the opening and let it suck up the ATF while I prepared the transmission pan with RTV and did the final alcohol wiping. Then very fast and adroitly (I wish) I removed the dowel and rag, did a last alcohol wipe of the dribble, and slapped up the pan. Then I bolted it to specs. It seems to have worked.
Sorry. I didn't take pictures.
11 Nov 2009, 09:10 pm
Automatic Transmission Pan With Drain Plug
Re: Automatic Transmission Pan With Drain Plug
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