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today we're going to dive into the 8-speed zf transmission commonly found in bmw's fiats dodges
mostly european cars zf makes transmissions for this one specifically is the eight-speed unit
i'll list the actual title of the transmission and the cars that are thin uh in the description
so we're gonna start we got to get the oil whatever the eight speed or nine speed oil you
have i get a good deal on it from mopar so i stick with the mopar brand uh you can get the actual zf
brand as well if you have to get zf eight or if it's a eight speed or zf9 if it's a nine speed
um so we'll get however many quarts the factory fill is they recommend i think
six seven eight nine i got ten course you need roll paper towels
fluid transfer pump a ten millimeter allen a t40 an 8 millimeter allen and whatever wrench
combination you want to use to get everything off if you have a power tool it's great it's better
just do it by hand you have to have also the filter and pan which is in the box underneath it
that's a one unit assembly you can get an aftermarket one from dorman and i think you can
replace the filter cartridge in it but i don't trust it because it's four extra screws in the
pan that can come loose while the car is driving and these transmissions are supposed to be sealed
for life only if there's an event where if there's a need to change the filter like this car had
some cooling issues and some oil issues the oil cooler went out so it affected the transmission
and one of the transmission range selectors popped out so the transmission ran a little
hot and i think it worked the pan a little bit so always go back with oem that's the best especially
for the zf transmissions we're going to go into the car and look at everything that we have to do
okay we're underneath the vehicle on the passenger side there's a drain plug here
on the side of the case this is the first thing you have to check if you can get loose
if you can't get this loose it's game over take it to a mechanic take it to a professional
because if you open the drain plug that's directly down underneath the sticker and this is a 10 to 10
millimeter allen and this is the eight millimeter allen the fill plug is eight millimeters
the drain plug is 10 millimeters if you drain this fluid and you can't get this plug out above it
it's done there's no way you can get the fluid back into it so make sure you can get this out
i broke that free and it's not that easy trust me i had to use leverage to get this
free i have this allen key just for these types of transmissions so i can grab onto it with
lock jaws and get it in there and be able to use leverage and push it and break it free because
they they like to seize on there so once you get that free you got to get the vehicle in the air
however you want to do it i'm not going to show you you know you got to get the vehicle all four
sides up in the air or if you're skinny enough slide up underneath here but we got it pretty even
so now we're going to drain the fluid out of this 10 millimeter and we'll be right back
okay well underneath here on the bottom of the pan again this is the passenger side
it may be like this for multiple other vehicles i don't know if there's a left side drain
this like i said specifically specifically applies to a dodge
we're going to go ahead and loosen this and as you're loosening it it's going to be coming out
you kind of want to look see if there's any metal in there this color is actually really good
and you can see it running light under here that looks pretty good
all right
yeah it looks pretty good
we were scared because a couple times he went into gear and it wouldn't it wouldn't come out apart
so i don't see any really bad discoloration the fluid is burned the zf fluid for this
car is actually green and as you can see this is kind of like a dirty honey i guess
so we caught it in time before there's any catastrophic failure
this will drain out for a while so we'll come back after everything's all drained
and then we'll have to take all these t40 bolts that are on the pan off and the pan will pop down
all right so we have a bunch of these t40 bolts that run around the pan
they are prone to strip seize break a lot of the aftermarket kits come with it dodge of course
makes you buy these individually and these are i believe better quality
than the oe ones or the aftermarket ones that they supply with these aftermarket fans
luckily i was able to get all of them out without stripping or breaking any of them thank god
i like to get one corner of the pan off you see everything's drained out and then
all these bolts are tight and loose and around and i'll pop this corner off and drain the rest
of the fluid out and then we'll take the entire pan down after we remove all these t40s
okay so we removed all the t40 torx head bolts and this is the valve body it looks
the fluid look good there's no hard staining on any of the um casing down here no real nothing
wrong in here everything looks good there was no metal uh just the minimal
normal metal it's 166 000 miles on this um took a rag just wiped down the outer perimeter of the
gasket surface there's going to be no need to add any type of silicone or anything to these surfaces
they are machined perfectly and the new filter pan assembly has an o-ring that goes around this so
you don't even really gotta wipe it with brake clean it comes immediately super clean so wipe
everything down clean and let's go look at those filters and see if there's any differences oh also
forgot to mention up here in this filler spot that's where the filter pushes up in there make
sure that the o-ring comes out with the filter you don't want to have a second o-ring up in there
because then you'll have weak pump pressure and you'll destroy transmission so make sure this bore
is smooth and clean in there and there's no o-ring in there all right let's go look at the filters
okay we got the side-by-side here of the oil pans this is a dealership one on the left oem
and it's the oem one on the right as well but from the factory when the car came off the factory
line um you can see some noticeable difference immediately with the pan on the left there's no
drain plug so it's an updated pan from dodge the pan on the right has the drain plug there
and if you look down on the bottom right hand side you see there's a drain plug right there
on the other one there's no drain plug on the other one
so what we want to do is we just want to inspect and make sure there's no metal in there if you
look at the magnets on the side and on the two sides there's magnets and on the back wall there's
magnets that's normal wear that you see and you see if you go back over to the new dealership one
you see that they the magnets are in there clean and like i said the only difference is the drain
plug is not there aftermarket kits sell like one filter kit that can be changed with four
screws in the corners i don't like that like i said this is a sealed transmission it was meant
to be sealed by zf and everybody else so why run the risk of putting a screw in there that
can come loose and get sucked up into the filter housing somewhere we're gonna go back underneath
there we're gonna put the pan up and then we'll start the filling procedure the pan goes back on
dry does not need to be lubricated the o-ring doesn't need to be lubricated that's actually
i think believe called for for the go oh we're going to go up dry so let's get this thing back
up there torque the spec you know fi find your spec in the owner's man or not in the owner's
manner the service manual or whatever the zf transmission calls for and we'll get it filled
okay we got the pan back up and we uh tightened up the pan bolts to spec and the torque sequence
for them to get on there make sure you just pop it in place and get everything lined up finger tight
first now we're going to start the fill procedure at this point you're going to need a way to
monitor the transmission fluid it's got a temperature range i think the sticker on this
one said between 100 and 128 you know to check the temperature so basically it's cold right now we'll
fill it with about one to two quarts and it'll start to run out that's when you have to put the
fill cap back on it start the truck up and either monitor the transmission from the vehicle if it
has a temperature gauge function or a scan tool that is capable of reading transmission
temperature so we'll get the trans filled up the best we can start it up and we'll be back
okay we started the vehicle we got the initial three quart fill up
of the transmission and now we're gonna run it to about a hundred degrees
take that fill plug back off and start pumping some more fluid back in there
okay the trans temperature is 116. so as long as it's between 80 and 122 per dodges
spec we can go down and check it okay when the transmission temperature is at the specified range
you're gonna back out the fill plug after holding the transmission and drive
neutral and park for five seconds each you'll pull the drain plug out and if
you have no fluid coming out add fluid until it comes out don't go over the temperature range
if it has fluid when you pull the plug it's good to go take it for a test drive
and we have fluid running out that shows you that this transmission is full
we're gonna put the drain plug back on
clean everything up underneath here make sure you don't leave no oil or anything
because it'll burn on the exhaust for a while and smell and that's all it is to
fill in one of these zf 8-speed transmissions and servicing it thanks for watching please subscribe