Update 26.05.17 So guys here is the latest on the Z, I have contacted a local reputable auto transmission specialist shop and organised to have them diagnose my transmission. The Z has already been towed to their shop and I am expecting to hear back from them probably around mid next week. The guy I spoke to from the shop on the phone was quite helpful and stated they had plenty of experience working on 300ZX transmission in the past so I felt happy to send my Z to them. Obliviously quotations for fixing my Z without them having looked at it yet meant I couldn't get much out of them on costs for labour and repairs but the one thing I did get out of them was a full rebuild quote of around $3800:rofl: The other info I got out of the guy I was speaking to was apparently the Z32's auto ecus are coded to the original transmission for the ecu and so if the auto ecu is the cause of the problem they need to order a brand new auto ecu directly from Nissan that is coded to the transmission to be fixed. :bash::rofl: What a load of crap, I am pretty confident the auto ecus are not coded in anyways to any transmission. I do know the Z32's auto ecus are prong to failure and giving off false readings but they can be fixed by a company called Injectronics an electronics supply company based in Australia. Anyways they also urged me to take the rebuild route due to the shops owner claiming to have had bad experiences in the past with used Z32 transmissions failing and what not so they preferred I do a rebuild. I told them $3800 is just too much for me to spend and so they replied "that's fine". Now due to the likelihood of my transmission being quoted by this shop as being toast, I've been planning for the worst case scenario which would be to replace the transmission with a used replacement unit. I have already contacted CARZ about his offer for the 96 model wreck transmission and if my old transmission is reported as being "dead" Ill definitely be looking at purchasing the transmission from CARZ and then if they allow it I'll have the new transmission freighted down directly to the auto shop and I'll get them to install the new transmission into my Z for me.
Now to answer some of the questions and information posted in this thread so far. Then last time I checked my TPS was about 2 weeks I think and acording to Conzult my TPS was set to. 0.44 Volts Unsure if I would see much benefit to be honest and not to mention the only used TT auto transmission I could find from a wreckers during my searching today was quoted at $800. Currently I'm waiting to see what CARZ offers me for his transmission before deciding which route I will take. When I service my transmission I made sure NOT to FLUSH it I basically dropped the pan. This was the condition of my pan once it was off. Unfortunately I was unaware the transmission needed to be service at regular intervals until only a few months ago when I actually read my FSM thoroughly. I replaced the filter with a brand new one and cleaned the pan completed before reinstalling and filling up the transmission with brand new Penrite Full Synthetic ATF fluid.
I was thinking about recording a short drive in my Z to provide the auto shop with more information on what was wrong with my transmission, but because the car is almost undrivable in its current condition I just decided to have it sent off to be diagnosed by a specialists. For years my auto transmission ecu has been giving off error codes like this; but the errors were never the same each time I checked them. The TPS signal I would say was a consent error I would find during these tests but no matter what I did, install a new TPS and brand new sealed electrical connectors the error would never go away. That is true and so to help remove as much of the old fluid I did a double drain of the ATF fluid 1000 km's after I service it with the new filter. Actually thats incorrect, it appears the later model NA from 93+ did have a sump plug for the transmission as evidence here. Yes after looking at some how to guides on youtube and reading the FSM I took it upon myself to service the transmission and it was not as difficult as I first thought. I replaced the fluid, filter and sump pan seal during the service. I used Penrite Full Synthetic AFT fluid in mine as I can get it cheap from work (Repco) I did mix my fluid from full syn to semi syn only because I had 8 litres of semi syn which I purchased and had in storage for the past 5 years and I couldnt find them during the first service change. I was planning to continue to drain my transmission sump pan and refill with the semi syn fluid until it was all used up and then switch back to the full syn fluid. Yes I had found this very informative post a few months ago and some of the information in that thread helped me to see what needed to be down improve the transmission with better shifting etc. Unfortunately for me I have never been able to get the manual auto diagnostics to work at all which is why I spent $500 to buy the Conzult problem which gave me information but no real way to fix them.
I reckon you did the right thing taking it to the specialist to check it out. It may be as simple as not enough oil in the tranny after replacing the service. Easy to not put enough in. I had that problem with the newly rebuilt unit and could not get reverse to engage properly. It's hard to see the oil on the dipstick. Get the one from CARZ and get it over and done with if yours is dead. Also, my 1990 TT does not have a drain plug. So, this might have been added in the later years. Personally, I would like one with a screw because it makes servicing easier in terms of less mess! Are the NA & TT Auto tranny pans interchangeable?
I have a service kit here you can have cheap if you need it. Includes strainer assy 31728-51x08, gasket C1397-51x90, and o ring seal 31526-41x07
Thanks Rob, I'll keep you in mind. I am after a TT tranny oil pan with the plug if anyone has an undamaged one.
