Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Duratec Maintenance I'll need luck for this tommorrow

A buddy and I (he's got the knowledge) are going to get adventurous tommorrow. I've had her since 12 on the odo, and may have treated her better than my wife, so I hope all goes well.

I'm doing the tranny cocktail, and I wondered if anybody found a way to fill it without using/buying the pump. I'm also having a hard time finding synthetic ATF where I'm at. Found some Valvoline, after checking 3 places.

We'll flush the radiator. I don't anticipate any problems here, although any suggestions or hints are appreciated.

He's also going to replace the belts. What kind of a job will he be in store for? I'm by no means an idiot, I do the oil and minor stuff, but I can't help here.

Here's the big question - Think we'll have time to do the UIM/LIM cleaning while we're at it? I've got the U/L gaskets, the EGR gasket, TB gasket, AIC gasket, and injector o-rings. Cleaner is just a short trip away.

When i refilled my tranny i used a piece of pipe-jammed it into the filler hole then threaded the pipe up into the enine bay-attatch a funnel & it's easy! Cleaning the LIM can take some time if it's very dirty(max 2 hours though) good luck

As for the tranny cocktail.. you can go with the FM.m. or you can see if you have any redline MTL dealers in the area. I put that in... makes a world of a difference.. what I did to fill it was bought some gear lube from murrays, took off the squirt cap and put it on a clean pop bottle. You can finegal and bend the pop bottle to fill the tranny.

Hope that helps..

I used a pump made for filling the outdrives on a boat. It screwed right to the top of the bottle. I imagin you could pick one up from any boating store, theyre not expensive at all.

funnel with a long piece of tubing stuck on the end work great, but I don't know the size, scavanged my buddy's garage until we found something that fit. I know autozone sells funnels with extensions on them.

I used a pump made for pumping gear lube (go figure!) from Autozone. It didn't screw to the top of the Redline bottle but fit right in fine and worked well (though it couldn't get the last little bit out of the bottle, it was enough to get the tranny full). IIRC it was a Valvoline brand, but there were 3 choices. Under $5.

The belts are easy. For the accessory drive you need to remove the passenger front wheel and splash shield, get a 1/2" breaker bar and fit it into the hole cast into the tensioner. Apply pressure to the breaker bar to release the tension on the belt, get it off the tensioner and thread it out. Reverse to install new. Water pump is similar but IIRC you can release the tension by hand and only need to remove the decorative plastic cover over the front of the motor.

Have fun,

scott

Btw, If your going to be replacing the belts you might as well throw a DMD on there while your at it.

Yea, I want the DMD bad. But then again, I tell myself that I shouldn't be revving a car with over 111K miles over 4 grand. Damn thing is running soooo good right now though.

Appreciate the advice. I found that going through the engine bay worked fine.

Huge difference in the way it feels when shifting. I used some Valvoline that looked pretty decent (which means it had a cool cover) and a half bottle of the friction modifier. The only way I can describe it is that it finally feels like the shifter fits in the gate. Very solid clicks now. This car's never been a drag racer with that shifter, not like my old nissan se-r.

The serpentine belt was a tight fit. The original was on its last leg.