Thread: ZF auto oil......how low is too low

I'm not really sure Mango but a couple of years ago I did some work on my landy and when I put the oil lines back on I some how pinched the Ö" ring on the line to the oil cooler slowly drained the oil out and stuffed the gearbox. A stupid and expensive mistake

Blythe

Don't know about the ZF. In older cars you know as they start to refuse to engage the gears. I would guess you are ok but may have just cooked it a bit. Just means may need a rebuild sooner than if it mever happened.

The ZF is the auto box isn't it? Was just thinking that it would have stopped driving if there wasn't enough oil as autos need oil pressure for pretty much everything. All that i can think is that the oil may have become excessively hot (burntish). In which case it may be worth puting some new oil in it. How much is it supposed to hold in total?

Agree with woverings - be on the safe side, drain the old stuff - refill with the correct amount - then you know

1. the fluid is the right level
2. If the old stuff has 'burnt' by replacing it will not cause further problems

Ladas

From my experiences with the ZF - which unfortunately are a few..... as the level drops the first indicator is that you may get a little slip in the transmission when going around corners. Then you will lose the use of 4th gear - it just doesn't go past 3rd, then you lose drive altogether.

Its when you lose drive that is stuffs the guts of it, and it doesn't seem to take much to do the damage. But, for me at least a service has been able to retension the bands etc from this happening. The Auto guy has basically told me that if you ever just get that little slip in the middle of a corner then go really carefully and get it fixed straight away.

My transmission had a worn seal on the front and used to leak heaps until I got around to pulling the motor out to fix it. I would suggest that being down 2 litres probably did no harm as long as you took it easy. if the oil looks dark and smells "burnt" then I would change it straight away. I regularly needed to top up with 1-2 litres of oil per week (for a year or so, I hate working on the car these days, especially if it involves me having to crawl on the ground under the car) until the seal was fixed and the transmission still did over 430,000 kms before the rebuild.

Ian

At rest your transmission will be over full,

when driving (torque converter full, all things primed) it will be at the correct level..

the fluid in the pan is the reserve for cooling and brake/clutch actuation... In theory if you were on dead level ground you could have the thing reading empty on the dipstick and it would still work, but the oil would get hotter than hades.

it would stop as soon as you hit a hill and the pickup became uncovered.

from memory the TC in the discos holds about 4l by its self.