Lots of good input above, but I just want to add to some of the things mentioned. Adam, although not ideal not servicing the trans for 7 years is not the end of the world in an NA with moderate k's and moderate driving imo. You didn't have any chunks in your pan or metal filings, the screen was not blocked. The issue was that your fluid was toast "black thinned out". The maintenance schedule is to inspect every 25,000 k's all the way out to 100,000 and 4 years. That is inspect not replace. By the sounds the trans was running basically OK with the old fluid, changing the crapped out fluid was obviously a good idea, but the problems seems to of started after the new fluid was put in, is that right ? Checking the fluid level correctly can be a bit tricky, get the car well warmed up, park on a absolute flat surface, park brake on shift through all gears, in park, I then check 5-6 times AND look very closely its very easy for the fluid to be well up the wire and look OK, it has to be within the hatched area with the H (HOT). Its easy to read it wrong, not seating the dipstick properly, picking up fluid in the tube etc, so I do it over and over till I am sure I am reading it right. I had access to a Mityvac which is awesome for sucking fluid out of the dipstick tube to wash another 5-10 litres through the trans in a matter of minutes without jacking the car up. http://mityvac.com.au/product/mityvac-7-3l-fluid-evacuator/ Another possible problem is that you rolled or forgot to fit an o-ring on the replaced filter/oil strainer. Also I assume you fitted the bolts not present in your picture. Another out there possibility is that the filter was too long or too short. There are different filters for NA and TT and some others for deeper pans on vehicles that use the RE4R01/03A. To confuse it more when you compare different filters the "leg" depth varies as does the thickness of the body, so making sure its correct is the depth from the bolt holes to the mouth, if that makes sense. As a quick example 2 pictures of filters for a Jatco 4 speed, notice the leg length difference and the body thickness difference. Filters that look like this could be right for either or, or NOT depending on manufacturer. What is important is the reach from the bolt face to the depth of the intake. A while back I posted very specific information (part numbers) because I thought it was possible that they could visually look similar but get a problem with a TT which i believe is shorter then an NA arse about, but I ID'ed it with the leg/mouth style then I got a filter that was flush and thought it was the wrong part but the body was thicker so it was OK.
Having fluid low or high or sucking air or restricted filter intake could cause aeration of the fluid. Here is a quotefrom: http://www.freeasestudyguides.com/transmission-fluid-level-check.html You mentioned humming and rattling ? Maybe like a dry or foamed up power steering pump ? No pressure, no shifts, parking it for a period may let the fluid settle a bit and slightly improve the problem. I don't mean to give you false hope but I would be tempted to drop the pan and compare the filter with the old one (why I keep old parts for a while), check the o-ring, look for any new crap in pan or filter, and maybe throw some cheap fluid in and see what happens.
Geron I started off above responding your request for a pan with a bung and got carried away. My original trans had a bung but when I got another trans rebuilt I ended up with a trans with no bung, was a bit miffed but wasn't too worried, but thought one day when I service it I will do what you are planing. To be honest I wouldn't worry, here is why. When you service the trans, check/replace filter etc, you only get 5 odd liters out of it and as Adam and others mentioned above its only half the fluid. I had 15 litres of Penrite FS did the service, drove it for a few days, sucked out about 4-5 litres through the dip stick tube, did this a couple of times and topped it up saving a litre or so for top up if needed. The thing is I did this in a matter of minutes with out jacking the car up and using messy oil pans. Most enjoyable and fastest fluid change I have ever done. And because I had the pump I could fine tune the fluid level and rectify any accidental over fill with out getting under the car. With that in mind I am tempted to put 5 litres in it every year as maintenance and 10 litres every other year, or something like that because it was so dam easy. Without gaskets either. Maybe check filter every few years or so. The pump style I linked above can be gotten cheaper, but I think it could be also done with this. The stiff skinny semi-hard line should be long enough. http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/Product/Orcon-Multi-Use-Fluid-Air-Pump/153607
I can't see that from his photo. After almost 7 years I got the Auto serviced by Rollin, because he was fixing something else on my car. He showed a photo of my pan and it looked like that. For those seven years the ATF always looked very light (like new) when checking the dipstick. My fluid level was always a bit high but the shifts were very good. I had been to a mechanic in that time period and he looked at the dipstick, touched it on paper and told me it didn't need replacing yet. "You need to drive this car a lot more" If the ATF is light, but his pan may have a dark coating that has bonded to it after years, how could you see from that picture? I could be wrong because my phone screen may not show the detail you might be seeing. Checking the ATF level is annoying because hard to see, thanks for that SuperCheap link, (worth a look) but can someone come up with a safe coating that makes the ATF more visible on the dipstick. I have used a piece of white electrical chord and compared the length to my dipstick. Maybe a whiteboard marker would be dissolved off the dipstick when it is dipped in ATF?
"black thinned out" were Adams words in an earlier post in this thread. What I do is dry of the dip stick really well, so if the level goes over the end bit you just pickup the high tide mark on the wire, it is so easy to go yep its wet its good, even when its really high, dry it real well do it a few times and have a real close look.
