Changed my Xfer and Rear Diff Fluid today
 

My 03 Evo has 22k miles and several road races under its belt so I figured its time to change the transfer and rear diff fluid.

I ordered my Dia-queen LSD oil from: http://www.mitsubishiparts.net/
Very fast shipping and good prices...thumbs up!

Inspecting the fill locations I realized that it would be a real pain in the arse to do this without a pump. I buzzed on down to autozone and low and behold they had a hand pump for just this sort of deal and it only cost $11!

The pump is made by SHOP-CRAFT and the part number is 36667. Its called a multi-use pump. Here is some info on it:

http://www.acehardware.com/product/i...ductId=1292136

The first thing I do is drain the rear diff. The fluid still looked like new...even the magnet had very little trash on it. I was quite surprized considering the car had been REALLY pounded on. That task took only 5 minutes because the pump worked like a charm.

Then it was off to the xfer case. Same deal fluid looked like new. I installed a TRE heavy duty trash magnet under the inspection lid. When I removed the lid an arse load of fluid was still in the xfer at that location so it was a good move to pull it anyway. Again the pump worked like a charm. I am not sure how much fluid the xfer case took. It didn't seem like much. I pumped it in until it was running out but did anyone have to move the car and then top it off again?

Anyway I have a few things to say about this deal....first of all I think Mitsu was a bit over eager to have us change our fluids....I mean mine wasn't even brown so I doubt I needed to replace it. Secondly get the fricken pump because it makes the job 50x easier. Lastly I hope someone can let me know if they needed to move the car to top off the xfer case. It just didn't seem like it took very much fluid.

It doenst take much fluid @ all...

since you are under the car, must as well change the tranny fluid too

I did the tranny last week....used Penzoil sychromesh.
Didn't notice a difference.....but at least its done.

jeff thanks for you rin out oni this.....i have been very worried on doing this maintence since I reahecd over 30,000 a week back......I think I will get the pump as you suggested and wanted to know if the Tranny was just as easy?

not much fluid, but the car does need to be level to top off. (4 jack stands)

tranny was just as easy.....didnt even need a pump for it.

NICE....thanks jeff

Good Maintenance , better do it early than be sorry later{thumbup}

Transfer case and differential oil rarely change color until they are WAYYYYY too deteriorated to be trusted. Remember that these are VERY high quality fluids which are exposed to VERY LITTLE heat and "foreign material". So, you can't rely on the color of the fluid. The only way to know for sure is to send it off for analysis.

You did the right thing by changing them when the fluid was still good. Cheap insurance if you do the job right (hard to screw that one up though).

Shawn

I have this pump too and had the worst time with it. It finally worked but i basically had to fill the pump with oil so that it would have enough suction to pull from the bottle.

Well I had excellent results but I was using diaqueen and not something heavy like shockproof.

did u just buy 1 can of the fluid? both the transfercase and rear diff use it?

One can....and its only about half gone. More than enough to do the job especially if you get Penzoil sychromesh for the tranny.

....and yes both the transfer case and rear diff use dia-queen.