Do it yourself trans flush, will this work..?
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Teching In
Joined: Apr 2008
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Do it yourself trans flush, will this work..? I used to work in a shop with a trans flush machine. Basically we filled the machine with trans fluid, tapped into one of the cooler lines, started the car, and the trans pump pushed out the old fluid through one line while sucking in the new fluid from the other. Equal amounts of fluid went in and out at the same time. Worked great.
Here's my question. I haven't worked there for years and want to try flushing the fluid myself. If I had two buckets, one empty, and one filled with new fluid, could I just tap a cooler line, stick a piece of tubing in the new fluid and another in the empty bucket, start the car, and have the trans pump do the work? This seems like a working idea in my head, but I can't seem to find any threads where someone has attempted this. I'm afraid there's probably a reason for that I haven't thought of.
Thoughts?
Here's my question. I haven't worked there for years and want to try flushing the fluid myself. If I had two buckets, one empty, and one filled with new fluid, could I just tap a cooler line, stick a piece of tubing in the new fluid and another in the empty bucket, start the car, and have the trans pump do the work? This seems like a working idea in my head, but I can't seem to find any threads where someone has attempted this. I'm afraid there's probably a reason for that I haven't thought of.
Thoughts?
No that will not work because you need to be able to push the fluid back into the system with the return cooler line. I'm pretty sure your machine had a pump to do this. It will not suck it through a line because it is the pressure line that normally would do this in a factory sealed system.
Now if you wanted to go completely nuts here and make a big mess, you could pull the transmission oil pan and cut the snout off the transmission oil filter. Connect a hose to it and then place hose in a bucket. This would push fresh fluid through the whole system but I guarantee that you will have oils shooting out of the valve body making a huge mess.
For what you are looking to do you will need some kind of a pump in a closed system or you could try this method that was posted a few years back. http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4027 HTH Vince
Now if you wanted to go completely nuts here and make a big mess, you could pull the transmission oil pan and cut the snout off the transmission oil filter. Connect a hose to it and then place hose in a bucket. This would push fresh fluid through the whole system but I guarantee that you will have oils shooting out of the valve body making a huge mess.
For what you are looking to do you will need some kind of a pump in a closed system or you could try this method that was posted a few years back. http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4027 HTH Vince
Joined: Aug 2007
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From: Turnin' Wrenches Infractions: 005
I never understood why people think flushes are mandatory. They're not. People been dropping the pan and changing the fluid and filter that way since the beginning of time. Why change what works? And, transmissions are designed for this type of service.
Now on my wifes Explorer I had the stealership flush her tranny once and the only benefit I can see is it gets all the fluid out of the converter because it gets flushed while it's running. The bad part is they charged me like $210 bucks for the flush and that's it. I learned my lesson after this endeavor and the next time i dropped the pan and changed the filter for $50 bucks.
