The last time I changed the transaxle fluid in my car the fluid hit a cross brace that sits right in front of the drain plug and the fluid went everywhere except for the pan I was using to catch the fluid. This time I purchased a hand pump (after reading about it here on PC) to pump out the fluid prior to opening the drain plug. Worked like a charm. By the time I pumped all of the fluid that I could and then opened the drain plug the fluid flowed well below the cross brace. I pumped three quarts back in the housing and still not a drop on the driveway . On the fourth quart I had to adjust my position a little to readjust the tube in the housing and when I did the bottle turned over and spilled about 1/4 of a quart before I could pick it up. It is amazing how big of a puddle that a small amount of fluid can make on a concrete driveway !! Lesson learned, have something to brace the quart bottles so they cannot tip over !! Or maybe even better yet, pour all four quarts in to a clean bucket and then pump out of the bucket. The hand pump is definitely the way to go when changing the fluid. Pump out the fluid from the housing and then reverse the hoses and pump the new fluid back in. It certainly makes the job a lot easier and everything can be done under the car.
Sounds good JD. What kind of pump was it (link)? How did you clean it out before pumping new fluid in? I am @ 36K now, but I think I will wait a bit longer before I do mine.
The pump is a Pittsburgh Multi-Use Transfer Pump that I picked up at the local Harbor Freight so I do not have a link. I would highly recommend this for the transaxle fluid change. It really makes it easy. I made sure I had pumped out all of the old fluid and then used gasoline to flush it clean. I waited for it to dry and then blew air through the two hoses to make sure there was nothing left. I did this again when I finished pumping the new fluid to make sure it was clean and dry before storing it. I am at 50k miles now. I changed it the first time at 25k miles.
Another thing I would like to add is while I had the full engine under cover off I took the time to inspect everything underneath. The under cover does a great job of keeping the under side of the engine in pristine condition. I did not have a drop of fluid or any dirt buildup anywhere. At 50k miles it still looked like it did the day I bought it. This will make it very easy to spot a fluid leak if I do have one.
But don't use it for pumping gasoline! Even though the instructions say you can, the gas immediately dissolves the glue which holds together the two parts of the plunger. I took mine back for a refund.
I pumped gas with mine two different times to clean out the old fluid and then after pumping the new fluid. I did not notice a problem. I guess I need to get it back out and try to pump water or something to make sure it will still pump.
I always take the reviews with a grain of salt. The ones that typically post are those that have a problem. This always skews the reviews IMO. I tried my pump this afternoon after work with a bucket of water and it pumped fine with no leaks. This is after pumping gasoline on two different occassions. Maybe Pittsburgh has fixed the plunger issues.
Perhaps. Or there may be more than one supplier, with different construction. I bought mine just a couple of weeks ago; the first and only time I used it was to pump some gasoline, after which I found the plunger very stiff to operate. When I popped the end off I saw that the two halves of the piston had come unglued.
I bought mine a few months ago when I was in Harbor Freight for something else. I used it for the first time this weekend. So, who knows?
Just a thought, by chance did you leave the gasoline in the pump for any period of time? I know I purged mine fairly quickly after pumping the gasoline so it did not have a chance to stay in the pump for long.
Good point - I put the pump down for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes while I did something else, and there would have been a little gas left in it for that time.
