The RIGHT WAY to Flush your SST Trans
Nov 24, 2011, 10:12 AM
#1
The RIGHT WAY to Flush your SST Trans
Hello Everyone,
Id like to start off saying thank you to Kris at SSP Performance he gave me a few pointers and was very helpful. It all started a few weeks ago, the car felt very sluggish and was skipping gears when down shifting going from 6th to 4th and so on. I was driving home Friday and felt the car starting to vibrate alot and the trans was making alot more noise than before. I have 64,700 Miles on my car. I decided to park it and gave kris at SSP a call he said what the hell I was waiting for that ot was was past due for a flush, and this is what he told me to do so here we go........
Id also like to thank Ryan at Fred Beans for getting me the 2 gallons of the SST fluid and the Filter if you guys need anything contact him. I also took Kris's advice and got two gallons of mineral oil from a local feed shop to FLUSH the trans out with.
tools needed just basic stuff
Trim Clip Puller for all those clips
8mm allen head socket
10mm
13mm trans cooler bolts
32mm axle socket Trans Filter
Torque Wrench
a few extensions to get to those hard to reach areas
Alot of paper towels!
Picked up a 5 gallon drain pan from my work (Autozone) and a felxi funnel to fill the fluid up top since its sorta hard to get to. This pan worked awesome didnt drop ANY fluid on the floor
Start off by jacking up the car, I got the whole thing off the ground to make it easy to get under. I pulled the front bumper off, and removed all the clips and 10mm bolts (Thread about how to remove bumper elsewhere)
Just to be safe I had a tarp laying around thought Id throw it down just incase of a spill, didnt have one at all just take your time!
I removed the plastic air guide in front of the trans cooler to make it easier to get to the one top bolt its 13mm marked RED.
SHORT VIDEO
Remove the three drain bolts and filler bolt they are a 8mm allen. Good thing for this huge pain I got all three holes under it no problem, did one drain hole at a time.
Next remove the old filter housing, that plastic clip that everyone hates is not really that big of a pain in the *** if you just take it slow little by little I took it off three times with no issues on the little clip. Used a 32mm Socket here.
Drained the Stock cooler by removing the first bolt ontop then its as simple as unduing the hose clamp and tilting it so it flows out easy.
I used empty water jugs to measure what I got out, almost got close to two gallons out of it.
Had a few little pieces of the clutches in the drain pan but not too bad for close to 65k.
I can say that this filter was clogged pretty bad, it was nasty.
Now come thes fun part and the part where that strange mineral oil flush WTF
I like to thank Kris for this tip, after draining all the stock fluid take out the filter put the housing back on NO FILTER inside, then poor in two gallons of the mineral oil into the trans using the flexi funnel Igot at autozone, start the car leave it in Park and let it idle for 20-30min. This will clean out anything thats left behind. the mineral oil will not hurt the trans and it will not bind with any other oil other than itself. After letting it run for 25min I drained all the fluid like stated above just repeate those steps.
Now you want to getthat nifty 130 dollar filter, put a little of the new SST fluid inside it make sure the area where it screws in is clean. screw it on gental go slow so the clip wont break.
Here is a picture of the new fluid on the left and the old on the right you can see the diffrance
tighten the trans filter till its snug and then make sure all the drain bolts are torqued to spec 19ft/lbs
Time to fill her up, Used the felxi funnel life saver! for that tricky filler hole. poor the fluid in slowly and let it go down might take awhile I had my dad help me out.
Start the car let it idle again for 20 min, then while parked change the gears from park to R to N to Drive to get any air bubbles out and help The fluid get threw the trans.
After all the time I was worried my trans is fine even with the mods that are listed in my signature. No RPM bounces at 50mph anymore no misshifts or vibrations. Thanks again to Kris at SSP and RYAN at FreadBeans for the parts and advice
Id like to start off saying thank you to Kris at SSP Performance he gave me a few pointers and was very helpful. It all started a few weeks ago, the car felt very sluggish and was skipping gears when down shifting going from 6th to 4th and so on. I was driving home Friday and felt the car starting to vibrate alot and the trans was making alot more noise than before. I have 64,700 Miles on my car. I decided to park it and gave kris at SSP a call he said what the hell I was waiting for that ot was was past due for a flush, and this is what he told me to do so here we go........
