GIJoe

I did the ZF6 Tranny oil change today.
Pats I had to buy:
1 - Suction Gun - AutoZone $8 (Sears had them to for around $12ish for their version)
2 - 17MM Hex Key (allen wrench) - Sears $9 (NOBODY else had a 17MM hexm Start with Sears. I went to AutoZone and Home Depot also, neither had anything of this size.)
3 - 3 1qt bottles of the GM manual tranny fluid - 12345349 FLUID-TRA $10.41/ea. I got this from Holler Chevrolet's parts department. CALL YOUR LOCAL PARTS DEPARTMENT FIRST! The closest place had ONE bottle. THe 2nd closest place had 53 bottles in stock. I guess its not a big item at all locations.

It took about an hour, was REALLY easy, but REALLY messy.
I ramped the car, then just jacked up the driver side even higher (should have jacked up passenger side instead). Anyway... I followed all the notes from previous people on here about what to do and what not to do. It went REALLY smoothly!

I had stated before I had NEVER had my fluid changed before and have 120K miles on the car. Aparently I guess my fluid HAS been changed sometime in the past. The dang fill nut was kind of stripped inside. I couldn't get the bigazz hex wrench to stay in the hole. Finally I had to get a pair of vice grips and tap it with a hammer to get it loosened. I did this first as suggested on here to make sure i would be able to fill it again.

I then dropped the drain plug. It poured out, smelled REALLY bad (for oil that is) and 1/2 through something "plopped" out. It was pretty old looking. If oil could be "wore slap out" then this oil was past that point.

I put the drain plug back in, torqued it down by hand as hard as I could, then pulled the fill plug.

The pump thing I got was just like one of the cheap hand bicycle tire pumps with an 11" hard tube you could put on the end. There wasn't much too it, you just opened a bottle of fluid, sucked as much in as you could, then crawled back under the car, shoved it into the fill hole and shot it back into the tranny. Crawled back out from under the car and repeated several times.

Also, as most people noted in previous posts about this... when it starts to drip back out the fill hole, its full! I filled it with 2qts, then the last bit I filled up the suction gun one more time and then gently pressed the plunger until it just started to drip out. I then pulled the lever back so it wouldnt drip out the tube, removed it from the fill hole and quickly put the screw back in.

I was able to torque it back down as hard as I could by hand without having to use the vice grips again.

I let it run a good 20 mins in the driveway while I cleaned my mess up and had no leaks. The test drive was like a hot knife through butter. SMOOTH!

I appreciate all those that have posted their experiences in the past about this when people ask this same question over and over again. Even though it gets annoying to reply again and again, it really helps those that have never done it before to have several different people's experiences to ready about. It sure helped me out a lot!


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Note I am going to have added to the C4 FAQ, but figured I would repost it here also:

GM Trans FLUID HAS A NEW PART NUMBER!I bought this straight from a Chevy dealer this morning .The bottle also has the new part number on it. The parts lady stated this was the new number also.

12345349 FLUID-TRA $10.41/ea is what my receipt says.

This looks just like a quart of oil or any other tranny fluid. Blackish/grey bottle with plain jane font on the front lable describing its the gm syncromesh (sp?) manual transmission fluid. It does NOT look like the blue labled bottle on the gmpartsdirect website.

pacat

Quote: 2 - 17MM Hex Key (allen wrench) - Sears $9 (NOBODY else had a 17MM hexm Start with Sears. I went to AutoZone and Home Depot also, neither had anything of this size.)


Great post, I had the same problem finding a metric allen wrench to remove the plugs on my transmission. I ended up using a 11/16” nut, pushing it in about half way into the plug then putting a 11/16” combo wrench on the end of the nut. Worked great

lite blue

I started with the el cheapo 17mm socket from a parts place. Supposedly the VWs use this for something, and that's why parts places have it. It wasn't a tight fit, and started to round out my fill plug, so I stopped until I could find something better. I finally ran down a Snap-On guy a few weeks ago, and dropped $27 on their part, but it is a beauty. Big ol' 17mm hex set in a really nice socket. Worked great! I figured if I'm working on a ZR-1, I'm going to do it right.

VinceAD

I was going to change my fluid today, but spent two hours driving to different auto parts stores and Home Depot trying to find a 17 mm hex socket or wrench. Finally found a 17 mm hex bit in a kit at a NAPA store. Anyway good post, I plan on changing mine out tomorrow.

Z-07 freak

That 17mm hex wrench from Sears is a POS. It started to strip my drain plug last time. So I got the 17mm socket from Cornwell for $10.

GIJoe

I wish we had some better parts places in Orlando. I had no problem with dropping some cash on a NICE socket to use with my ratchet, but that sears hex allen wrench was the only thing I could find without driving to every single store in the city (i had a tight time schedule).

ill try looking at a Napa or something

There is an autozone and discount/advance auto parts on every corner...but they have more interest in carrying the latest altezzas or neon kits than actual USEFUL car parts

I think the main problem is the fact the plugs aren't deep enough to get a good grip.

jonecap

I changed my ZF oil today too. Messy job! Probably would have been less messy if I'd started with a better pump to put the oil back in to begin with.

larryfs

and next month, it'll be back to the harsh shifting.

Z-07 freak

As far as I know, Snap-On and Cornwell are the only ones who sell it.

tomtom72

It might be to your advantage to go to ZR51Performance, aka zfdoc.com, and read the info Bill has up on the site. I found it to be an education and very informative. I read the test they did with the trans lube oils. The results were expressed in terms of miles of use vs remaining lubricity of the fluid.

If a zf is balky in shifting the Q & A section covers that. According to Bill the zf is not an inheritly ill shifting gear box, rather I think Bill points to GM's lack of effort designing the hydrualic system for the C4.

It's kind of like what most magazines used to say about the M22 box...."It shifts like a crowbar going thru a keg of nails". Most of the time the linkage wasn't adjusted correctly & the shifter head was dirty. This can't happen on a rail box so you may want to look at the hydraulic system closely as the source of the problem.


Tom

kennedys22

Yes - the forum helped me too. Good suggestions to loosen both plugs first. I found the allen wrench okay, but I would rather have a hex socket - couldn't find that at Sears. But the allen wrench worked. My hand pump was the type that screws on top of the plastic quart bottle - they use them for boat applications a lot. It worked - lots of pumping. My trans still shifts smoother even after a few months. Yes - the GM part number changed. I guess I was lucky to get three quarts at the dealer.

This forum is great - these posts help many people including me. I was ready for the job and had no surprises because the form alerted me to them. Great job!

GIJoe

oh don't get me wrong, i am not having any issues shifting, I just never changed the fluid before and finally did it. I have a 3rd gear syncro going, but nothing is going to fix that... so I figured I'd do the oil change and give it some extra years until I have to replace the tranny entirely.


jonecap - hah i had the same thought "this wouldn't be so messy if..."


kennedys22 - and thats why its good to post this stuff, even if it is a simple task. Hopefully my experience may help someone else out, as someone else's experience being posted helped me out.

dizwiz24

YOu made the right move in going with GM approved replacement.

And not the Castrol BMW crap that caused my car grinded high RPM shifts and missed shifts.