Terranovation

Not just ribets, you need a few Kermits too

When you hear a ticking noise with the fan on and you automatically know it's a pine needle or a leaf in the blower motor.

264,000 km (165,000 miles) and better every day. TD27 engine.

I think it's safe enough to utilise atf as an engine flush, it has enough lubricating and cleaning qualities in it to give the insides of the engine a good dousing. After all it is inside auto trans so it can't do any possible damage to the inside of an engine. I've used atf to cleanse bolts and I soak them in the atf for half an hour and they come out nice and clean. I have seen the brown rusty residue left behind in my little cleaning container that I use so I'd imagine an engine with atf added, running for 10 - 15 mins is going to have atf splashing around inside, giving the inside walls a good clean, plus the engine doesn't really loose any lubrication inside. The only thing I'd be a little bit worried about would be a really clogged up motor with oil chunks in it. Like someone else said, that goop can clog up oil galleries if it's dislodged from engine flushing, but hopefully the stuff comes out the drain plug anyway. The only way to be certain would be to remove the sump and manually clean it properly with degreaser on the inside and also take the rocker cover off and inspect it from the top.

I think it's safe enough to utilise atf as an engine flush, it has enough lubricating and cleaning qualities in it to give the insides of the engine a good dousing. After all it is inside auto trans so it can't do any possible damage to the inside of an engine. I've used atf to cleanse bolts and I soak them in the atf for half an hour and they come out nice and clean. I have seen the brown rusty residue left behind in my little cleaning container that I use so I'd imagine a cat engine with atf added, running for 10 - 15 mins is going to have atf splashing around inside, giving the inside walls a good clean, plus the engine doesn't really loose any lubrication inside. The only thing I'd be a little bit worried about would be a really clogged up motor with oil chunks in it. Like someone else said, that goop can clog up oil galleries if it's dislodged from engine flushing, but hopefully the stuff comes out the drain plug anyway. The only way to be certain would be to remove the sump and manually clean it properly with degreaser on the inside and also take the rocker cover off and inspect it from the top.

Ok thank you

If you put a tarp over the weeds, trust me they'll brown off and die. No sunlight or air for them to breathe. I used to use old carpet lining on weed patches and it does kill them.

How much fluid came out? I'm thinking about doing mine one day too.

Lawnmower also does the job too so I've heard

Dumped the old coolant out (it's been 3 years since last change) took the coolant reservoir out and sprayed some degreaser inside to loosen up this grey muck in it. Put a rag inside and stirred it around using an old toothbrush which got rid of the muck. Filled that up again with hot water to let it dissolve more while I flushed the radiator out. I flushed from the top and then stuck the hose to the drain port which got more green coolant out the top. Flushed several times which got more green out each time. Back inside, yep coolant reservoir is spotless inside now so rinsed it out, bolted it back in and refilled radiator with fresh coolant.

Rattle noise could be the lower piece of the fan shroud has come off it's little nodgule. These shrouds are a two piece that clip together and there is a little slot directly in the centre bottom piece that clips onto a metal nodgule. That can be fixed with a bit of clear silastic to stop it rattling. Worth having a look at anyway. Agree with Slartibartfast on the glob of grease on the bump stops, sometimes the plastic cap can be totally worn away. I checked mine and they are unbelievably still there after 23 years lol

Well in another topic I've heard adding a bit of ATF can quieten lifters.

Yeah autos are a refined piece of machinery, people don't like them because you need lots of brake pressure to bring them to a stop but all it takes is a bit of know how, when to ease off on the gas, maybe even change down to 3rd once in awhile so you aren't using up all your pads slowing down in o/d. There's also that joke I despise that manual trans owners say about auto drivers. How can you tell who's an auto driver? Llllooooooooosssseerrrrrrrrrr.

I've seen an air compressor used to fill up diffs and what not, the guy put a hole in the top of the oil container cap, with 8mm clear tube going into the bottle and going to the fill hole. Then he put a smaller hole into the oil container on the neck of the container. He then connected the air line from the compressor to that hole on the container and the force of the compressed air blew the oil up the tube and into the diff. Took like 4 seconds! Then he connected up the next container, bam done. Job finished in less than two minutes. It was a pretty bad ass way of doing it.

How about a simple spray bottle? Just fill it up with fluid and you just take the spray part off otherwise it's going to take ages and spray the oil in.

It's more than likely the clutch plate is ssssnafooed.

There are bottles on the market that already have a plastic tube attached to the cap. They have them on the 1 litre bottles. The tube comes out from the cap and sometimes they put a little plastic lid thing on the end of the tube so you don't, ahem, leak everywhere.

Some good tips here guys, another reason I started this topic was that I didn't do an engine flush I just opened the sump plug and left it draining all night to get as much out as possible. All seemed well the next morning. Refilled it with fresh oil, waited 10 mins then checked the dipstick and it's black already with little whispers of clean oil in it. So there must have been a lot of black oil still clinging to the insides of the engine, even after 12 hours of draining!

Ok alright already it's a 3 speed with over drive so that means 4 speed auto. You are right about the .5 gear feeling, it's the torque converter.

There shouldn't be much difference between fuel tanks, to start off with I'd check the fuel sender on the tank. Rear cargo area, remove the carpet under that you'll find the fuel sender which has a bunch of wires on top of it so be careful as they might be brittle with age. Unscrew the top and carefully lift it up and out. I say be careful because there should be a foam ring around the outside so don't drop any foam bits into the tank. The fuel sender has an arm linkage which moves up and down, depending on how much fuel is in there, sending a signal to the fuel gauge. If the fuel gauge isn't reading correctly then it could be two things - a wire is loose/broken on the top part of the sender unit or it could be that the sender unit arm linkage isn't moving freely up and down as it should. I also think they have weight of some sort on that arm linkage, whether it can fall off or not I'm not sure.

Mine has the rear glass release switch on the dash but I hardly ever use it since I heard they have a problem with malfunctioning. Luckily mine still works!

It's kinda weird how it goes into 4th by clicking the o/d switch, you'd think it would change into 4th without having to press o/d but apparently that's how these autos do it. D is gears 1-3 then o/d is gears 4 then 4.5. I have heard rumours that if you rev way past 3,000 that the auto will go into 4th on it's own accord if you don't press the o/d switch but I've never been game enough to try it, especially since this is my 2nd auto. Original auto was destroyed, I was on the freeway and lost top gear and 4th, only 3rd worked. I drove straight to the trans shop. By the time I got there, 2nd gear remained! Trans mechanic pulled the auto apart and said it looked like the Terminator had blown up in there. Mangled metal chunks everywhere!

I have to say again, it's a 4.5 there's definitely 3rd and when you click in the o/d switch it goes into 4th, then just above 60 km/h (35 mph) it goes into o/d which is like half gear extra. So it's a 4.5 auto. Have a listen to it again, it's definitely 3rd and goes into 4th when you click the o/d in.

I have to take mine off to get to the oil filler. Not really a problem though, I can unbolt it in a couple of minutes if I'm in a hurry.

Expect a nice clean area underneath your Pathy!