First of all, I'd like to say thanks for the forum. Don't post here very often, but this site has saved my butt more than once maintaining the two X308s that my wife and I drive.

Anyway, the wife's 1999 VDP has had an oil leak from the rear main seal or that oil gallery bolt for some time and lately it got a lot more aggressive about marking its territory so my 4th of July project has been pulling the transmission. I'm just about ready to pull the tranny and thought while its out maybe I should just replace the A clutch drum before it breaks and save the cost of the torque converter.

The car has about 150,000 miles on the clock. The tranny fluid has been changed twice and it generally shifts well. I bought the car with 50K on the clock back in 2003. It shifts the same now as it did then. The fluid that came out was translucent brown and had no odor.

I don't think I would just do this without symptoms, this is a "well, while it's out" sort of thing. I've talked with Jaggie of Jaggie Imports fame, as he is local to me, and his opinion was the A drum failures are from shifting too quickly between R and D while the car is still rolling backward. I know the car has not seen that, but we plan on keeping the car for a least another 3 years as it has that ever virtuous feature of "no car payment".

Thoughts?

Thanks
-Mike

 

Do a search for "5HP24 main pressure valve" on this forum. I replaced the valve, easily done by removing the forward valve body. ZF suggests using the upgraded valve will prevent damage to the valve body and A drum. Whether or not you change the A drum this would be a good idea.

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Thanks, I will look into that. A middle of the road approach may be to just inspect the A drum in addition to upgrades.

I guess I'm a long time lurker. I thought I had posted here before, but this thread started with my first post. I guess I'll go do that intro thing.

-Mike

 

It will be interesting to see what you find. I have a 2001 VDP and the tranny has been serviced by me, with a filter change and fluid change (twice on the fluid). I have never had a problem, and I suspect that you are correct in that many of the tranny problems are caused by rough usage. My J-gate surround was cracked when I got my car, apparently from the PO slamming it into gear. The suggestion by RJ sounds like a good one, while you're in there.

 

The best part of the valve upgrade is that it can be done while doing a filter change, adds about 2 hrs. max to the job.

 

I did have an A drum failure in 2000 VDP, and neither my wife, or I ever shift from R to D, or D to R without fully stopped. Always been very gentle on auto transmissions. Just sayin

 

Finally got the tranny out. Fortunately I haven't broken anything and didn't burst into flames (it's 100F+ here in TX today).

Now I'm trying to determine if the rear main seal is bad if it is the oil gallery bolt that is leaking. There is an old thread on that topic, so I posted it over there: Where else can Oil be leaking

On a car that has seen road salt, I would say that pulling the tranny is quite the job. Lots of stuck stuff. It took a good 3 hours after all the bolts were out to walk the tranny off the alignment dowels. This car has at least been in TX for the last 11 years.

The jack I used worked well. It is a modified unit for pulling Porsche 911 motors, but it's almost like it is custom made Jaguar XJ8 tranny jack :-).

-Mike

 

For best results you need to stand the gearbox on it's tail and pull the bell housing WITH the front pump (do not separate the pump from the bell housing).

I use a gear oil can/drum with a block of wood in the bottom to set the depth. (tall but narrow)

Carefully withdraw the front drum with the other drums STRAIGHT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do not wiggle side-to-side or rotate.

This will aid in an aligned 'frictions and steels' during reassembly.

Separate the other drums, replace the forward drum and 'O'rings, reassemble and replace gaskets.

It's not difficult but you need to keep track of EVERY bearing and the orientation of ALL THE PARTS.

Take digital pics or draw sketches if you can't remember how things came apart.

Just a word of advise from experiences I have noted during many replacements. I don't normally rebuild gearboxes but this repair is really easy.

bob gauff