The Fill WHAT?

I'm sorry to report that Nathan had some problems trying to refill the tranny with fluid. The first inconvenience was verifying that yes, the Wagovan does in fact use 10w-40 motor oil, not transmission fluid. He bought a nice synthetic oil.

The next problem... well, this is just a comedy goldmine, in my opinion. I'm just sorry there are no pictures. I'll let Nathan tell it:

Some days I work on cars. Other days they work me.

Today was one of those other days.

This morning I figgered I would be done by noon, as all I had to do was put fluid in the tranny and install the throwout bearing.

I got nothing done.

I started easy, just changing the fluid. I might as well have been trying to change the fluid in a rock. Or an anvil.

It turns out that they put alot of thought into where the most difficult place to locate the fill plug for your transmission would be. It can only be accessed with a wrench- there is not enough clearance for even a low profile socket and ratchet.

Of course the vehicle has to be lifted first. And just in case that wasn't difficult enough, they made the plug steel and the tranny case aluminum.

You now have a theft-resistant fill plug.

This was accomplished by chemically bonding the threads of the bolt and hole, through a process called "rust", and then removing the corners of the bolt head and making it round so no tool can get a grip on it. The final stage of rounding took about three hours and various polishing tools (including a wrench, line wrench, vise grips, and hammer and chisel). This was when the bell rang and we both went to our seperate corners.

I considered other options for filling the transmission (such as removing an axle and filling it through the axle hole) but decided not to leave this problem for the future. Either you would have to deal with a theft-resistant fill plug or pay someone else to. I considered heating it with a propane torch but figgered that might catch the remaining oil in the tranny on fire, and anyway the "fill plug" (of course "plugs" are intended to be removed, this is more in line with a fill "won't-goddam-turn") would still be prohibitively difficult to use.

After much consideration, I decided that the best course would be a "fill-tube" -- very popular on automatic transmissions, but it never really caught on with manual transmissions.

This defies comprehension.

Why would otherwise (for the sake of argument) competent automobile designers decide a horizontal hole located in a hard-to-reach location was the preferred method for fluid transfer? Fluid doesn't readily move horizontally. To move fluid horizontally requires some equipment. Equipment doesn't readily work in hard-to-reach locations. And anyway, why try to move fluid horizontally, even with equipment? Perhaps a tube, running vertically, to an easy-to-reach location would be appropriate? But no. Why redesign something that has been working so poorly for so long?

So after lunch I went and looked over the tranny to see where such a radically innovative tube might be located. I decided on using the drain plug hole. All I would need to do is go purchase some fittings. An in-line drain would work GREAT. I would screw it into the drain plug hole, and screw the fill tube into the other side of it. Then when it came time to change the fluid in the tranny all you would have to do would be to turn the valve, wait till it emptied, close it, and refill the tranny. I could even use the old power steering reservoir as a built-in funnel to make filling it easy. A salvaged and re-sized dipstick could maybe be installed to give it that OEM feel.

Sound good? If only this bothersome "metric system" hadn't been introduced. The japs seem to love it. But it seems metric fittings aren't readily available in Reno. At least not on weekends.

This was when the bell rang again and we went to our seperate corners.

The Honda seemed cocky.

Tues I'll go to the hose and fitting store (only open on weekdays- how last millenium is that?) and see if they have metric fittings.

I can no longer remember this incident without uncontrollable giggling. :-D