Finished doing a bunch of unrelated work on my brother 98 Cherokee Classic, 2WD. Went to test drive it and went I shifted into reverse I noticed the transmission whines. I checked the dip stick and it showed that it was over full and there were bubbles on the top of the dip stick. I figured whoever did the last service overfilled it. So i drained and added new fluid, 4 quarts. Check it and it's still too high, whining sound is still there when in gear. So next I dropped the pan. No metal chocolate chips, a good amount of mud though. Swapped the filter and refilled with just five quarts of fluid because I wanted to see if the trans sounded different. Sounded exactly the same. Drove it to warm it up and it shifts fine, but my brother told me it went into neutral while driving one time. Fluid still showing that it's too high.

Given the fact I purposely under filled the trans, I'm pretty sure there isn't too much fluid. My suspicion is that the oil pump isn't circulating enough fluid so that's why there is so much in the pan. The old fluid seemed dark to me but I don't have experience determining whether it was indicative of damage.

next thing to check is for clogged transmission lines... any other way to diagnose the oil pump? I've swapped a transmission before and I'm not looking forward to another transmission job lol.

 

Welcome to CF.

Well finding mud doesn't sound good. These are tough transmissions though. As far as it being overfilled a simple draining via the pan drain bolt will require just under 4qts. As far as removing the pan and refilling I wouldn't have thought it would have taken 5qts. Try this first off(post #23) and see what happens.
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/tra...239909/index2/

 

Thank you. I followed the post and adjusted the fluid level. The fluid level did drop as the post says, then I warmed it up and rechecked it and the fluid level is perfect. The trans still made the noise when I first started driving but was gone or considerably lower by the time I returned home. I'll keep an eye on the quality of the fluid and performance over the next month. Thanks.

 

Sounds good. But unless the fluid now looks like new I'd keep doing frequent drains until it does.

 

It looks new. I did a drain plug drain first. Drove it and fussed about the noise and level. Then dropped the pan and used all new fluid again.

 

You got things under control then. Good luck with it.

 

FYI, the filter is just a screen. It does not need to be replaced.