L322 L322 Gearbox 3.0TD

[bitnix]

So today I only got as far as stripping the block in half. Turns out I will also need a new gasket as the old one ripped apart. Parts people better have it.
Then after getting some extra circlip pliers that thing just sits in there. I got a plier that will reach out far enough but not enough leverage to take it out. Tomorrow I will add some more functionality e.g. a thread and a screw to just squeeze it together. So gearbox time has stopped until tomorrow.

I decided to service my other car instead.

Best place to get an oil cooler?
I found this place:
https://www.britishparts.co.uk/products/136286-transmission-oil-cooler-UBC760011

£136.00 - a bit expensive. The 4.4 ZF cooler is a lot cheaper.

 

[Bemble]

One of the reasons that I decided to concentrate on rebuilding the ZF ‘boxes rather than the GM 5L40-E was the number of special tools (theoretically) required for re-assembly of the GM unit, particularly for the clutch piston seals (the ZF transmissions just use plain O-rings for the piston seals so re-assembly is dead easy). If you look at the cost of purchasing the dozen-or-so Kent Moore seal protector tools it makes no financial sense at all for a one-off rebuild.

When the time comes around for you to rebuild your transmission again you might want to investigate using the Seal-E-Zee compression cones and freezing spray :



http://www.seal-e-zee.com/sealezee.html

Phil

 

[bitnix]

Haha that something else. The spray looks like the compressed air can turned upside down. They use the trick to fix dents in car body. It seems the temperature do the trick. £80 is not a bad shout. I managed to make a tool to take that big mother***** of a circlip and now the box is stripped down and case is empty.

And also further stripped the block:

 

[bitnix]

So seeing this:

It seems to have quite a lot of wear.

I might need to find a machine shop that does this:


I need to measure the size of the ring that is there currently and see if I can get an oversize one. I also found some info that the valve on the pump wears so might need to get an oversize direct replacement if there is any play in it. One thing for sure - maintaining oil pressure is key for a auto box.

I will create a shopping list soon and do one vs just getting someone else to do the whole gearbox and fitting for me.

 

[bitnix]

Clearly my table in BBcode won't work on this forum :-(

Doing it in-house:	Giving it to someone else:
To be detailed.	To be detailed.
To be detailed.	To be detailed.

 

[bitnix]

One of the reasons that I decided to concentrate on rebuilding the ZF ‘boxes rather than the GM 5L40-E was the number of special tools (theoretically) required for re-assembly of the GM unit, particularly for the clutch piston seals (the ZF transmissions just use plain O-rings for the piston seals so re-assembly is dead easy). If you look at the cost of purchasing the dozen-or-so Kent Moore seal protector tools it makes no financial sense at all for a one-off rebuild.

When the time comes around for you to rebuild your transmission again you might want to investigate using the Seal-E-Zee compression cones and freezing spray :



http://www.seal-e-zee.com/sealezee.html

Phil

Hey Phil,

Is it recommended that I change these seals regardless or you just posted this as a piece of good advice in terms of rebuilding?

Is it recommended that I just take it apart for cleaning purposes and put it back together?

I might change forward piston clutch as in that input drive the clutches were burnt.

So I need to change 254, 256 but is it required to change 172 too?

 

[Bemble]

I just meant the cones and freeze spray were a (much) cheaper alternative to all the official seal protection tools for a one-off rebuild. I wouldn’t bother replacing the pistons unless the moulded seals were obviously heat damaged or showing other signs of distress, otherwise you’ll end up spending loads of money – which kind of defeats the object of doing it yourself. I test all my (ZF) clutches with air pressure as I reassemble them to ensure that I haven’t nicked a seal, etc.

So is your plan to clean everything up, get the torque converter remanufactured, sort out the pump/housing and fit Sonnax valves as and where the vacuum testing shows they’re needed? The Sonnax reaming kit is unfortunately quite expensive for a one-off job

and there are a lot of valves potentially that can wear as the castings are made apparently from some sort of soft cheese

Phil

 

[Gmacz]

Great thread, keep the pictures coming and hopefully we get to see this job finished in pictures as well as words.
Good luck with the build, this is why i just stick to manuals, very complicated but good to see it repaired by a diyer

 

[bitnix]

I just meant the cones and freeze spray were a (much) cheaper alternative to all the official seal protection tools for a one-off rebuild. I wouldn’t bother replacing the pistons unless the moulded seals were obviously heat damaged or showing other signs of distress, otherwise you’ll end up spending loads of money – which kind of defeats the object of doing it yourself. I test all my (ZF) clutches with air pressure as I reassemble them to ensure that I haven’t nicked a seal, etc.

So is your plan to clean everything up, get the torque converter remanufactured, sort out the pump/housing and fit Sonnax valves as and where the vacuum testing shows they’re needed? The Sonnax reaming kit is unfortunately quite expensive for a one-off job

and there are a lot of valves potentially that can wear as the castings are made apparently from some sort of soft cheese

Phil

I got all these picture from above otherwise I wouldn't even start this.
Yeah I didn't see any heat damage on these pistons. Mainly the forward clutches got hurt.

So plan for now has changed a little bit as for now I am not sure if I will have time to do these boxes or this will be one off time.
I'm getting a refurbed TQ, forward and coast clutch plates, the ring for the oil pump as it's worn and some gaskets or a full set I haven't decided yet then the box is going back together.

