Not to mention the aroma turns all the ladies on.:roflol:

I have found that the ladies prefer 90w hypoid.

fyi i believe the vehicle needs to be level to refill the trans fluid. i did a trans fluid change on a cobalt and it is a pita. i highly recomend taking it to a shop

Well, I just finished the job. I did not take a ATF shower, or even stain my garage floor.

1. put a flattened box down under the (leveled) raised car
2. put a large drip pan, I used an open top radiator drain pan, under the pan.
3. loosen the rear (of the car) bolts. 4 I think.
4. then loosen a few more working towards the front of the car. ATF will start dripping after the first couple.
5. remove the rear most bolts
6. use a screw driver to pull the edge of the pan down to speed draining up
7. leave the 4 front most bolts in until a lot of drainage has occurred.
8. Remove the remaining bolts, while supporting the pan and tilting it towards your receptacle.
9. replace gasket & pan DO NOT over tighten the bolts. Use a 1/4 inch drive handle and just get them tight, (no King Kong fore arms), if you own an inch/lb torque wrench use it to spec 12 N.m or 106 lb. in. That is not much, just past "snug"!

10. Worthy of note; the Owner Manual seems to say 6.9 Qts. for a complete fluid change. The HHR Service Manual says 6.9 Qts for drain & refill, that is the correct amount, so get 2 gallons of ATF. I have no idea why, but 2 Qts. cost as much as a Gallon jug at my local parts stores.

:twothumbs: Congrats on a job well done Don, as to why the disparity between the quart and gallon price, just blame the oil companies/govt/economy. :wink:

Thanks for the technique tips donbrew. I'm about to change my AT fluid at 136k miles. Wish i had read this thread yesterday because i paid about $7 per quart for Dexron VI at Autozone. While researching this task i saw a youtube video about how to flush the AT system to get all the old AT fluid out of the entire transmission. Pretty neat idea. The guy showed how to do it on a Honda. He disconnected the supply line from the transmission to the cooler and bled that to a bucket while filling the the tranny at the fill point...while the engine is running. Definitely a two man job.

The last automatic transmission pan I had to fool with that was still in the car was my 92 Pontiac Grand Am.

I have a large metal tub that my dad got from a factory he used to work at years ago. They used to put different parts in these tubs and pile them on forklifts but changed the way they were doing things by putting in a conveyer belt.

Anyway the tubs were fazed out and he got a few of them and I still have one. It probably holds 10 gallons I suppose but is open topped so it would be pretty heavy when full. Anyway I got the Pontiac all jacked up had the front on ramps and the back on jack stands and a whole bunch of railroad ties and other lumber under the main part of the car.

A little over kill but then again I did not want to be killed.

Anyway there was no drain plug so I made a major mess getting the darn thing off. This took me like two days and I showed the pan to a pal who said he had a tool that would put a nice hole in the sump part of the pan and he could then weld in a nice threaded thing to put a magnetic drain plug in.

When I asked what this would cost he said since I was a friend he would do it for $10.00. I nearly broke my arm getting my wallet out. I went with him into his garage and he produced a box of Greenlee punches selected one that would make a 1” hole and put it all in his hand pumped Harbor Freight press. He had another box of stamped threaded bung things just for replacing stripped drain plugs or putting in new ones where there never was one before, it even came with a magnetic plug.

He said he used to do this stuff all the time when he was a Ford mechanic in Debuque Iowa. He mig welded it into the transmission pan and I was on my way. The next day I put in the new pan gasket and installed the pan to the transmission. The new gasket was a really long length of about 3/16”diameter bright orange rubber cord and some blue RTV.

I did not like the idea that it was not a continuous single piece of rubber or even a cork gasket like in the old days but once it was put in and the pan put back on it did not fail again. The car had around 80,000 miles on it when the original gasket started to leak and there was just over 200,000 on it when I finally junked it.

Transmission fluid change did not go well. I did the procedure correctly and reused the OEM gasket. Used correct amount of fluid (Dexron VI) and fill procedure. Used a little teflon tape on the threads of the 11mm overflow bolt used to get correct volume in the transmission. Tightened pan bolts to spec (106 in lbs). Did all of this while the transmission was warm and then ran the engine on the lift for a while to warm up the new fluid per instructions in the Hayne's manual. Drove around, car seemed ok. Drove home to atlanta, through some small mountains in western AL. after about 150 miles 3rd gear and overdrive went out.

The next day i went to Autozone. They sold me some "sea foam" to use to clean out any gunk. When i put it in i noticed a sharp burned odor....that's not good. Nonetheless, i added the sea foam, readjusted the level and added more dexron VI (that stuff goes for $7.99 a quart) to dilute the sea foam. I then ran the car to see if there is any improvement. None. Still without 3rd gear and overdrive.

Any suggestions from the folks here?

Any suggestions ? Well unfortunate, but sounds like the trans is fried. I would contact a local repair shop. Be honest, tell them what maintenance you have done yourself and ask for a estimate for repairs(probably will need a rebuild)

Fwiw. Back in my mechanic days, I did a lot of transmission services. I would always warn my customers with high mileage cars that there is a chance that the service could do more harm than good. Several times I had done the service and the transmission would die very soon after.
Sometimes it's a gamble when you drain the fluid and some sludge or whatever gets dislodged and then plugs up the valve body or elsewhere.

Thanks, thats pretty much how i see it. any thoughts on buying a used tranny and installing myself? what special tools would i need? engine hoist?