Until recently my favorite mod to my truck has been the vent tank, by far! I fill up a LOT and I get a big ole' grin on my face every time I fill her up to the top.

However, my latest mod has trumped it in spades. Only a real gear head can appreciate it, but it's a simple little brass petcock valve on my stock transmission pan. I change my engine oil and filter every 3k like my life depended on it....and now every tiime I do....I drop 4 qts of tranny fluid out into a graduated container and put 4 qts back in. All the while not spilling a drop! So basically I'm constantly flushing the system to some degree.

I have a friend that likes to joke that I spend more time under my truck than in it That is, in the very least, a SLIGHT exaggeration....but it's still has a grain of truth to it.

 

one turn of a valve, instead of unbolting all those pan bolts and making a mess all over while ur laying under the hot oil, lol... priceless...

 

I HATE with a passion ubolting the whole tranny pan to drain the fluid. When I put the VB in i drilled a hole in the pan and welded a bung in, and when i drained the fluid after I broke the input shaft it was soooooooooo much easier. Unbolting the pan is the dumbest design i have ever seen, even though a lot of auto manufaturers do it that way.

Eric

 

I wish they would install drain plugs on everything and with every manufacture.

 

theres nothing wrong with thorough p.m's

brett

 

I have never understood why they don't put drain plugs in a tranny pan. It makes absolutely no sense to me. But to hell with 'em...I dood it myself

 

Deesil, I'm the same way... I love working on my truck more than driving it... I guess that's probably strange to most, but I've been a gearhead since I got my first bicycle when I was 4 or 5....

 

years ago they did have drain plugs on transmissions.seems the 3 cents for the plugs was just too much for the bean counters to handle.so off they came.thats one thing i like about the allison in my freightliner.it has a drain plug and an external filter.

 

They used to, about 40 or 50 years ago when transmission oils weren't that good and the change interval was short. When the quality of the oil improved the manufacturers increased the change interval many eliminated the drain plug.

 

There's a drain on my Excursion's 4R100 Trans.

 

I have heard that the reason they were removed was to make sure that the filter got changed with the fluid . . . . people were just changing the fluid.

 

That's not a good enough reason to buy a Ford

My 4Runner has a tranny pan drain plug...just did it a couple weeks ago. Also the same day we did my buddys '01 F150 and found out that his torque convertor has a drain plug !....of course not the tranny pan though.

 

yeah well now my tranny pan and tc both have a drain plug. so changing my tranny fluid is pretty simple.

 

I drilled and tapped a drain in my 6sp and the 5sp I used to have. Tq. convertors used to have drain plugs too. I think Detroit just got cheap cuz the convertor drain was useful regardless of the pan drain. I always brazed drains in my auto pans so I could let them drain all night and the rest of the job was clean. Craig

 

My Allison has a drain plug!

Never understood it myself. Only other slushbox I've ever owned that had a pan drain plug was my old Impala w/ a TH350 trans, but I think that was an aftermarket pan.