The ZF assembly manual (in the How To section) doesn't mention loctite, just a torque of 8Nm.
I'd be tempted to add a spot just the same.

 

Went to do my 6HP26 service job last Saturday, got it up on the hoist, was naively expecting it not to have any T27 bolts remaining, as the trans was completely overhauled at some point... Well it had a mixed bag of T40's and T27's... the T40's would come out fine, but every T27's I tried to loosen immediately stripped... So I aborted the job for another weekend.
Ordered 20 new T40 bolts from my local jaguar dealer, and will be giving it another shot soon.

Just need to figure out the easiest and fastest way to get the T27's out now... not sure if getting vise-grips around the head of each one is gonna be doable... ah well guess I'll figure something out... don't want this to turn into a 8 hour job on the hoist extracting broken studs...

 

Well I'm just wondering is it's on there in which case the heat gun makes a lot of sense!

My Bapmic full kit sans fluid arrived today - $8i inc shipping. That sleeve is much smaller than I thought, it looks like a licorice cannoli.

 

I finally got strated on this yesterday aftyernoon. Getting my car up on four jack stands and level on a decidedly not level driveway was a bit fun.

So the first bolt zI tried just wouldn't budget so I heated it and still no luck. The next three all made snap noise upon appltying thwrench avter about 2 minutes with a heat gun. So I thought well maybe that's the trick. But then two more stripped so clearly it's not foolproof. So then I removed the stubborn ones with a pair of vice grips and - snap - they loosened right up.

I have all new bolts so I decided to just utilize the vice grips and in under 5 minutes they were all loosened up and ready for tomorrows finish of the job.

My conclusion thus far is to just go to the vice grips ASAP and toss the old bolts. No cutting of the plastic fins on the pan is needed just force them out and you should be fine.

I have only had to run my jag in the salt and snow for limited duty one year so if a car has really seen a lot of winters perhaps some of those bolts should have some Kroil applied from the top. Having to extract a snapped off bolt of such small diameter while on one's back with very little room is the stuff of automotive nightmares ...

Once mine are out I should be able to see it any Locite was used. It's strange to me that every single one of these bolts made that snap sound.

Also the 8mm hex fill plug. That too was tight as hell. I saw another potential nightmare and the small box wrench popped off and everything flew when I made my first attempt with a 8" long piece of pipe slipped over it. So I applied the heat gun, put the hex bit back in and it just spun out.

I'll have a look at that too when I get it all the way out.

Perhaps sealed for life WAS the motto at the ZF assembly line where precise filling was possible???

And tomorrow I get to use my new air pressure operated fill pump!

This will either be slick as **** for $10 worth of parts or an explosive frickin' mess!

I've done way too many tranny & diff fills with those cheap crappy and very messy plastic fill pumps while lying on the ground. That orange pump is the worst of them all!

It's always messiest once your finished with all that pumping and you pull it out. Invariably it just dribbles everywhere ...

Fingers crossed!

 

Now that I'm doing this in earnest I've gone though post 1 very carefully and there appears to be a glaring error.

When I first scanned the post, a while ago now ..., I thought he was draining, then filling, cycling the trans and then draining and filling again so as to get as much of the old fluid out out the transmission.


Now I'm confused because he mistaking talks about removing the drain plug when I think he means the fill plug?

There's a lot of detail and information in this thread but it's pretty disjointed att this point IMHO.

Case in point:

I "think" he's got drain and fill a bit mixed up there but it looks like basically he's:

Draining the original fluid.

Then he's filling it up and bringing it up to proper temperature. Sealing the fill plug. Running it through the gears per spec.

Next he's draining it again.

Fill again and run through the gears.

Then he's bringing it up to proper temperature for the final temp/fill calibration and buttoning it up.

I wonder if it's necessary to be so accurate with the first fill and temperature if all you're doing is try to displace some of the original fluid still in there?
Perhaps the trans cooler circuit isn't open unless it gets up to temp? I'm going to guess that's about a quart right there?

