No, nothing sinister, really - just...

- Can't find Ravenol or Castrol BOT341 here in Australia.
- All of the places supplying Ravenol or Castrol BOT341 were in Europe. Their websites exploded when I tried to select shipment to Australia.
- I had some SSTF-1 left over from my last service.
- Sometimes I stand in my backyard burning money just for fun. Buying Dia-Queen SSTF-1 from the dealer is even better!

Rich

 

Haha! I was just wondering since I'm planning to do an early 20,000km trans fluid/filter change. Luckily I can get Pentosin FFL-2 here in Canada for pretty cheap.

I figured it was most likely because you couldn't get your hands on any there.

 

Oh yeah, while I think of it...

The other thing I recommend is to clean the drain plugs so they are 100% free of any old fluid, and then take the car for a gentle warm-up drive - without the plastic under-panels fitted. Then check those drain plugs for any seepage.

After warming it up, I found a tiny amount of fluid getting past two of the three drain plugs on my SST. I torqued up the drain plugs again, to the correct amount.

My guess is that there was a bit of hydraulic fluid left on/in the thread when I tightened it up the first time - probably made it harder to nail the correct torque setting.

Hopefully it will now have itself a perfect seal.

Rich

 

So...

If i did a dipstick check before i drain while still 'full' from the top fill hole (used a straw)...

I could then drain (per excellent instructions, above) but refill with 6L (run and warm up the tranny) and then use the original dipstick reading to finish the refill until the stick was full.

This would save having to measure the old fluid and try to account for 'spillage'....

Whadyathink? Am i on to something here?

 

If you look down the top filler hole, you see "stuff"... there is no void or fluid chamber. Not sure how you'd check anything from that hole.

Also, there are multiple drain plugs - each drain plug seems to relate to a separate internal chamber. If you did find a way to check fluid level from some accessible chamber, you'd want to run the engine, move trans between P/R/N/D a few times, to get fluid moved evenly between all of them.

Rich

 

Just a quick question where did you find the ffl-2 fluid here in canada and how much? Thanks in advance

 

It is about $20 for 1L
http://www.autopartsway.ca/PartDetai...33-1626382/PEN

 

Also, SSP is working on getting half price OEM filter replacements (for those who don't want to splice their transmission filter lines to use a reusable filter).

I'm waiting for those to come out. That way everything will still look stock and no one is a wiser (and I have better fluid + new filter + early change).

 

why not pick up the dodson reusable filter? it goes in the oem housing

 

Have you seen one? It doesn't look like it will filter much to me.

 

i figure if a racing company takes as long as they did to develope X parts it should be good...

i'm actually just waiting on a response from them on the specs of it vs the oem filter

 

I think a racing company would figure that they are going to be changing the fluid all the time, so why bother putting together a small micron filter that may clog up and restrict flow and pressure.

I'll be curious to hear what they have to say, though.

 

Okay so I had the SST oil change done recently and ran into something odd...I had only two drain plugs and one area that looks like it was cast for a drain plug but not drilled. Mine is a 2011...so did they get rid of the third plug in later model years or is my tranny faulty? It drained out 6 liters.

 

razorlab said his SST has only 2 drain plugs. His is a 2010. Go figure...

6 litres, eh? I got 5.3 litres out of mine, and thought that was a lot.

[edit]On reviewing this way later, this "5.3 litres" differs from my earlier post (where I said "7.3 litres"). Reckon this one was a typo.

Rich

 

Yea, seems like 2010+ RA's only have two drain plugs. My 2010 has only two.