As per valve block I will be assessing visually the wear on the valves and if they need replacing I will make a game plan from there as I can get either a refurbed block or spend the money for the tools to do it myself.

From the valve block operation during my test drive and monitoring things on the laptop things seemed okay. I did not have any previous issues with the box. I am sure the block is worn to certain extent after 14 years of living in there but I don't think that was my point of failure. My suspicion is that the abnormal amount of filings in the oil got the block to malfunction. So that is the plan for now as I decide what to do in the future.

Phil what oil do you recommend for my gearbox? I just used Dexron III ATF because oil should be oil apart from the usual marketing and branding.

I will keep you posted.

 

[bitnix]

So here is a shopping list:

I haven't decided on the oil yet. I might go for TEXACO TEXAMATIC 7045E. Do you know how much oil it takes when its completely drained and TQ is empty?

And I found a nice gasket kit on eBay which is much cheaper than AC.

As per getting the Sonnax tester kit which is almost £300 I will pass on it for now while I make my decision to whether do more boxes or just this one.

Again I am probably not going for a super hardcore rebuild that will get the car through another 100k miles but I think with what I am doing it will at least get another 30k and by that time it will probably be in someone elses hands while I move onto a newer L322 or L405.

 

[bitnix]

So today I took a trip to Automatic Choice and got some parts from the above price list. I also decided to add direct and reverse clutches as they seemed damaged to me. The bill for far roughly £180. Left the TQ to remanufacture - picking up Monday.

 

[bitnix]

This is the list but I will most likely return the coast clutches as they look okay.

 

[Saint.V8]

As far as I know, it is most imperitive that the correct Texaco oil is used in the GM5 box.....the ZF box could tolerate other oils that meet the LT711?? Spec....but the GM5 box must use the correct Texaco spec oil.

 

[bitnix]

Thanks Saint.

I am going for the recommended Texaco ETL 7045E.
I'm buying a 20L tank instead of many bottles of 1L as to get 20L is like roughly £80 but if I bought it in 1L @ £10 a litre - you see where this is going!

Of course I don't need the 20L but I shall have some left over for a service when its due (if I still have the car at that time if not I will pass it to the new owner and say use this oil to service).

 

[Bemble]

Just to pick up on what Saint.V8 mentioned (I’m sure he won’t mind)….

In the early days ZF specified Esso ATF LT71141 as the only fluid suitable for the 5HP24 in their official ‘List of Lubricants’ TE ML-11:

ExxonMobil subsequently rebranded the fluid to Mobil ATF LT71141. ZF then started marketing their ‘own’ fluid – LifeguardFluid 5 and updated TE ML-11 accordingly:

If this MSDS is anything to go by, LifeguardFluid 5 is manufactured by Pentosin in Germany:

The later versions of ZF’s Service Data Management electronic parts catalogue indicate that Pentosin ATF-1 should be used in the 5HP24:

So my inevitable conclusion from all this is that all four fluids are one and the same thing

The reason the use of this fluid is so critical to the operation of the 5HP24 transmission is due to the sensitivity of the torque converter lock-up clutch which must operate with the correct static-to-dynamic friction characteristics, as supplied by the particular friction modifier pack used in this fluid

The GM 5L40-E started life in BMWs using a plain Dexron III fluid, which subsequently changed to Texamatic 7045E in the L322 and then to ETL 8072B in the later BMWs (though 7045E is still Land Rover's recommendation). It is thought by some that these changes were an attempt to tweak the formulation of the fluid to reduce the premature wear in the aluminium valve blocks. Of course Dexron VI has now superseded Dexron III whose licenses all expired in 2006.

So Texamatic 7045E is a Dexron III-G fluid :

Anyway, as a special treat, here’s some porn for the weekend:

Phil

 

[bitnix]

As always Phil continues to amaze.

If you go into any car shop you can get Dexron III cheap. But now doing the rebuild of my box I will only put the recommended oil in it.

Euro Car Parts sell 5 L for £23.49! It is Dexron III same as the Texaco but clearly specs are very very different.

 

[holidaychicken]

Amazing thread, very nice work and always a pleasure to see Phil's input.
One day it will become apparent that Phil isn't human and is in fact a super computer being tested for the inevitable day when robots and technology take over the world

 

[bitnix]

Today's update:
Reminder of the burnt clutches!

Replaced with Exedy plates from Automatic Choice

So here are some oldschool circlip pliers I was given by a friend.

So just for the reference of what Machine Mart thinks what a heavy duty circlip pliers are:

Like trully a joke!

The tool I've made with a screw and a thread was good enough to take the compressed ring out but once the ring was out and fully expanded there was no chance to get it back on the hooks.
So the box is back 50% in the case:

Funny thing is that I couldn't put the bits back together in it as it just wouldn't go. So I had to build the gearbox up on the jack stand rod and slide the casing onto it!

 

[Disco1BFG]

Amazing thread - good on you for DIYing this job - well impressed and watching.

If you haven't got an oil cooler yet, I used these guys

http://alutec.co.uk/

when I upgraded the cooler on my ZF 4HP24...

IIRC, quite a large, bespoke, one off cooler was about £160 - turn round time was about a week, which i was happy with.

 

[bitnix]

Welcome Disco1BFG!

Thank you for your time and kind words!
I will give them a call tomorrow what is their offering for my box although Phil did mention that the cooler in its original form as long as its new it should be fine.

Hopefully at the end of this thread the car will start and once put in D it will not drive backwards!