New Hachi owner... Trans fluid location?

[Red]

Knudsen-
I went back to look again after a more thorough caffienation. Bear in mind that I have the 1985 US FSM, and that later years and other geographies may differ.

In the "MT" manual transmission section, there is nothing on routine maintenance fills. Only the reference that I mentioned before for complete replacement/reinstallation.

But this time I started in the front of the book in the "MA" routine maintenance section, and sure enough, there is one and only one official factory procedure, page MA-22 in my edition. MA-22 section 20 "Replace manual transmission and differential oil".

Wanna guess what it says?<G> Three steps and three steps only, the same three steps for either/both:

(a) Remove drain plug and drain the oil
(b) Reinstall the drain plug
© Add new oil until it begins to run out of the filler hole.

That implies, although it does not expressly state, that one should be adding the oil via the filler hole, since it also implies the filler hole will be open in order to let that oil flow out of it.<G>

I have no idea how critical the level is or how much tolerance there is in it. Typically the T50 "never" leaks or consumes oil in normal use between service changes, but like any other gearbox if you overfill it you will foam the oil and oxidize it, and if you underfill it, something may not get lubed. I don't lose any sleep over it, I've just come to learn that the "factory" way may not always be the best way to do things--but it usually was written up that way for a reason. Economy, performance, liability <G> whatever.

Knowing that a "new" GTS seat, while they were available (into the very early 1990's in the US) was about $1000*US and had to be assembled from separate parts, I suspect the factory would have been very eager to make sure the oil couldn't get on the fabric. Even if it was faster or simpler to fill from the top.


[*My seats were stolen in 1995, so yes, I had to get quotes to rebuild it. I think it was $1000 per seat, I remember Recaro's at $800 were a cheaper option. Recaro made rails to fit at that time, too.]

I've known some damn good shadetree mechanics (a southern US term for a guy who works under a shady tree in his yard, no formal garage, usually hoists engines from a strong branch with a come-along) and some who were outright geniouses at what they did. More often...they're just dicking around and trashing cars. As engineering has gotten more subtle and more electronics have crept in, it's gotten damn hard to figure out what "invisible" stuff really is important in a car, much less why something was done any particular way. Only thing that's fairly certain any more, is that the factory doesn't spend a cent unless they HAVE TO. Heck, one cent each on fifty million cars...I wouldn't be so fast to spend 'em either.<G>