LS430inDE.

I know most of you have no idea what the title means, but over the weekend I did some work on the LS.

I did:

1. an oil/filter change
2. drained and filled the rear differential gear oil
3. AND did a drain and fill on the TRANNY!

This isn't quite a DIY, but thought you'd enjoy reading my experience.

Some background info---the 2005 currently has 155k. I last had THE DEALER do a drain & fill on the rear and on the tranny about 55k miles ago. That was the ONLY drain & fill to the transmission & rear that I know of, as I bought the LS used with about 45k miles on the ticker in 2009. Regarding engine oil, I try to change the engine oil & filter at 3k mile intervals, myself, but usually between 3k-4k is when I end up doing it. I ALWAYS (used to) use the cheapest dino (non-synthetic) oil I could find, along with the cheapest oil filter. When I purchased the materials to do my lubrication trifecta this weekend, I mixed it up a bit. I decided----from this change forward---I am ONLY going to use SYNTHETIC engine oil and whatever oil filter, lol. Walmart full synthetic is my GO TO oil now because it's about $16 a jug (no tax in Delaware as John knows so well, lol). I don't have to deal with rebates that John loves so much either. Free shipping from Walmart if order is $35. GOODBYE AMAZON, HELLO WALMART! Regarding transmission fluid, I also knew I was ONLY going to buy Toy/Lex WS transmission fluid, never cheap-out on that fluid, so I purchased a case (12 bottles) on Ebay for about $80 including shipping. I also bought Mobil-1 75W-90 full synthetic gear oil for the rear differential. (Weeks ago I purchased Walmart brand gear oil, but it turned out to be a synthetic blend. I returned it, and purchased the Mobil-1 gear oil for my lubrication trifecta.)

I drove the LS 45 minutes (mostly highway) to my buddy's house as he has 2 hydraulic lifts and an auto garage!

I started out with draining the oil & filter. No big deal here. She had about 2,950 miles on the oil, and it was the oil that drove us to Nashville & back, and I was happy to drain it after the long trip. My OCD was going nuts thinking I was going on that 12 hour 1-way drive on not-so-fresh oil, at high and sustained speeds. Anyway, I calculated the drive and back would not put me over the 3k mile mark, so I overcame my OCD and did the drive with 'old not perfectly fresh' oil, lol. As I said, I was happy to drain the engine oil & filter this weekend. It was a dark brown, not black color. As I was letting every last drop come out of the oil pan, I was spraying Liquid Wrench on the rear differential drain bolt and fill bolt. Once engine oil was drained, I gave her a new Purolator filter and gave her 5 qts of 5W-30 Walmart full synthetic oil.

Regarding the rear differential, I recalled reading the posts about what type of tool it is to remove them, whether a torx, a star, an allen, a hex, etc, etc!?. I bought a 13 piece HEX BIT socket set on Amazon for $14, and it can be found here... . While the H10 bit fit in the FILL bolt very snugly, I had a hard time inserting the H10 into the drain bolt! What the heck??? I ended up spraying Liquid Wrench into the hole of the bolt, and got a pointed tool, and scraped loose all the rust on the inside of the bolt! I'd then insert the tool and wiggle a bit and push and it would go in .5mm more. I'd spray some more, scrape some more, wipe off the rust on the socket, then reinsert and wiggle. The socket goes in another .5mm. It was a process, and the last thing I wanted to do was strip out the bolt by not inserting the H10 fully.

Let me tell you---when I had the rear drained & filled at the DEALERSHIP 55k miles ago, they must have put the drain & fill bolts on with an air gun, because I STRUGGLED to crack them both loose!!! There's a fair amount of corrosion that built up, even though you could tell there were new washers installed on both plugs. Anyway, as recommended, I broke torque and loosened the fill bolt first, then she started to drip from it. When I fully removed the bolt, she had a STEADY STREAM of golden gear oil for about 10 seconds, and I mean A STEADY STREAM! I had to think for a second, did I remove the fill bolt or the drain bolt!!? lol!? I removed the FILL bolt, and like I said, she had a STEADY stream of gear oil for every bit of 10 seconds. I thought that was really strange. Could the gear oil have expanded from my 45 minute (mostly highway) drive to my buddy's house? Who knows. Anyway, once the stream changed to a trickle and drip, I removed the drain bolt. Again----she had a nice steady golden stream. R. Kelly would have been in paradise! LMAO! I know the gear oil's function isn't like engine oil where it assists with the blowby & combustion byproducts, but the rear gear oil looked really good. I'd say slightly darker than the Mobil-1 that I pumped back in using the Plews pump I bought on Amazon for $7. That pump can be found here...
Staying with the rear, the drain bolt didn't have much iron material on it. I wiped the magnet clean, but it wasn't really dirty with iron particles at all. I also recall some folks inserting and removing and inserting and removing the drain plug to try and extract more iron bits, but similar to my deep sea fishing voyages, I didn't get much, lol. I placed a new washer on the drain bolt and snugged it down. I'd GUESS I tightened to about 25 ft/lb? It was snug. I then screwed the Plews pump onto the Mobil-1 gear oil bottle and started pumping away. Boy did my thumb get tired quickly!!! I eventually wised up and held the bottle in the palm of my hand and pushed up so the pump was hitting a flat surface on the rear, which mimicked pumping action. The Plews pump left a good 4+ ounces in the bottom of the 32oz container. IF YOU DO THIS JOB, MAKE SURE YOU PURCHASE 3 BOTTLES! As I couldn't pump anymore out of the 1st bottle, I started pumping in the 2nd bottle. Again, she stopped pumping with about 4+ oz left in the bottom of the bottle. I combined both bottles to now have 8oz, and pumped that into the rear. She was STILL thirsty, and I had to use a 3rd bottle. All in all, she took about 80 oz, or about 2.5 bottles of gear oil (32oz each). That's why I say make sure you have 3 bottles on hand. You'll use more than 2 but less than 3.

