So I'm dealing with an admittedly not ideal situation. My fill plug on the passengers side is seemingly hopelessly stuck. I brought the XJ back to the shop that switched out my tranny fluid to find that they did, in fact, fill from the do-not-remove bolt on the drivers side (nothing seems to be behind that plug, by the way). Today, they tried in vain for an hour to get the proper fill bolt (passengers side) out to no avail. The biggest issue is the limited access / clearance to that bolt, and that it's "soft" and startign to round out even with the proper tools. I'm not sure if this situation is somewhat unique to my vehicle for some reason. Anyhow, long story short, they refilled (with synchromax instead of 10w-30 per my request) from the do not remove plug and were able to get 3 full quarts in - leaving me 0.3 (or 0.5?) quarts shy of full.

I've looked a bit into removing the shifter to pour down into the transmission, but from what I've read that seems a bit complex for just 0.3 quarts. So...

Is it reasonable to try to either jack the keep up or park up on a curb to essentially "tilt" the tranny (moving fluid towards the passengers side) to try an d squeeze the remaining 0.3 quarts in via the do-not-remove plug? Is there something I'm not thinking of that means this wouldn't work?

 

If you have to pull the damn tranny and remove the fill plug and forget the Half-Azzed ways of trying to fill it......Or take it to a dealership and let them remove it for you. A real shop deals with this sort of thing all the time where someone screws it up and they have to do it right.

End of story

 

Thanks for the advice, but this isn't really in the cards at the moment. Dropping a tranny or paying a dealer to do this to get 0.3 quarts in is not something I can afford nor want to try for the first time (in freezing temperatures) at the moment. The shop was using the correct tools (15/16 12 & 22 or 24 point wrenches, tried a low-profile socket, etc) and the thing wouldn't budge.

What you call "Half-Azzed" is what I call a looking for a workaround solution to a problem. Is this an ideal solution?..no, of course not. But will it work? This is the question I posed.

 

You should be able to get at the oil from the top of xmission by removing the shift lever housing from inside the cab. You can probably get a pump hose in there to pump out what is in there and pour new whatever in. It is a bit of work but not too much.

 

Not to mud this up, but a tool I have for extracting oil, and other fluids, is a marine top-side oil changer, which is a 2 1/2 gallon can with a pump on it, which is built to remove oil on marine engines, where there is no drain plug or room under the oil sump. Very handy rig. I usually suck the oil out of auto transmissions before dropping the pan, to prevent the usual mess. West Marine and other marine stores have this this rig if anyone is interested.

Anyway, it would work for removing oil through the shifter hole on your transmission if everything else fails.

 

Thanks - the drain hole comes out with no problem - it's the fill hole (manual transmission) that is the issue.

Need to pick up a proper T-55 torx bit before giving the "transmission tilt" method a try. I don't want to strip out this bolt and the inside of the bolt already looks a little beat up.

 

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Sure wish I lived in that "Perfect" world that so many talk about

Don't know how much you would have to tilt, and/or nose up or down (hill/incline) but it's definatly worth a try. Maybe even "force" it in then quickly install bolt?

When spring comes, maybe removing crossmember and dropping trans slightly would help access? Then maybe PB Blaster it?