Hi all,

I am planning to do the ATF drain/refill and Antifreeze drain/refill once the weather gets a bit warmer. Today I check under the car and try looking for the ATF pan. I saw a pan in the middle of the car next to the CAT on the passenger side. Is that the ATF pan? I remembered reading a post that someone said the ATF pan is on the driver side. My garage is tight so I want to park it to one side so I can access the pan with a bit more room. The pan cannot be reach without crawling in right? The reason I asked is my Nissan Sentra's ATF pan is very close to the front driver wheel and I can probably reach it without even jacking up the car.

Also to get to the Antifreeze plug, do I need to take off the entire underbody splash guard?

Thanks...

 

its in the middle.

the antifreeze plug, i dont think you have to take off the guard. its a plastic black plug with a X on it.

the sentra pan is in front and to the side becaue of how the transmission is mounted, the X model/ RWD tranmssions are mounted in the middle. all RWD engines are this way. FWD cars have engines mounted in front because the CV axles are connected to the trans to spin the front wheels. RWD cars need to have the drive shaft inline with the rear diff because the diff moves the wheels.

you need to jack up the car and crawl to the middle, its a flat pan and the drain plug is obvious.

for the coolant, if you need to remove the shield no biggie. about 15 screws more time consuming then anything but i think you can aviod it because its in front and i think there is a little window to reach it. i'm not 100% sure.

 

Thanks Turtle...

In the middle? Isn't the CAT right in the middle?

I can get to the atf pan by just jacking up the front of the car right? Since I will do antifreeze and that's in the front.

Thanks for the explanation. Any reason why they use a philips screw/nut for the antifreeze drain plug? Seems so fragile when all the other plugs are socket plugs. I'll see if I can avoid taking the shield off. I do it for oil changes and it's a pain in the butt.

 

Is this the ATF pan? I took a picture of it. The green circle is the drain plug right?

 

yes sir. that should be the plug.

the coolant plug is plastic on many cars as its part of the radaitor, they might of done it due to rust reasons.

the best attack is in the front, thats how i did mines. you get more clearance under there if you do both front and back but only the front i had about 6 inches from my face and the ratchet, a little tought to get leverage but still very do-able.

 

Thanks...

Ohhh...you a genius. Never came to my mind that rust could be the problem they use plastic plug for the coolant.
For the clearance, you are talking about getting to the ATF pan right? When I do oil change I don't jack the car high at all. I just get it high enough so I can reach in. No need to have my face under the bolt.

 

yea you need maybe a little bit more then the normal oil change.

i forget people dont need to be directly under. I love to be always under to loosen.

as for the coolant plug if the splash gaurd has a window and if you look thru it and see a philips plug then yea its that. its more on the driver side. now that i think about it, you might have to do the shield. I would do all 3 at once, coolant, ATF and oil, that way the shield will be removed once.

 

My car is at 30k miles and I haven't done any of the fluids. I plan to do coolant + atf soon. If that's successful then I will do the transfer / front and rear differential next. I know where everything is except the transfer drain/refill. Have yet to locate it.

I remembered reading a thread that you haven't done any of these fluids as well. So you planning on doing it in two parts also?

 

transfer case plugs are about a foot behind your trans plug. the bolt is either facing the rear or the pass side. there is a fill and drain plug.

When i did my ATF i looked for all my plugs. I haven't done them yet i'm at 41k right now. i'll be doing them at one point. I just haven't gotten around to it. I haven't located the front diff plugs thats all but then again i wasn't looking. most the time i think the plugs are hex sockets, if my memory is working, the pass facing one is the fill and the rear facing one is the drain and fill is the hex socket. but dont quote me on this.i'll be doing it once chicago weather gets stable, we just had SNOW...

My first time under the car i was just looking and did the ATF and oil change.

 

Thanks. I'll look for the transfer case plugs next time. So I guess that can be done with the rear differential by jacking up the rear on the pumpkin.

Here's a picture of the front differential (got it from a forum member). You actually missed that when you did the oil change. Is right there behind the oil filter.



Does anyone know the torque setting for tightening the transfer plug and front differential? From Bythabay's video, the rear differential is 25 lb torque.

 

link no workie...

 

Should be fine now...

Just in case it doesn't work, here's another link.

 

lol oh wow, i never bothered to look for it there, I guess i figured it would of been on side. thanks for the picture, now to find some good 75w-90 =)

 

Haha...same here. When I did my last oil change I didn't even give a second look at that area.

As for 75w-90 it seems like Redline is the way to go but not many stores carry them. I wonder what the dealer puts in for the differential drain/refill.