How often should you chage the fluid in the t56's? i dont think mine has ever been touched or flushed and im wondering if i need to because of all the random grinding ive been having. I dont really have access to alift but can if dire need, have mostly jackstands and tools. anyone? also thought about flushing the clutch fluid cause its pretty dark. any advice? do i take it to a tranny shop and have them do it? thanks guys.

 

The manual transmission fluid is technically a lifetime fill, but you should replace it every now and then, so in your case I would replace it. Definitely change the clutch fluid too. If you don't feel like bleeding it, you can just change the fluid in the reservoir which is very easy, and then keep doing it until it stays clean.

I don't think grinding would be caused by dirty fluid though, there's probably something wrong with the tranny itself. But you can change the fluid first to see what it does. Jack up the front and back and sit it on jack stands. Open up the drain plug on the bottom (the square end of a socket wrench should fit right in,that's what I do). While it's draining, take your center console off and the shifter. Reason being you will need to refill it through the shifter (because everything I have tried did not work to refill it through the fill hole on the tranny). The shifter should probably be greased anyways. Once it's done draining, put the drain plug back in. Then take the fill plug off on the other side. Stick a funnel into the shifter hole and pour all 4 quarts of your chosen ATF fluid in there. Some will start to run out the fill hole. Once it's done running out, plug it. Grease the shifter springs and put the shifter back on, and put the center console back on.

It'll probably take you over an hour.

 

Do it yourself. It is not hard. Doing a simple search here will give you all the info you need. I change my fluid every 25k.

 

I did mine the day before yesterday. It took me about 45min, and 20 mins of that was going to Advance to buy fluid and a pump. You can fill it though the shifter as mentioned, but thats a lot of work for something you can get around for $5 pump that you can get at Advance.

Here is what I did that made it very easy.

1. Jack up the rear and support on stands.
2. Jack up the front of the car a little higher than the rear and support on stands, but leave the jack right up against the underside of the car.
3. Remove both the fill plug (drivers side), and drain plug (passanger side) with 3/8 ratchet and let drain.
4. Reinstall drain plug.
5. Jack the front of the car up a little and lower your stands so the front will sit a little lower than the rear.
6. Use $5 fluid pump (from Advance) and pump in fluid through fill plug. It will take all 4 qts w/o leaking back out.
7. Reinstall fill plug, lower the car, and enjoy an ice cold beer!

 

BTW....I'm a noob to these cars. I just bought my WS6 about 3 weeks ago, and I still did it in under an hour.