Hello, I'm professor John Kelly and this is the WeberAuto YouTube channel. In this series of
five videos we are going to look at the amazing history of automatic transmission fluids from
the very first automatic transmission fluid that was really just engine oil all the way up through
the latest 10-speed automatic transmission used by General Motors and Ford the Dexron ULV ultra-low
viscosity fluid and everything in between it's an it's an amazing journey through history to look at
how things started with the very first automatic safety transmission back in 1937 and then the
world's first fully automatic transmission the Hydra-Matic transmission right here to my side
in 1940 and then following that through the years the different technological changes that made the
existing fluid not good enough and so they had to make changes to the fluid to make it work with the
newer transmission designs we will take a look at Ford's jump into the automatic transmission
world in 1954 the 1951 model year we'll take a look at Chrysler's jump into the automatic
transmissions in 1953 and what they did before that with something called a fluid drive that is
both a hilarious way to do things and an ingenious way to do things we will take a look at Toyota's
automatic transmission fluid history starting with 1963 with the original two-speed Toyoglide
and all the way up through today's 8, 9, and 10-speed transmissions so it doesn't matter if you have
a one-speed transmission in an electric vehicle or one of these old 2-speed transmissions or a
three-speed or a four-speed or a 5-speed or six speed or 7-speed or an 8-speed or 9-speed or a
10-speed there have been very specialized fluids developed for those transmissions to work properly
to function properly to have a long life and it's important that you are aware of what the fluid
specifications are so that when you go to purchase fluid you know what to look for and what to look
out for also, there are many misleading labels there are counterfeit fluids and I will show you
what to look for on those bottles of fluid that seem to be advertising to work in any automatic
transmission and how that can be a problem for your transmission especially if you don't know
what the specifications were for your particular vehicle which by the way the owner's manual always
tells you what the fluid specification was when the vehicle was made I will show you where he can
purchase the actual fluid specification document all hundred pages of it if you want for each fluid
and how there are upwards of 30 different tests that have to be run on that fluid to make sure
that it meets vehicle manufacturer specifications not just the four or five fluid specifications
that some bottles of transmission fluid claimed to meet or exceed manufacturer specifications
they need to meet all of them so we will get into more detail what to look for with that so in our
next episode we will start with General Motors automatic transmissions because they developed
the world's first mass-produced automatic transmission for the 1940 model year and they
beat all their competitors to market with this automatic transmission and as I said before it
wasn't until many years later that other vehicle manufacturers finally started offering automatic
transmissions but all of those other vehicle manufacturers from General Motors to everyone
else they all used the fluids that General Motors developed General Motors had to develop a fluid
that would work with their transmissions and they learned some hard lessons that made them
make improvements to their fluids over the years also fluid is just naturally improved with better
refining methods of crude oil into base stock and oils we will learn when transmission fluids
turned red because they weren't read until a certain point and they look just like engine
oil and we will take a look at the many cans of automatic transmission fluids that I've collected
over the years that along with service manuals and fluid specifications and additional research that
I've done help put together a timeline of what happened with automatic transmission fluids so
in our next episode, it will be on the history of General Motors automatic transmission fluids
in Episode three coming up, we will look at the history of Ford automatic transmission fluids
from the very first Ford-O-Matic transmission in 1953 all the way up through the latest 10R80
10-speed automatic transmission and the fluids that were used in the very first transmission
all the way through the latest transmission I have 12 different automatic transmission fluids
here behind me from Ford that cover almost all of their fluid specification changes over the years
and so we will take a look at those fluids and the technological changes that made those fluid
specifications change in the fourth episode we will take a look at the history of Chrysler
automatic transmission fluids beginning with the incredible fluid drive system that they came up
with which is really a fluid coupling hooked to a manual transmission and the special fluid that
was required for that thing to operate properly in and the different variations they had of that
system over the years until they finally developed their own real planetary gearset based automatic
transmission this one right behind me here the 1953 Chrysler power flight 2 speed transmission
and so we will take a look at the fluids that were used in all of Chrysler's transmissions from the
very beginning of the fluid drive through the first power flight and all the way up through
today's automatic transmissions made by Chrysler now of course Chrysler along with other vehicle
manufacturers use transmissions sourced from other manufacturers like ZF and Aisin and so on and
we'll mention those also okay in our fifth and final episode we will take a look at the history
of Toyota automatic transmission fluids from the very beginning with their 1963 two-speed toil
glide all the way up through their latest Lexus 10-speed automatic transmission Toyota started
developing their own automatic transmission fluid specifications in 1993 prior to that they used
General Motors specifications so we will look at why they started developing their own transmission
fluids and what the current fluid is today and everything in between also in all of these series
we will take a look at the fluid change intervals and what lifetime fluid means and it varies from
manufacturer to manufacturer and vehicle the vehicle and how you drive but I'll show you actual
service information technical service bulletins telling you how long that fluid is designed to
last including the Toyota world standard fluid here behind me where the TSB on the fluid release
says 100,000 miles so I look forward to exploring the amazing history of automatic transmission
fluids and if you're a transmission nerd like me you'll enjoy it if not you'll be bored to tears
but that's pretty typical of my YouTube channel until the next episode thank you for watching