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The 2 inches or so might give you a little more but ramps or even parking the front end up upwards of a foot higher or more than the rear would be ideal. Obviously, if you have lift at your disposal this would be the best method.
What you could do is drain like normal, lower the car, lift just the front end off the ground maybe 12 or 16 inches, then continue the drain and refill with the extra fluid from the torque converter now in the pan. This is how the Toyota tech did mine.
Did another 4 drain/refills yesterday for a total of 8 drain/refills over the last week. Using the fluid change calculator, that puts me a 90% new fluid on my 2010 GX460 w/ 106,000 miles.
Shifting is still buttery smooth, but I have much more confidence that the tranny will last longer given swapping out the 10 year old fluid. Honestly, drain/refill #7 and drain/refill #8 were probably unnecessary, but I had the new fluid on hand and the rig already on ramps, so I went ahead with it. A picture of the AT 115-degree level-checked fluid after drain/refill #8 is below. Looks basically new.
I found on my GX when I first got a 1.4.x cable I couldn't pull up live data in the engine or transmission areas of TS. If you find you can't pull up live data if may be your cable. I needed a 2.04 TS cable with K-Line support to get live engine and transmission data in the data list column in Techstream. If you find yourself getting connectivity errors to those areas it could be your 1.4.x cable.
EDIT: On the trickle amount this video at around 3:45 seems to show accurate fluid drain rate on this GX 470
I got a cable off of ebay and techstream crashes when trying to pull live data. How to distinguish the 2.04 cable, or what too look for to buy the correct cable? auctions dont seem to distinguish cable versions. I did 3 drain-refill cycles and the difference between what i poured in the transmission and what i drained is 0.5 quart, so probably i have a little too much of fluid in the tranny (some of that .5 qt was spilled and some left on the drain pan, etc.) So worst case i have a slight overfill. Still would like to follow the correct procedure, but can't measure the temperature of the fluid.
I have found the 2.0.4 cables are usually marketed as such and mention K-Line support. Typical cost seems to be in the $40-$60 range. There is the built in temperature detection method as well. I've corrected the actual orientation of OBD connector under dash. I've seen some confuse orientation and use the wrong pins.
Ok, so it looks like the GX is pretty 'intelligent' - I used the SST1 built in function (pins 4 and 13 using a paper clip in the OBD) and after starting the car it displayed a message that it is in the SST1 mode (plus a lot of stuff blinking on the dash). It was quite tricky to get it into the temperature measuring mode - the "D" did not appear for 2 seconds as outlined in the document when switching between D and N. After a while though it looks like something changed as the engine went on higher RPMs than normal. I let it idle on N for appx 10 minutes and finally the D appeared (with the gears lever on N) - at that moment it was working and it was time to drain. The car also started beeping to signalize it is OK to drain.
So, after the 3 cycles, in the final drain I got 0.5L of fluid from the overflow drain (more than I thought) and the rest of the procedure went uneventful. After 9.5 bottles of fluid and 3 changes, the fluid is still not cherry colored, its slightly brownish. But - it is WAY better than what I have drained in the 1st batch of 3.5q - the 100k fluid was black and did not smell anything like new transmission fluid. Definitely NOT a lifetime fluid.
I took some pictures, but they don't show very well the changes after subsequent drains.
Originally Posted by Acrad
I have found the 2.0.4 cables are usually marketed as such and mention K-Line support. Typical cost seems to be in the $40-$60 range. There is the built in temperature detection method as well. I've corrected the actual orientation of OBD connector under dash. I've seen some confuse orientation and use the wrong pins.
I performed this today after installing the OEM transmission cooler.
First, thank you to all those who paved the way outlining this maintenance. @Acrad@Romanova@mceagle555@Lavrishevo etc...
Maintenance went flawlessly.
I bought the container beaker from amazon mentioned in this thread (worked awesome), motive 1745 (worked awesome), new plug and drain gaskets (thru OEM vehicle parts), and used OBD fusion app with obdII adapter to check proper level at 115F pan temp. I did a level check after the 1st and 4th drains.
Got approximately 2.75 qts with each drain. [As noted by [utag=292519]Romanova the Motive has some fluid in the bottom, roughly 3 or 4 ounces) that will never come out when pumping in to the transmission. Putting 3 qts of WS in the motive means you get about 2.9'ish pumped ... so buying a case of 12 qts will permit 4 drain and fills and proper level check.]