Now, last but not least was the transmission drain & fill. I did this last as I wanted the fluid to cool down as much as possible, so that when measuring the drained amount, I could replace with same amount. Sadly, the transmission was still warm even after sitting for over an hour. The ambient temperature of the garage was probably 70 deg F. Anyway---let's do this!!!...

On the drivers side of the transmission, there's a square-ish black plastic cover held in by a couple bolts. You need to remove those 2 bolts to remove the black plastic foam lined cover. Underneath that is a strange (to me) looking really shiny head of a bolt. As a matter of fact, I wasn't 100% sure it was the fill bolt. I asked my buddy and he confirmed it was. It's a LARGE fill bolt, I think it was 21mm? I also couldn't quite put a socket on it, and couldn't quite get a combination wrench on it...so I had to go to the old reliable tool. An adjustable aka crescent wrench! Amazingly, a good sized crescent wrench was able to be adjusted perfectly and had enough leverage to break the torque on it. I carefully removed it wondering if I'd have massive spillover like my rear diff fill bolt did. Nope. Not a drop came out. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for a small amount of dark red fluid on the end of the bolt, I still wouldn't be sure it was the fill bolt. Next is the drain bolt directly on the bottom of the transmission pan. There's a round bolt/screw looking thing, and also a bolt that I think was 12mm. You need to remove the traditional looking bolt. Once I removed that, she started draining the fluid. It was a very dark red, didn't smell burned. I was navigating into unchartered DIY waters for me. I let her drain, then measured how much I collected. Exactly 3.5 qts came out. I thought let me let the fluid sit and cool down some, lol, and see if it magically goes to 3qts or something other than 3.5? Nope. After an hour, it was still at 3.5 qts. I guess the tranny fairy didn't visit me, lmao.

I replaced the drain plug. I didn't use any new washer or gasket or anything on the drain bolt. I snugged it up, then cleaned out the gear oil from my Plews fluid pump, then went to place it onto the qt sized transmission bottle. DAMN!!! Wouldn't you figure, the size of the neck isn't compatible with the Plews fluid pump!!!!!? NOW WHAT!!!!? Brainstorm!---how about cleaning out the empty Mobil-1 gear oil bottle, then filling it up with the WS tranny fluid so that you can screw on the Plews fluid pump onto it!!! YES! Sometimes I amaze myself, lol. So that's what I did. Let me tell you how beautifully cherry red, and water-like, the new WS fluid is!!!! So---I pumped 3.5 qts of nice and fresh and bright cherry red fluid into her, tightened up the fill bolt, placed the foam lined black plastic cover over the fill bolt, and lowered her down off the lift.

Conclusions-----------everything is awesome, I hit Powerball, and I'm now getting 35mpg. Haha.

In all seriousness, engine runs smoothly as she did before, can't notice a damn thing about the rear diff gear oil, but I notice an IMPROVEMENT in shift quality. The shifts are more near seamless than they were before this drain and fill. (I drive very smoothly and gently and never jackrabbit starts, etc) Not only do I believe the shifts are almost imperceptible now, but when going up those long but slight incline hills where your transmission might go from 6th gear down to 5th as you near the top of the hill? You know what I'm talking about. You ALL have that hill where you're going 50-55mph at the base of the gradual hill, and you think you have enough momentum so she doesn't shift out of 6th as you near the top, but the transmission almost always shifts out of 6 to 5? DARN! Because I want to see if I can make it up the hill, all the way to the top, in 6th/Overdrive???? LOL!! Well---THAT hill, my LS NOW STAYS PLANTED in 6th gear TO THE TOP OF THE HILL!!!!!!!!!! I hope you know what I'm describing. I had no issues with my tranny before, EXCEPT I could complain that she didn't stay planted into overdrive/6th gear. She would often hop in and out of 6th and 5th on that long but slow incline hill. She doesn't do it anymore!!!! So...yes-----I sincerely believe I had a positive impact on my transmission, and this is only the 1st drain and fill of 3 that I'm doing. I'm going to do the next drain and fill in maybe a couple weeks, and the 3rd a couple weeks after that.

