Transmission leak after fluid change

[SonicTumor]

Hello all,

Long time reader here. I recently got around to changing my trans fluid last night in my 1.8l 5speed. Pretty simple. Dropped the cover and drained. Filled through the reverse switch or whatever it is called on the top. Drove it around, seemed fine. Got to work this morning and the whole bottom of my car is covered in trans fluid. Started looking around and noticed 2 things. I saw that fill specs says like 1.69qts and I put 2qts.

I also saw that the bolts on the diff cover are supposed to be torqued to 13 ft. lbs. I did not use a torque wrench. I wouldnt guess they are too loose but am wondering, if I did over tighten them, is that my issues? Did I just put too much fluid? Should I redo with a new gasket? Any help would be great. I was in a rush and didn't take my time and do it exactly as I should, so it falls on me. Just trying to see what my best bet is.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Tormach]

http://www.sonicownersforum.com/for...ion/7044-f17-1-8-five-speed-fluid-change.html

This is from another post for the F17-5 trans.

I just changed mine this evening. All in all took about 30 minutes. However I deviated a little from the instructions in the mentioned thread.

Yes you have to remove the diff cover, and those 10 bolts do have blue thread locker on them.

My sonic has 154k on the clock and I figured it was time. My shifting has been a little notchy so that was more incentive to do it.

Now since this was a last minute ‘sure I will do it, I drained and had the cover back before I had any replacement fluid *

So anyway ... first off I loosened the 13mm plug above the drivers side axle output to make sure before I drained everything that I could make sure I could check the level when I filled it.

So the cover removed without much difficulty. Do not use an impact or an air ratchet to remove the screws. Once they are off the cover basically falls off, gasket remained on the tranny side.

Fluid drained. For the mileage is was very clean and still pink in color. Smelled a little bit it is 5 years old.

The level plug does have a magnet on it, mine had the usual metal powder on it.

I cleaned the cover and out everything back together.

Now came the fluid part. The post above mentioned removing the reverse indicator switch. However I was looking at a perfectly good open hole where I removed the level Check plug.

So off to get fluid. Now since this is ‘lifetime fill’ there is very little in detail as to what kind of fluid to use.

It’s GL-4 fluid. So that’s amzoil and redline mt90.

I went to oriles, autozone and advanced auto. No GL-4. Only 5. Or 5/4 compatible. No thanks

I needed my car the next day and it’s now about 4pm.

I find that ford makes an excellent synthetic GL-4 called

Genuine Ford Fluid XT-M5-QS Full Synthetic Manual Transmission Fluid.

I ran to my ford dealer. Bought 2 quarts at $22 a piece [emoji15].

I pumped about 1.5 quarts back in through the level Check plug.

Put the plug back in and took it for a test drive. Amazing how much better it shifts. That fluid is amazing.

So if you are doing this job, it’s not hard at all. Two sockets 13/11 mm will get the job done and plan 60 minutes unless you Hustle the. 20 minutes.

Hope this helps others.

This link shows the location of the fill level plug (subsonic mentions it in his post I linked up top).
Hopefully this helps you a bit. Id probly get a torq wrench and maybe a new gasket and redo it. GL