ontoy

O.k. so I did a drain and refill on my transmission last week, following TunedRX300 procedure. But i did not drop the pan, I just simply drain out the tranny drain plug and the front differencial, then hook a 3/8" ID clear tubing to the cooler lines to replaced fluid in the torque converter. I initially bought 7 qts. of toyota type IV fluid and 3 more qts. afterwords, to remove as much old ATF as much as possible. But the color did not change to cherry red as mention, it look purple.

Old fluid look like chocolate milk.

Installed 3/8" ID clear tubing to trans cooler line.

ATF looked purple.

Another shot at the jar.

And when i check the trans fluid level after driving car for about 15 min. of course while car are in idle and after all the gears have been engage. The fluid level was a little below the hot mark with splatter fluid up to the type IV wording, I did fill it up 4 days later up to the hot markings in between. But i'm not sure about the fluid splatter up to the type 4 wording, is this o.k.
Picture was taken before i filled it up to the hot marking point.

GEORGE_JET

"Old fluid look like chocolate milk"

Most likely anti-freeze is mixing with your oil. Coming from your transmission cooler in the radiator. Ethylene glycol from the antifreeze mixes with the oil and creates a real mess.

Unhook your transmission cooler lines at the rad. Remove rad cap and pressurize the cooler trany cooler with app 15 psi of air pressure. You will probably see bubbles. How does the anti-freeze look?

llcoolpass

maybe, but that fluid doesn't look like it. do what george jet said. but also, have you noticed any loss of coolant yourself over recently? this doesn't mean anything... per se. still do what george jet said. and thank god youre doing this now. look at that. that's horrible.

ontoy

Yeah, I did notice a loss of coolant couple months ago and i had to top the coolant reservoir to the top level with the toyota long life (pink). That's the type of coolant that came with the car when i bought it back in 2006. Lookin' at the coolant reservoir, it looks pretty bright pink with no signs of ATF.

George Jet: so what type of pump do i use to put air pressure on the cooler tranny. Where would I look for the bubbles in the coolant reservoir or right at the radiator cap opening. So what would this test tells me.....

The car is running fine, it shift smoothly to all the gears. I just notice this during this drain & refill of the ATF.

GEORGE_JET

Use a air compressor, just make sure that the regulator is turned all the way down before you hook it up. Or you could use a vac pump (harbor freight has a small hand held unit). If you pressurise the system, look for bubbles at the rad cap. If you pull a vac you would look for anti-freeze in the tubing you use to hook it up. Does this look like the original rad? How many miles does your car have?
I see you're from the islands, I spent a few years on the big island, puna. Had to be careful using the catchment water in the rad, it was a little too acidic because of the volcanno

llcoolpass

george_jet +1