DRAIN PLUGS & optional equipment? SERVICEABLE FILTERS:
Our OE FIX transmission oil pans include removable filters and drain plugs for easier service.
W hen we were investigating the feasibility of the filter was permanently attached to the transmission pan. The sedans were billed as having “lifetime transmission fluid,” rendering service unnecessary. As you may know, neither the fluid, nor the filters, nor the trans itself were very keen on this “no service at all” specification. If a simple filter change was desired for reasons of maintenance or due to low fluid pressure, the purchase of a complete pan, filter, and gasket was required. If a pan began leaking at the gasket...a complete pan, filter, and gasket was required. If any one item required service, all three needed to be purchased every time, because the item was sold as a complete assembly and costs for complete pan assemblies were high enough to raise eyebrows. From this absurdity, our 265-851 transmission oil pan was born. Complete with a filter that can be removed for future service, a drain plug, gasket, and bolts, that kit featured everything necessary to convert those transmissions into normal, easy-to-service slushboxes. creating a transmission oil pan for BMW vehicles a few years back, our engineers realized that As we delved further, we found similar fixed filters on various Chryslers, Land Rovers, Jaguars and other BMWs, the commonality being that these transmissions all came from the ZF Company. We developed three more kits (P/Ns 265-850, 265-852 and 265-853), sticking with our recipe of upgrades: removable filters, gaskets, and hardware. Of course, with removable filters customers also need consumable parts in the future to perform regular service, so we also sell filters and gaskets separately to service converted automobiles—just add an “F” to the part number of your pan to purchase a conventional filter and gasket kit. Let’s spend a moment looking at the hardware, too. Note that we said we include a drain plug? It’s been said that early automatic transmissions had no drain plug to prevent lazy owners and mechanics from simply exchanging fluid—by making the pan difficult to drain and forcing a filter replacement, early automatics set up in this fashion helped protect the transmission from the harmful effects of improper fluid pressure and volume. True to that lineage, we found no drain plugs on certain 2008 to 2019 Audis and Volkswagens when we started sniffing around those. One must loosen the pan to service it. Our 265-878 has a drain plug to simplify future service. In fact, every transmission pan we make at Dorman has a drain and plug constructed right in from the design stage.
Our latest iteration in the OE FIX transmission oil pan lineup is our 265-887, which fits quite a few Mercedes- Benz vehicles. These pans feature two (!) filters that are ultrasonically welded into the pan. Furthermore, there’s a standpipe to fill and drain fluid, and on the other side of the pan a polymer alignment tube that sometimes comes out looking a bit brittle.
Oh, and if you haven’t worked on one of these beauties, you ought to know there’s also a special dealer service tool you need to fill the transmission or adjust its fluid level. We applied our old
standbys once we got on this project— removable filters and a convenient drain plug. We also thought we could simplify things by including a second drain plug that makes getting fluid into the bottom-fill transmission a bit easier. Of course, all the service items—drain plugs, filters, pan gasket,
and trans tubes—are available separately; just put an "F" suffix on the transmission pan part number for any of our pans to get the filter kit, and if you guessed that "T" will get you the level adjusting tool for the 265-887, you're right on the money. You may be thinking this is one of those systemic fixes you’ve read about elsewhere in this Guide. It is! As it turns out, we’ve found helping techs fix automobiles instead of trying to lock them out seems to be pretty popular in this industry. Who could have guessed?
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