The fluid pictured below has been in the vehicle since May 2017 and the mileage shown. (the 4th drain was practically new looking fluid)
Overall, I feel great about my planned frequency of performing 4 drain and fills every 3 years/ 25k from this point forward to keep the transmission fluid in peak operating condition.
Nice work! How difficult was it to install the cooler?
If I had to do it all over again for the first time, I would plan on removing the front bumper cover or front grill...
I outlined the lessons learned by installing the cooler without doing either in the cooler thread.
Doing it without removing the front bumper cover or front grill took me roughly 3 hours. If I had to do it all over again, it would likely take 1.5 hours....
So I completed 4 x drain & refills over the course of 3 hours yesterday while the weather was nice. Followed @Acrad instructions posted earlier in this thread with only one slight modification. Since I was doing 4 drain/refills without driving in between, I added 1/2 extra quart on my first drain/refill, then did my 115-degree A/T measurement after my 4th drain refill, since the final one is where the measurement really matters. Here are a few thoughts for those doing it at home:
Jack your rig up or put it on ramps. It REALLY makes things easier.
Don't over torque your bolts. It is REALLY easy to do. Less is more
While the fluid in the container looks black during changes 1, 2, 3, & 4, when it is streaming out of the transmission pan, the color change is easily apparent on each change.
I cycled through all gears (P, R, N, D, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, D, N, R, P) for a 3 second count on each. And did that 4 x between each change. It made sure to work the fluid through everything, but I think I'll only do it 2-3 x on the next set of flushes. The reason is that on my 4th drain/refill, my A/T temp was already at 117 degrees, meaning that I kept the truck on a bit too long. I need to keep the fluid a bit colder.
For 4 x drain/refills, I went through 11.2 quarts (just under 2 cases).
I grabbed a sample of #1 drain/refill and will be sending it off to Blackstone this week. (10 yrs, 2 months & 106k miles on fluid)
Here are a few pictures if helpful:
Pic #1: 4 Harbor Freight ramps
Pic #2: Comparison of drained fluid after drain #1, drain #2, drain #3, & drain #4
Pic #3: Drained fluid after drain #4
So here are the results back from Blackstone Labs on my 2010 Lexus GX460 Premium.
.
10 years @ 2 months - Factory Fluid
106,300 miles
Blackstone report done on Transmission Fluid from 1st drain/refill.
I ended up doing 8 drain/refills which gives me >90% new fluid
Summary: While the fluid properties are still within range to protect things, the amount of metals in the fluid were sky high.
Wear metals are higher, but will be interesting to see when you sample again.
Important to show that if you buy your GX NEW, to get the original ATF changed before 30k miles and also get the fluid changed in the F/R Diffs to get all those nasty wear metals out...
Part of me wants to drop the pan so I can clean off the magnets and change the filter material. That may be a bit in the future though considering I already did 8 drain/fills.
Part of me wants to drop the pan so I can clean off the magnets and change the filter material. That may be a bit in the future though considering I already did 8 drain/fills.
I wouldn't waste your money or time right now... it's not like the magnets are going bad and you obviously got out a bunch of metals (on a microscopic scale)...
If you end up keeping the vehicle another year (a lot of weird crap happens), then I would perform 1 drain and send off a UOA as a post check to see what it looks like. If it's high (again), and you want/plan to keep the vehicle longer term (for another 100,000 miles), then I'd drop the pan and clean the magnets and replace the filter. 1 drain and fill and a UOA is < $100 in material. Dropping the pan and cleaning the magnets and replacing the filter isn't that much more expensive (maybe another $50 for the gasket and filter element) but it's time consuming and it could create an issue where there isn't one (if the pan is stuck or bolts are rusted etc... ). If the UOA indicates your metals are in range it's not worth the hassle in my eyes... you have done more than even the dealer would do for a transmission service per the manufacturer's owner manual.
My local dealers do 1 drain and fill (I've called and they all admitted to draining and refilling once, not flushing/ exchanging the entire fluid, for their service) and say they've serviced your transmission for the next 100,000 miles, meanwhile there is only 25% new fluid in the system. You have over 90% new fluid. The reality is any metals that aren't on the magnets are in the bottom of the pan and get flushed our with the fluid drain and fill... did you take the sample from the 1st drain and fill? @Romanova dropped his pan around 100K miles... perhaps he can chime in with what his magnets looked like? Post #165
04-29-20, 04:49 PM
