Thread: How bad is it - lost ATF

If it was driving fine one minute and all of a sudden drive is lost this suggests a large and fast fluid loss.

If shut down promptly there should be no damage.

It is a small leak where the fluid gets low and when braking, cornering or going up/down a hill and the auto gets small momentary oil starvation, the auto will slip, then grab, slip on the next corner etc.

This is what will destroy it and cause it to get hot and burn the oil. Is the oil burnt or just gone brown in color?
Turning brow is normal and not a problem.

If it is burnt, I reckon this would have happened before the fluid loss, but you will have no way of proving this.

"Crash" on here had his D2 blow a transmission line about 4 years ago 50 kays from home.
I trailered it to the workshop for him and it got new cooliong line with the auto still ok to this day.

Fwiw. I had my cooler hose unscrew itself one night and dump the fluid. I basically tried to nurse it home until it lost drive. The oil wasn't quite brown but it wasn't rosy red. Drained it, filter swap, and new fluid and it's right as rain. It takes A LOT to totally drain the box and by losing drive it stops it doing too much damage.
But.
They took the box out. They removed the lines at the box end. To my way of thinking that's disturbed the lines at the radiator and caused them to come off. And if the fluid is burnt and brown after 6 weeks, that's definitely their problem

Sent from my HTC One using AULRO mobile app

Perhaps burnt & red could also be a reasonable description of the oil. The pipe was secured to the block pretty well, and I can't imagine that wriggling the pipes a bit is going to provide as much movement as general driving, and I have been to Sydney & back in the last couple of weeks. I mean, the reason that the metal pipe connects to a rubber hose is because of movement between the engine, chassis & body. Having had some time to think & process it, I think I may just have to suck it up as bad luck.

Think I'm going to get the hoses fixed, see how it drives and make some longer term decisions about the box a bit down the track. Thanks for advice all, it's been a stressful 24 hrs, and good to know this place exists.

That's logical, and thus, your first mistake. This is a land rover after all!
Those hoses blow off from so much as looking at them.
But just fill it up again and see how it goes. You'd be quite unlucky to score serious damage.
Good luck

Sent from my HTC One using AULRO mobile app

I had one of those pipe off and suddenly no drive at the traffic light. Got the car on the tray, replaced the pipe and new fluid so far so good. It was 2 years ago.

Originally Posted by Pinelli

Just heard back from the mechanics, and they're saying its the return hose blowing off at the radiator. Nothing to do with them, they're saying. I'm not real happy with that, given how much I've just spent with them less than 6 weeks ago. Hopefully will hear about the state of the transmission shortly or at least state of the oil.

Just about everyone that has the auto out this happens to, including me.
when the auto is removed from the vehicle, the engine is often allowed to tilt back & rest on the firewall.
The metal trans oil cooler hose is bolted to a small brackets along the sump & at the front of the motor where it's clamped/joined to the rubber hose, so when the engine tilts back it pulls tight on the rubber section of hose, Mine lasted about 3 weeks after it came out of the auto shop & then blew off.
Not saying this is the only cause of this, but it certainly doesn't help.

Just adding, my auto was fine once oil was topped back up

If they didnt flush your cooler, or the TC after the box build (or replaced them) then the burnt fluid look is normal.

it doesnt take a lot to discolour the ATF.

My next question would be "why wasnt that done?" rapidly followed by "Wouldnt putting new fluid all the way through the box be a sensible precaution to ensure all those new bits are as well looked after as possible?"

If you havent been abusing the box if it had all new fluid all the way through dark and burnt looking are not adjectives I would have expected to apply to 6 week all fluid.

The main cause that I've seen for the connectors coming apart is not cleaning up the internals of the connection on the female side and not cleaning the back face of the locking collar on the male barb. When its all said and done the connection is just a glorified version of your garden hose connection. try filling one of those up with mud and makig it work properly.

same deal, just more preassure and tighter tolerances.

less than 5l lost will keep running, needs more revs on hills to build fluid pressure to get moving. More than 5l will be really bad driving, corners looses drive etc. >6l no drive.