Are you checking the fluid level with the engine running ? Sorry for all the posts but you did say some years ago you didn't know the trans needed servicing just checking.
Well my auto has been shifting bad since it was installed by joe imbesi back in 2007. My only real problem with the box was shifting from 1st to 2nd gear. What I experienced was no shifting at or like I was in netural and no matter how much I revved the engine I coasted down the road. For the first few years my bypass method was to pull over, turn the car off and then on again and magically the auto would shift fine for the rest of my drive. Then after doing that for say 4 years one day the turn off turn on method spotted working. What I did then to bypass the problem was use the HOLD function which forced the box to shift quickly through the gears at low speeds. It worked great and though I lost power and speed during standing still accerelation the auto shifted like a dream. Then only about 4 months ago I found a youtube channel by a guy called CHRISFIX who did a very informative how to guide on servicing an automatic transmission. After watching the video I finally understood what I needed to do to maybe fix my auto's shifting problems. One was to replace the old fluid with new fluid. Also change the strainer (filter) and also torque all of the valve body bolts to the FSM's recommendation of 8Nm each to help compress a gasket between the valve body and the transmission housing. Once I did the first fluid change, like magic my auto shifted perfectly but only on some days other days the car would not shift from 1st to second gear at all. Once I did the second fluid change I got more consistent days of good shifting but I still got the odd day where it would not shift. My conclusion was my old ATF fluid had thinned out too much resulting in extremely low fluid pressure which was causing my auto to not shift properly. Once I had the new fluid in the box the line pressure when back to normal and thats why my auto was shifting better. I was intended to replace the fluid every 10,000 until I reached my next 40,000 km service where I would drop the fluid and strainer and hopefully have removed as much of the old oil as possible. The issue was that your fluid was toast "black thinned out". The FSM doesnt really give you a solid service interval of when the transmission fluid and strainer needs to be changed. I found this notation which I was going to base my transmission services on from now onwards. As I stated above my auto had difficulty in shifting from 1st gear to 2nd gear for the past 8 years. The most recent job I did on my Z was to super flush my cooling system which was 2 weeks ago. I did a double flush using a coolant flush and what not as I found my old coolant was not green but a yellow colour This is what my coolant looked like on the RH side compared to brand new fresh coolant on the LH side I also found my cooling system had an acid PH range so thats why I wanted to flush and replace the coolant. I'm wondering if this flush has stuffed up the trans cooler inside my PWR radiator due to the rust buildup inside the system. I followed a simple refill method listed by CHRISFIX which was to use a measuring container to measure exactly how much fluid I had taken out of the auto during my fluid changes. When I refilled the system and did the idle for so many minutes and made sure the fluid had circulated through the auto properly this is what my dipstick ready was. Ill have a look I did purchase a mityvac pressure tester which I have yet to use to test my cooling system and make sure its holding pressure. When I compared the Repco strainer to my old possible OEM strainer this is what I found. And for the O-ring on the filter spout I decided to reuse the old Original O ring from my Old strainer just to be safe The strainers were identical I made sure, see above photos
Holly crap that was pretty thorough. Why did you not use the new o-ring ? That 50k 48 month service interval to replace fluid is for a car doing a lot of towing etc, I would apply that to a TT being driven hard as well.. But generally if it looks and smells ok its ok to keep using it. The cold part of the dip stick is just for roughing in the level, it should be checked on the hot part which I do after a descent drive.
This is what you will expect when I post up my build thread whenever I get around to finish writing it. I have tried to provide as much detailed information as possible and provide as many photos as I can to help show and describe what I'm doing, and what I've found and compared when installing new parts on my Z as part of my 2000spec conversion project. Unfortunately with this level of detail I am so far beyond with the build I don't know how long its going to take me to finish it so that it is worthy of posting on this forums. Well I was going to but I was just a little worried it might be a faction too small and so I just went the safe route and using the original o-ring Yes I know, but it was the only solid evidence I could find for actually servicing the transmission at a set 40,000 km interval which I saw as a well to measure my service of the transmission because whenever I checked my dipstick I did not see one indication every over 8 years that my ATF fluid was black like what you saw in the above pan photos. My ATF dipstick mostly showed me a very clear colour fluid with a hint of pink through it so I just assumed it was fine but as you see the fluid was fair from fine. So because my transmission doesn't tow anything and I don't drive it hard I figured serving the transmission every 40,000 km would mean my transmission would stay healthier for longer regardless of the condition of the fluid I figured that, this is the only photo I recorded during the transmission service that shows my fluid level when the car was cold, so I figured the fluid level which appeared to be slightly over the recommended level for cold meant the fluid level was high for my liking. I can tell you now though when my transmission was planning up the first thing I checked was my ATF dipstick after I had driven probably 5 - 8 minutes in stop start traffic. the fluid levels were definitely showing full on the dipstick.