Roughly speaking 1/2 gets dumped initially.

After a refill we have a 50/50 mix.

Next that get's dumped and after another refill we're at 75% new 25% old..

I have 12 quarts of Redline 6 on hand so I might do a third exchange?

A flush machine would be far more efficient here but unless you modify the cooler circuit there's no convenient tap point. I did modify mine but I was not thinking about a flush machine hookup at the time .

I repaired the leaking hoses with AN connectors and hose clamps so I could have moved those connectors to an easier to get to spot had I planned ahead better.

I see no reason to not use a flush machine as long as you perform the final calibration of fill level according to ZFs specs.

I don't know which cooler line is the output and which is the return but I suspect that the top line on the cooler is the output from the tranny as that would make thermodynamic sense.

I just checked the ZF spec for torque tightening and the pan bolts are 8 NM which is 71 inch lbs or about 6 ft lbs. Not 53.

 

Yup, drain and fill was mixed up in that post, but when you read it in context, it's sorta clear... Hope it didn't throw you too far off...

 

I did battle with the sleeve yesterday (in another thread) but I was surprised that no one mention what a royal PITA that thing is and I'm still not even sure it's been done correctly. No matter, the fluid goes in next and if it's not right then someone else gets to fix that.

I hope my handy dandy compressed air fill pump works well. There will be two of us filling this thing so that should help. It tested real well with water. The only issue is that it only holds about two quarts so that will be a bit annoying. A larger container would introduce other problems though.

But I can't stress enough what a bad idea it is to try and do this job on jack stands. I doubt my opinion is going to improve after the fill rigmarole is finished.

Just don't.

 

Yes, a lift is always preferable. But most of us do not have access to one. If you get the car high enough on jack stands, the job goes much better because you increase both your visibility and your working room. Two people also make the job go much better since one can operate the gearshift while the other pumps in the ATF as required. Plus, you give each other moral support on a job that truly is rather difficult and definitely frustrating....

I am surprised that your 2005 STR had the Torx-27 pan bolts. What month/year was it built? Both my 2005 S-Type 3.0 and my wife's 2006 XK8 were built in May 2005, and they both have the much better Torx-40 pan bolts. We had absolutely no issues with those bolts. My S-Type was a Florida car while my wife's XK8 was a California/Florida car, and that probably helped as well....

 

My transmission must be quite different or there's yet more information not mentioned in this thread?

There's no way I can put 5 quarts back in as an initial fill. It starts running out after 1.5 quarts so we stopped and waited ten minutes. I suppose the filter does have to absorb some. But this makes no sense based upon what I've read and what I drained.

I drained this tranny after it had been sitting for over 2 weeks and there was 5.5 quarts in the drain pan. I don't know how much is still stuck in the torque converter?

So it should take 5 WO having to start the car but no. So we started the engine and went through the gears and then waited 20 minutes and it now has a bit more possibly 2 + and it still wants to drain back out so started it again and now we're waiting another 20 minutes.

I am using my air pressure pump to fill which is working but I'm having to fill this thing painfully slow.

At this point I'm not sure I'll be able to get 5 quarts in WO running through the gears with every 1 quart fill.

This doesn't comport with anything I've read.

OK and now I figured out why. You have have the engine running the entire time during the initial fill.

 

Wheels went back down yesterday after nearly a months worth of repairs and all seems fine. When I can get back out on the highway I'll see if the 3rd gear chirp is finally gone.

My car has just over 50K miles and based upon the look (black) and smell of what came out probably 40K was probably when I should have changed it. Sealed for life ...

A GD dipstick would have made all of this a whole lot easier ZF!

My initial impression is that it shifts a bit smoother.

My leak made quite a mess on my driveway and all over the front of the engine. The engine is now very clean, the driveway not so much ...

My calculations based upon what I recovered emptying the pan is that I lost about 1/2 to 3/4 of a quart due to the leak. It looked more like 2 quarts!

