Yeah, brain fart! ROTFL! Drill out the center of the plug and use an easyout to remove it. Flush out any drill chips, and put a new plug in. That's how I handled it.

Okay back to the transmission flush. Mission accomplished, but.....

First, I confirmed my hypothesis about the dipstick. No, not [insert name of politician you hate], the dipstick on my Jeep. With the pan removed, it seats completely on the tube. No "bouncing". So, what's happening normally is that the dipstick hits the bottom of the pan, and the collar of the dipstick is still about 3/8" above the top of the tube. Because the dipstick is flexible, it's easy to push it down so that the collar of the dipstick is on the top of the tube. What this means is, the correct reading is that first 'stop', where the dipstick is on the bottom of the pan, NOT the second 'stop' where the collar of the dipstick is seated on the top of the tube.

Second, this vehicle behaves very differently from my Cherokee (AW4 trans) and my Ford van. With both of those, if I disconnect the return line, fluid starts coming out as soon as the engine is started. It's a decent stream at idle. On this Grand (42RE), nothing comes out at idle. It has to be running about 1500 RPM to get a decent stream. Is this normal? Or is this indicative of a problem?

Third, because nothing was coming out, we overfilled it. This resulted in a spill between the funnel and the dipstick tube (no biggie), which caused a bit of confusion about a more serious issue: It was leaking out of the bell housing. I did quite a bit of cleaning up, tried again, and confirmed it was coming out of the bell housing. This stopped when we got the level lower (by revving to 1500 RPM). Can anyone shed some light on this? Did we screw it up or is this a normal result of overfilling?


Anyway, level is now correct, test drive was great (including a good highway workout complete with full throttle from stop, accelerating up a grade, and downshifting downhill). No slips, no lurches, nothing unexpected, and best of all, no foam!

Hmmm?

I would reccomended trying to find more than a single source of information for when going outside of OEM Service Manuals/official sources to obtain information. To not really just take someone's word for it exactly immediately, without verifying things to appear accurate by way of consensus...

Here's how mine (unofficially) went for me. The pump pumped out the atf rather quickly at about 700 idle RPM's. I didn't have to bring the RPM up any to get it to pump... Not sure why that would be for you? I'm interested in hearing other peoples take on it though.

I'm not sure how much extra would be involved between the two different readings when pushing the politicians stick all the way down vs not doing that for the readings. I wouldn't think too very much. I personally believe it's okay either way myself. I wonder why the dipstick does that in the first place outside of it just being a little too long for our application. Why its too long you know?

Bell housing leak I wouldn't know.. but again, I am curious to hear what other people may say about it.

I'm glad it all went relatively well, and you got it all fixed up!

Noah, check my post count. I'm not exactly a newbie. Statistically, the odds of me being significantly older than you are pretty high. I've been wrenching for a lot of years, and using the Internet to gain information since before there was a World Wide Web. (Yes, back in the command line days.) I know how to sort information. While this is my first Grand, it's my 5th Jeep, not counting the ones I drove for work when they were still in production. People asking questions and getting answers is the entire reason to have forums like this.


Your input on the idle speed is appreciated. That's what I was expecting to happen. Should be interesting to hear other experiences.

Its Okay Mark. I am not upset at you.. for statistically having the probability of being significantly older than me! You cannot help the year that you were born likely being prior to the year that I was born. That is not your fault!

No seriously, I believe you know what you are doing when turning wrenches. You certainly sound like you know about a Jeep. I wasn't implying anything of the sort. Honestly, me saying that was really kind of a warning to others on here about me and my advice... I have a general know-how type of knowledge when it comes to a lot of different things. I am in no way a great mechanic though. I have learned a ton of information about these Jeeps from this forum (mainly just the WJ since that's the only one I have owned up until recently I purchased a ZJ). I learned it all from guys and gals, good people like yourself! I am soo appreciative of this. So much so.. that since I have a little bit of knowledge here on the subject now, that I want to repay the faver by helping other people out if I think I am able...

I am a little dangerous in this regard. That line in the message above (what you quoted from me) about checking around to verify other peoples information, it was more implied towards myself.. with me wanting to give knowledge out that I 'think' I have to others here on different subjects related to the Grand Cherokee. So that people scrutinize and verify the information that I relay here to others, making sure that it is accurate. Does that make sense? I would not ever say something while knowingly being wrong on purpose. I try to make sure that I give accurate information. I realize that I could be wrong too. That I still have a lot to learn. I was saying that I want people to make sure to verify what it is that I am saying with others... To be certain.

I try to always say things like: In my experience. In my case. This is what happened when I did...

I hope I made sense with all of that? And that I am able to help out for others the way its been done for me!

I am 41 years of age. A little young and a little old (so I've been told), depending on who's comparing...

Guys...guys...guys. Chill out will you? With the 42re, the pump doesn't pressurize the converter in park, but does in neutral. Therefore you won't get any fluid out of the cooling lines until the increased rpm causes the governor to raise the line pressure if it's in park. The AW4 in XJs is different in that fluid flows in park. The AW4 is built in Japan, not by Chrysler.

I'm thinking when it foamed, air pushed out thru the torque converter seal taking fluid with it. Also on the dipstick, The pan on the 42re is shallower than the pan on the AW4 and I'm guessing Chrysler didn't bother changing the dipstick and just used the same one for both. I'd have to compare the 2, but it sounds reasonable since my AW4 stick says to check idling in neutral hot when it doesn't need to be.

And I'm 74. Older, Budweiser!

This is excellent info! I'm thinking I will probably do the flush again, but this time I'll try it in neutral. So far, no more leaking out of the bell housing, but I do have a stray bubble or two when I check. Nothing like before, though.

I think I'll order the ATF+4 online from WalMart. Nobody seems to carry much at one time, and their price is half what the auto parts stores want.

Chrysler actually produced a list of acceptable brands of ATF+4, but IDK where I saw it. As far as I'm concerned, if it says ATF+4 on the bottle, it's good to use.