what I did to nail the fluid level as before was just measure the quantity I removed and started from there. I was only about a half quart off, going off how much I splashed on the ground, so I got the level pretty close to where it was before hand.

17k miles ago, I had done 3 consecutive drain and fills at 275k and did the filter on the last drain and fill. The fluid I drained this most recent service looked perfectly fine and really pink/red, so I think it probably could've gone further but I didn't want to risk it since the tranny has pretty high mileage on it.

 

 

I don't remember, but I did use my inch-lbs 1/4" torque wrench for both, so it wasn't very much torque at all. I used a traditional tranny pan gasket for replacement, luckily I didn't have to clean up any old FIPG on the flanges as the previous owner had done an SL lockup solenoid recently, which I replaced along with this service since I was getting a P0770 and shuddering when coming to a stop.