Does anyone ever change the manual transmission fluid? I am under the impression that the unit is supposed to be a "fill for life", but with some increasingly notchy shifting, I would try to refill it with some Amsoil sythetic ATF or one of the RedLine tranny lubricants.

Anyway, it looks easy enough to drain with the front on drive up ramps - it looks like it should drain just fine that way.

If I want to refill, do I leave it on the drive up ramps? It looks like I will need a long funnel and some flexible tubing - go in under the hood, and flex the tubing all the way to the fill hole.

Will I get enough lubricant in the transmission with the fronts on drive up ramps? Or will that angle of the transmission prevent getting enough lube in it?

 

I changed the fluid in my transmission late last summer. It was easy. I did it on the ground. I went to Pep Boys and picked up a cheap hand pump to put the new synthetic fluid in.

I did this hopeing that it would make the shifting a little less notchy. It didn't do as good as I had hoped. I thik I'll try it again when the weather warms up.

It's worth a try.

 

It's an easy change to make and well worth your time and $$.

I changed mine out last summer and refilled it with Amsoil. The stick was definitely smoother.

I removed the drain plug. The hand pump is a good idea. I have one now, but at the time all that I had was a large bulbed syringe. It worked fine though just took more time. But it sucked up a lot of fluid each time.

I highly recommend the change. I did the same thing with the differential.

Hunt4Fun

 

I agree I did both my transmission and differential. I used Royal Purple but that is just one good brand of many.

When you do fill your transmission you want the truck on the ground as it normally sits and then just fill the transmission until the fluid is even with the fill hole. You will know that because it will leak out a little, so in other words you can not over fill it. If you have it on jacks or something you could possible overfill it. I had no problem getting under the truck to do it.

Same with the differential, very easy to do. You fill it with the truck level on the ground as well and just fill it to level with the fill hole. Again it will leak a little, so you can not over fill it unless it’s up on jacks.

The Royal Purple cost me like $8 a qt. So the total cost for doing both the transmission and differential was about $60-$70. Much cheaper then having someone doing it and no leaks at all. On the differential I did not use a gasket. It didn’t come with a gasket from the factor so I used what was recommended which was high temp silicone RTV. It’s been about 4 months (3,000 miles) no problems.

Transmission from what I remember took about 15 – 20 minutes and same with the differential. So you could do both in an hour or so.

 

I went with Redline.

The truck has 111,000 miles on it, the five speed was just a bit notchy, sometimes took a little more effort to get into first than I'd expect.
The Redline fluid helped a bunch. Judging from the condition of the fluid I drained, anything would have helped. This might have been the factory fluid.
I'm going to do the hydraulic lines soon - power steering, brakes and clutch.
I have a sense the transmission will feel better after a fluid change and bleeding of the clutch cylinders and lines.

But from this change of ATF alone, the gearbox works better and is quieter.