Id also like to thank Ryan at Fred Beans for getting me the 2 gallons of the SST fluid and the Filter if you guys need anything contact him. I also took Kris's advice and got two gallons of mineral oil from a local feed shop to FLUSH the trans out with.
tools needed just basic stuff
Trim Clip Puller for all those clips
8mm allen head socket
10mm
13mm trans cooler bolts
32mm axle socket Trans Filter
Torque Wrench
a few extensions to get to those hard to reach areas
Alot of paper towels!
Picked up a 5 gallon drain pan from my work (Autozone) and a felxi funnel to fill the fluid up top since its sorta hard to get to. This pan worked awesome didnt drop ANY fluid on the floor
Start off by jacking up the car, I got the whole thing off the ground to make it easy to get under. I pulled the front bumper off, and removed all the clips and 10mm bolts (Thread about how to remove bumper elsewhere)
Just to be safe I had a tarp laying around thought Id throw it down just incase of a spill, didnt have one at all just take your time!
I removed the plastic air guide in front of the trans cooler to make it easier to get to the one top bolt its 13mm marked RED.
SHORT VIDEO
Remove the three drain bolts and filler bolt they are a 8mm allen. Good thing for this huge pain I got all three holes under it no problem, did one drain hole at a time.
Next remove the old filter housing, that plastic clip that everyone hates is not really that big of a pain in the *** if you just take it slow little by little I took it off three times with no issues on the little clip. Used a 32mm Socket here.
Drained the Stock cooler by removing the first bolt ontop then its as simple as unduing the hose clamp and tilting it so it flows out easy.
I used empty water jugs to measure what I got out, almost got close to two gallons out of it.
Had a few little pieces of the clutches in the drain pan but not too bad for close to 65k.
I can say that this filter was clogged pretty bad, it was nasty.
Now come thes fun part and the part where that strange mineral oil flush WTF
I like to thank Kris for this tip, after draining all the stock fluid take out the filter put the housing back on NO FILTER inside, then poor in two gallons of the mineral oil into the trans using the flexi funnel Igot at autozone, start the car leave it in Park and let it idle for 20-30min. This will clean out anything thats left behind. the mineral oil will not hurt the trans and it will not bind with any other oil other than itself. After letting it run for 25min I drained all the fluid like stated above just repeate those steps. Now you want to getthat nifty 130 dollar filter, put a little of the new SST fluid inside it make sure the area where it screws in is clean. screw it on gental go slow so the clip wont break.
Here is a picture of the new fluid on the left and the old on the right you can see the diffrance
tighten the trans filter till its snug and then make sure all the drain bolts are torqued to spec 19ft/lbs
Time to fill her up, Used the felxi funnel life saver! for that tricky filler hole. poor the fluid in slowly and let it go down might take awhile I had my dad help me out.
Start the car let it idle again for 20 min, then while parked change the gears from park to R to N to Drive to get any air bubbles out and help The fluid get threw the trans.
After all the time I was worried my trans is fine even with the mods that are listed in my signature. No RPM bounces at 50mph anymore no misshifts or vibrations. Thanks again to Kris at SSP and RYAN at FreadBeans for the parts and advice
Last edited by 08Lancer89; Nov 24, 2011 at 04:11 PM.
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Nov 24, 2011, 12:42 PM
#4
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Glad to see more people draining the cooler and lines 
Other wise it's only 75% new fluid, haha.
Nice clear how-to, good pics; hope everyone does this, but don't wait until 65K!
Other wise it's only 75% new fluid, haha.Nice clear how-to, good pics
; hope everyone does this, but don't wait until 65K!
Nov 25, 2011, 05:53 AM
#6
Thanks for the writeup! How much of the mineral oil came out when you drained it? My only concern about that flush would be in leaving mineral oil in the system and having it effect the lubrication and friction properties of the diaqueen. Normally, I would flush the solvent out with fresh transmission fluid but the liquid gold is a little pricey for that!
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Nov 25, 2011, 10:10 PM
#8
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Great writeup! I knew there had to be a way to flush the tranny without wasting the precious sst fluid. Was the mineral oil pretty dirty when you drained it out? I am doing this next week!
Nov 26, 2011, 03:29 AM
#9
It was blackish but not that much and the fluid was pretty clean when I fist drained it. The filter seems like that's where most of the issue was. But I wanted to do a proper flush and Kris at SSP told me he dose this all the time so I ran with it. Thanks Kris!
Nov 30, 2011, 12:56 AM
#14
Evolved Member
When I do a flush on them, I only fill the trans with 1.5 gallons, but I flush it out twice. Hopefully your post helps to quiet the naysayers regarding flushing the trans. It is really important to do this flush like you have written about. on the write up.
on the write up.