Here's some pictures of the HEX socket set, the gear oil/transmission fluid, and my Plews fluid pump.


Here's the HEX socket set. I'm holding the H9 so you can see the head, but I actually used the H10. You can see the rust on the tip as the H10 sits in the case.


This is the Plews pump with red Italian Lambrusco wine still staining it.


Here you can see how wide the neck is of the trans fluid. The Plews doesn't screw onto it, but does screw onto the Mobil-1 bottle!

TominPT

Great information - thanks for posting!
What is the trick to getting the upper 10 mm bolt holding the transmission fill plug cover back in place? I took my cover off to inspect the fill plug (did not have the right tool to remove the plug and did not want to use a crescent wrench) and for the life of me could not get that upper bolt back in. The space is so tight you need tiny hands.

LS430inDE.

Johnhav430

Sweet! Great job! I'm still "excited" about having done my wife's drain/fill on her tranny! I am taking her car on a road trip the next two days so I checked both cars' fluids....her tranny fluid is light brownish/red--I really feel 3 drain/fills are not necessary, and bet that after the 2nd, it will be pink/red....and, I got another GM plug that already has the thread sealant applied, at Walmart.com for $3.xx (I think list is $3.99, dunno why I got the first one for $2 shipped eBay, same seller is now $6!).

I wish I could do the LS' tranny, I think I will keep going to the indie...he did the rear diff too with my oil and washers....

100% serious, I know what a great feeling it is to DIY! I still have not tried the Toyota brake adapter for the Motive--I was checking the LS' brake fluid reservoir cap today--I think it can be pulled off by force? huh? Don't think it's broken. DOT 3 is so cheap, might as well do a really nice flush. I couldn't get one bleeder off my wife's rear right, so I'm going to do another 3 caliper flush when I do the 2nd drain fill of the tranny (worst case GM rear caliper is only $53 and new??)

Nice work!!

p.s. amazon had Pennzoil ultra platinum and it was like $24.97 minus a $2.50 instant coupon, with $10 rebate, so I got one jug....it was backordered as a result!

toddmorr

the fill plug is removed with a 24mm wrench, offset. Or you could put a locking wrench on a 24mm socket and do it that way.

yes the 10mm bolts on the plastic fill plug cover are hard to get access to and tighten, with your bare hand. As I recall, do the upper one first, hand tighten it only for now. Then you just have to patiently adjust the cover until the second bolt slides in to its place. You have to do it by hand to start, because that way you can feel the bolt starting into the hole. Note that the bottom edge of the plastic cover should be parallel with the edge of the trans pan....that should position the cover correctly such that you can get the 2nd bolt started. But don't feel bad, it took me at least 10 minutes of patiently pushing/adjusting that blasted cover to finally get 2nd bolt in.

which raises the question...why the plastic cover to begin with....I can see no purpose for it other than to cover the fill plug. Maybe there is value in keeping road salt/moisture off the fill plug, keeping rust down. It is after all, a very shallow 24mm plug, and easily rounded if you're not careful.

LS430inDE.

Thanks for that info regarding the correct size of the 24mm bolt. Next drain & fill I'm simply going to use an adjustable wrench again. Similar to you, I was baffled------Why the cover? Why such a large headed fill bolt? And why is the plastic cover FOAM FILLED? Things that make you go HHMMmmmmmm. Wouldn't it be cool to ask questions to the Toyota engineers and designers who worked on creating & designing the LS!!?

911LE

Since nobody else is going to mention it...Kudos on the R Kelly reference. It made me literally lol. And nice job on the write up.

bradland

Thanks for that info regarding the correct size of the 24mm bolt. Next drain & fill I'm simply going to use an adjustable wrench again. Similar to you, I was baffled------Why the cover? Why such a large headed fill bolt? And why is the plastic cover FOAM FILLED? Things that make you go HHMMmmmmmm. Wouldn't it be cool to ask questions to the Toyota engineers and designers who worked on creating & designing the LS!!?

If you don't have metric wrenches that large a 15/16" is basically the same. I used the closed end of the wrench and wedged a thin (1" thick) piece of wood up between the wrench and underbody. This holds the wrench in place on the thin head of the plug so it can't slip off. Works like a charm both removing and tightening...