Wighty
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2016
- Messages
- 13,480
- Reaction score
- 12,544
- Location
- Sunny Essex
- Your Mercedes
- W211/E320cdi/2009 and CLK200k 2009
Just finished the gearbox oil change . I'm embarrassed to say it probably took about 5 hours over yesterday afternoon and this morning .
God know where the time went , probably lots of tool retrieval from the garage and a healthy dose of second guessing .
I didn't intend to start yesterday , the plan was get the car on ramps as in the picture and check to see if I have a torque converter drain screw . So underbody panels off , popped out the rubber cover that hides the TC . Got my neighbour to turn the engine using a 27mm socket from the front drivebelt .
When I spotted the TC drain screw I shouted stop and intended to leave it there . I then thought it's taken 45 mins to get here already so I might as well crack on .
I undid the tiny TC drain screw and left it draining whilst I went to MB for a new £2.76 drain screw . The parts guy laughed and said that's the cheapest bill you will ever get here .
Back to the car , installed the new drain screw 10nm and then dropped the sump plug to drain the rest of the ATF .
After draining about 8L in total I unscrewed the sump bolts and discarded them for my new 6 single use bolts . Removed the gearbox filter and found that my clothes and the human body absorb ATF easily .
A thorough clean of the sump and magnets , installed the new plastic "level setting" tube . Fitted the new filter , cleaned around the edge of the gearbox casing .
Refitted the sump with a new gasket and bolts , torqued them to 4nm followed by 180 degree turn with no problems .
At this point I called it a day and left the car where it was .
This morning I got 9L of Fuchs ATF at MB spec 236.14 red fluid and made up my pumping device from eBay orders . In the pic you can see I used a 10mm gas isolating valve to allow me to trap the fluid in the gearbox whilst running the engine . (£13 in parts for the valve,pump,gearbox attachment).
I used a spirit level on the bottom of the sump and had to jack the front of the car up a few inches to get things level .
I pumped in nearly 8L then turned the car on and cycled through all the gears a couple of times . I then pumped in another half Litre . I fiddled with the icarsoft for an hour (very stressful !) because I couldn't find where the transmission temperature was in the menu , eventually after searching YouTube I found it .
So with icarsoft plugged in and hanging under the car , I cycled through all the gears again, left the engine running whilst in P and got back under the car again . Disconnected all of my pump tubing and just left the adapter a isolating valve hanging out of the sump whilst watching the gearbox temp rise to 45 degrees C .
When it hit 45 I opened the valve and about half a L of fluid drained out , when the fluid stopped running smoothly and began dripping I quickly unscrewed my adapter and installed the sump plug at 22nm .
I'm now covered in Voltarol to ease my aching body .
I'll refit the under panels in a couple of days after a leak check , but so far everything looked OK under there .
I had done a 5g box a year or so ago , but for me this was stressful doing it first time . I could probably bring my time to 2+ hours if I need to do it again .
Anyway I now know a little more about the car and saved a few quid (not a great deal of £ but I wanted to test myself )
Total cost about £108 ?
Included 8L of Fuchs oil (already had 1L) an eBay pump with gearbox adapter and isolating valve , MB gasket,filter,bolts,TC plug .