today I drove my car for 4 hours with about 2oz of gear oil in the tranny. Last night on my way from Rochester to CT, about an hour away from my house in CT I heard a loud clunk like a rock had hit the underside of the car.. it felt fine for the drive home so I didn't think twice. I was redlining it like CRAZY on Route 8 in Mass too haha god I love that road. So anyway, this morning I was late leaving to go pick up my FMIC/bov and I started her up and heard a weird new rattling noise in the engine bay. It was definitely much louder on the drivers side of the car, and I popped the hood and was pretty sure it was coming from the tranny. I drove downtown to gas up and go to the car wash, and the car felt/drove ok, though I did notice it was a little bit hard to put it in gear at times. As I got into Rhode Island on my way to Pawtucket, I was noticing strange sounds coming from the transmission. 3rd gear had a moderately loud whine and it had popped out of third for me (it has done this in the past.. seriously like 1-2 times per month but it hasn't increased in frequency so I've been ignoring the problem since I bought my car). I was beginning to think that the sound I heard the night before was my drain plug just.. falling off the car. I couldn't locate the drain plug since I couldn't even fit my head under the car (yay being lowered plus not having the jack in the car), but I could see that the tranny was soaked in its own fluids.
I picked up my FMIC/bov in Rhode Island, and then went searching for an auto parts store in East Providence. I found a NAPA, asked them about the drain plug, and they said "I highly doubt it has a drain plug. I've never heard of a car with one of those, what is it a Volkswagen or somethin?".. ugh. He said there was a dealership down the road so I went there. The parts lady looked it up, but I guess their computer system doesn't actually give them any valuable information about the plug (like the size). They wouldn't be able to get it in for at least a week anyway. I went back to nAPA and bought the only gear oil they had, Valvoline Syntech 75w90. I poured some in with a cool filler neck thing with a built in valve made just for tranny fluid fill-ups. It poured right back out as fast as I could pour it in. I still couldn't get a good enough view to see if the drain plug was there or not.
I got farther, and into Mass. I was probably about 5-10 miles from Mark's house (bazooka joe) and happened upon a Pep Boys. I went inside and asked them about the part. They didn't list it in their system. The guy showed me some universal expanding plugs that could be used as a stop-gap measure, so I bought a couple sizes that I thought might fit. I also bought 4 qts of Royal Purple Syncromax because pep boys carries royal purple for some reason (almost makes them a decent company). I was able to locate the drain plug, right where it should be. This is when I really started getting worried that there was like a hole on the backside of my tranny, even though it hadn't grinded gears at all. I removed the drain and fill plugs to see how much fluid would spill out .. about a shot glass worth. Ouch! Wherever the leak was it was low enough down that almost all of it could leak out. I managed to get to Mark's house, though at 1:30 instead of 9am like planned.After a while I decided to go under there and Josh (altspace) and I located the culprit. There was a little M10 or M12 (can't remember which) bolt missing (see picture here .. it can be zoomed in, I uploaded it at a decently large size). Hey at least it was up a little higher than the drain bolt so the tranny wasn't totally dry. ugh.
So yeah.. note to self: next time the car is jacked up, loctite that little bolt
I picked up my FMIC/bov in Rhode Island, and then went searching for an auto parts store in East Providence. I found a NAPA, asked them about the drain plug, and they said "I highly doubt it has a drain plug. I've never heard of a car with one of those, what is it a Volkswagen or somethin?".. ugh. He said there was a dealership down the road so I went there. The parts lady looked it up, but I guess their computer system doesn't actually give them any valuable information about the plug (like the size). They wouldn't be able to get it in for at least a week anyway. I went back to nAPA and bought the only gear oil they had, Valvoline Syntech 75w90. I poured some in with a cool filler neck thing with a built in valve made just for tranny fluid fill-ups. It poured right back out as fast as I could pour it in. I still couldn't get a good enough view to see if the drain plug was there or not.
I got farther, and into Mass. I was probably about 5-10 miles from Mark's house (bazooka joe) and happened upon a Pep Boys. I went inside and asked them about the part. They didn't list it in their system. The guy showed me some universal expanding plugs that could be used as a stop-gap measure, so I bought a couple sizes that I thought might fit. I also bought 4 qts of Royal Purple Syncromax because pep boys carries royal purple for some reason (almost makes them a decent company). I was able to locate the drain plug, right where it should be. This is when I really started getting worried that there was like a hole on the backside of my tranny, even though it hadn't grinded gears at all. I removed the drain and fill plugs to see how much fluid would spill out .. about a shot glass worth. Ouch! Wherever the leak was it was low enough down that almost all of it could leak out. I managed to get to Mark's house, though at 1:30 instead of 9am like planned.After a while I decided to go under there and Josh (altspace) and I located the culprit. There was a little M10 or M12 (can't remember which) bolt missing (see picture here .. it can be zoomed in, I uploaded it at a decently large size). Hey at least it was up a little higher than the drain bolt so the tranny wasn't totally dry. ugh.
So yeah.. note to self: next time the car is jacked up, loctite that little bolt
) style of the P5 to the newer 3's
