Date:         Thu, 3 May 2001 08:42:44 -0400
Reply-To:     Chris Knust <chris@knust-net.de>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Chris Knust <chris@knust-net.de>
Subject:      ATF Level too high - what now?
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi,

I just found out that the ATF level of my 87 Westy´s automatic
tranny is too high. According to Bentley´s (37.9a) I am supposed to
check the final drive´s oil level now - however it does not say how to
do that. In the absence of a dipstick for the final drive I rely on you
folks to tell me! What do I have to do?

(2) In case I find the oil level of the final drive being too low, Bentley

mentions the cause as a broken seal between final drive and
tranny. Is there only the one seal shown on p. 37.10 which is
accessible with tranny and final drive installed or is there another
seal which can be the cause as well?

(3) Is it possible to replace the seal of the tranny´s bottom plate
(don´t know the correct english term for that, sorry) with the tranny
and final drive installed? How do I drain the ATF Level partly to run
proper checks after having checked the final drive´s oil level and
how do I drain it completely to replace that seal (which seems to
be a bit wet, but I will need to run some tests with a cleaned-up
engine first and do not want to do that with a ATF level being too
high, as Bentley warns not to run the tranny with too much ATF.

(4) Finally - do I check the ATF level with the selector level in P or
in N? Manual and Bentley both say "P", however the picture shown
by Bentley on page 37.9 with the dipstick and the affixed label
clearly shows that the label says "N".

Thanks for your help! The archive server does not want to respond
to my questions :-(

Cheers
Chris
Troy, MI