 

Hi,
Had my trans flushed with BG transmission flushing machine. Totall fluid circulated thru was 14 quarts Redline d6. Had litle lurch before and was fixed with this procedure. Think it was low on fluid or bad fluid. 80K it is about time to change fluid cause dont know if former user had changed it before. Changed all fluids as preventative maintenance so will know what fliids Kitty has eaten..

 

I've used the BG machine before on a couple of cars but I'm curious how they managed to hook it up as the only place toy can gain access is the top of the tranny cooler and I'm not too sure about that?

Wow 14 quarts! That's one hell of a lot.

 

That's 14 quarts circulated, not 14 quarts retained in the ZF. Capacity is 10 litres, so 14 quarts of fluid expended in a flush would not be unusual. I still believe that the risk of dragging debris through the system during a flush process in these ZF units is simply too great to undertake. I'll stick to drain-and-fills....

 

Think it was done via tranny cooler. That 14 guarts was the amount circulated thru. Think less would be enough but the tech sayed the color of the coming fluid was clearly new after that. I did provide that amount with me cause the shop does not have Redline d6-only BG own trans fluid and not sure about that. Something did go right cause the lurch disappeared right after that. Reflash did not help with the lurch so thought it is time to change the fluid and pan. Now running like dream !

 

Yes I know it's not all retained but one of the advantages of the flusher machines is that it cuts down on the amount you're tossing out as well as expunging nearly most of all of the old stuff.

Best practices are to drop pan and in our case it's a throwaway but typically it gets cleaned out, new filter and gasket then the flush.

I think this ZF box has generated a lot of mystique about it's fussy nature. The only thing I find fussy is the lack of a dipstick/fill tube and being so sensitive to the fill level.

A flusher machine simply circulates the fluid which is what you're already doing anyway albeit less efficiently.

On a stock Jag connecting it up looks like a complete PITA.

Well yes, that is the only way to do it it's just that practically speaking there are no hoses to cut and splice into. The top metal tube that fits into the cooler can be loosened up and removed but the air box etc have to come out and then the engine doesn't run????

 

The easiest method to flush a good portion, if not all of the fluid from the torque converter, is while the pan is off, using a clear nylon hose the same size as the filter neck, place it inside the port that the filter tube goes into, and the other end in a gallon jug with 3~4 liters of fresh fluid, and start the vehicle with the pan off. Allow the pump to suck up the gallon or so of fluid as the old fluid comes out. This will not take long. Afterwards, simply button things up and do your fill.

 

I guess you need to have one of those oversize square tranny drain catch pans to do that or it could be on huge mess.

On a lift OK on jack stands!

 

I do mine on jack stands. It is a big round oil drain pan though. It's not really any worse than when you pull the pan plug. Fluid exits at the rear.

 

I hope all goes well for you. Kudos for a tough job !!!!!!
My experience a short time ago was a pan leak, not the connector. I caught it very early thank God!! I live in a condo and have no access to a place to brave the job you just completed although I have all I need to do it. I ended up taking it to Northfield Transmissions in Northfield, NJ (Go figure). Very knowledgeable tech.Cost me a total of $500 for a new pan, electrical connector etc.to hedge against possible future leaks. Had no shift problems before or after. Have about
75,000 miles on it since new.

Regards,

 

Thanks.

Mine is done but yes THAT is the problem. I live where I'm not supposed to be doing this sort of work. I have a remote garage for my other cars but this job came at the end of a string of of other things that had to be addressed and it all snowballed into a months worth of down time.

This car is rather fussy to get up and onto jack stands as well as on a four armed lift without having it all bent up. Getting the garage mechanics to lift the car properly is a PITA. The place I went to take the pan off and have an assessment made with UV dye etc. refused to lift the car after I explained the procedure. I even supplied the lifting pucks for the four corners.

That's how I ended up in my driveway where I'm usually up on jack stands and back down in an hour or two then all done. Not a month ...

In a service garage and on a lift is a completely different experience and the proper way to do this as well as all of the other work I ended up accomplishing.