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4WD gearbox oil drain and refill

2.4K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  1000leelee  
#1 ·
Hi
Can see the suspects for the drain and refill plug on the manual gearbox..
Can someone confirm where these are..??

cheers
 
#2 ·
The gearbox is filled for life and shouldn't need changing, but the transfer case and rear diff do need changing. I did mine a couple of weeks ago and it has made a massive difference to the smoothness of the car even though the old oil looked fine and wasn't too badly sludged.

The rear diff is accessible from the rear of the car. The drain is a large flat bolt head on the bottom of the diff, and the fill is on the vertical surface facing the rear of the car. Wipe the metal sludge off the magnetic drain plug before refitting it.

The transfer case is harder to get to, but is easy enough for an average sized person to wriggle under and reach. Remove the engine under tray first. Next to the gear box and in front of the prop shaft is the transfer case - the drain is a large flat bolt on the bottom of the case (facing the front of the car) the same as the rear diff, but the fill is higher up and is a 12mm hex (Allen key). My tip is to get a good quality hex key and position your self to be able to apply a lot of force to it, especially if it has never been released since the factory. Again wipe the metal sludge off the magnetic drain plug.

With both of these it is best to undo the fill plugs before the drain plugs to avoid the nightmare of draining the boxes and then being unable to refill them. I also used an oil syringe to get the oil into the fill holes as they aren't easy to get at with a bottle and a pipe.

The whole job cost me ÂŁ12 in oil and some sweat removing the transfer case fill plug.