Xj sadness
 

I have a sad time.
I have not had my trans fluid in the last 8 years of ownership. As Ive only put 24k on the clock in that time. Well today I found out that the dirty dog severely UNEDUCATED goofball that changed the tarns fluid before it was owned by me Didnt know his own ass from a hole in the ground. Way over torqued it. So today when I went to change it. Well you guessed it. The damn drain bolt spun. Now I have to replace the whole damn thing. Xj is currently out of service until parts arrive

Go to your local auto parts store and get an oversized drain plug and be done with it. Easy fix. And don't wait so long to change the fluid bro

I dont think you can do an oversize plug in the trans pan. you can always use some small tubing and suck it through the dipstick.

Pan is an easy swap....since you need to do a good transmission flush anyway.
only pain is the little o-ring for the dip stick...don't forget that.
No filter, but there is a screen, make sure you take a look at it to see if it needs to be removed and cleaned out.
Since it has been a while for transmission fluid, you might want to consider a drain and refill a couple or three times to get the stale stuff in the torque converter moved around.
I would also drain the radiator trans cooler...

do it once and right, hopefully you won't have to revisit it for a long time.

Just don't overtorque the pan bolts.

Hey ya'll... Would someone please invite Murphy to someone else's house for a change?... what should be a simple trans filter/screen change and pan swap has been a PITA.
The dropping of the pan and changing the filter/screen element out went as expected, even the 26 year old original pan disconnected from the upper dipstick tube with just a few minutes of careful effort to break it free.
I purchased what was supposed to be a direct OEM replacement spec'd pan. I didn't want to risk purchasing a used one that could've been slightly bent, warped, etc. So went with a new one Crown brand. Which I've purchased that brand before on things for my XJ without issue so felt good about ordering that brand for the pan too. Well.... it appears that the female flare section of it is approximately just about a 1/4 inch too short for it to seat where it should. So can't get the pan on. So the Jeep is still dead in the water.

On a positive note.... the fluid was still in good shape when I drained and saw what was in the pan. By good I mean ready to change but not over-due fluid wise (only 24k on it but was older than I wanted to have in there time-wise) when I did take the original pan off,
the magnets had very, very little of anything on them. Pretty impressed for 26 years.

I replaced mine last year with this one....had no problems with the fit.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/cwa-83504037


just to add this, you may of got a pan for Transmission labeled 30-40LE. 30-40LE may also label A340 transmissions for older Toyota vehicles, which probably cannot use an AW4 pan.

That's actually the same brand name as the manufacturer of the one I got... Crown. Unless like you said, it was slightly different. But I ordered specifically for the AW4. So it should've been the one that was for our XJs
If I could relocate the upper dipstick tube up by that 1/4" that would solve the problem. I would think there would be plenty of space under the hood for that little amount of height to still clear.
I'm currently awaiting response from where I purchased mine. It was a Crown re-seller with a good rep. so should get a resolution hopefully.

I like Crown even more now... the manufacturer themselves just did me a solid and said they would ship me out a new one. first thing on Monday. (so more days without the XJ but hopefully it will be issue resolved in the end)
I've put other Crown brand parts on my XJ before without issue so didn't hesitate to buy this one.... even though there was a possible mess up... with solid customer service like that, I'll keep buying from them. Especially now that we're in an age where it seems everyone is denying any kind of responsibility.

I hope you can even get the pan off. Mine feels like it was JB Welded on. I ended up just sucking it out with a fluid extractor and pulled 4.3qt out. Refilled exactly what I pulled out. I hope you can get that pan off!

Mine came off okay... the dipstick tube broke free with just a little bit of work. I don't think the pan had ever been off of mine before. So not bad for 26 years in place.
Plus in all those miles, the magnets looked really good. So that was a good sign on the condition of the internals as well. Now I'm just waiting to get the new pan to put the whole thing back in place and be able to drive the XJ again.

Good news to finally report.... the new pan Crown sent me arrived yesterday (Sunday). And it was a perfect fit praise the Lord. So means some sort of a manufacture's defect on the first one I was sent as it looked to be the exact same pan.
got it installed and torqued to spec last night but didn't have time to drive and get it up to temp. Will do that today. Just glad to finally have my XJ back in driving condition again. It's been a few weeks getting the parts required.
The fluid that came out actually still looked pretty good. Was reddish in color, but dirty enough that it was time to change. Even though I was over-due on the number of years, the fluid only had about 25K on it.

♫happy trails to you♫

Yes... was a good outcome in the end. Strange that the first pan would've been out of spec that far. It was a solid 3/8" too long or the flare was 3/8" too shallow. Just glad to have it up and running again.
When you force things, something else gets broken 98% of the time.... and I know I was doing the job correctly...(that one isn't very difficult on the scale)... so figured that the part itself had to be the issue...and it was.