Yeah I thought about that. I don't have a welder (I mean I have brazing rods and a MAPP torch but I doubt that's gonna work... nor do I trust it) so I was thinking about maybe picking up a self-tapping drain plug like one meant for an oil pan... I'd imagine that trans pan would be too think for that though, wouldn't it?

I mean I suppose I could clean the hell out of my drain pan and try to catch as much as possible.

 

If it is just a stamped steel drain pan, I wouldn't use a self-tapping plug...... notoriously unreliable......

Go to wal-mart, and pick up one of the large kitchen-sink tubs. Gives you a large area to aim at when dropping a pan on a trans that's still full.

 

Well, you can still drill the hole and plug it with a bolt and a nut. If you don't weld the nut in place you just won't be able to use it the next time around - you'll have to drop the pan like you normally would. I wouldn't recommend using a self tapping bolt in the sheetmetal pan. That won't work.

 

The trick I learned was to loosen, almost completely, one corner of the pan. Working your way around the pan to the opposite corner, loosen up the bolts but not as much. When you get to the opposite corner, just loosen them a bit. Tap the pan to break the seal and the fluid should drain (somewhat nicely) out of the lowest point/corner. Of course, you will still have some fluid left in the pan, but it should be light enough now.

 

Yeah, I do that also, however you still almost always end up getting fluid running down your arms, etc. That ****'ll make you wanna punch a baby. I hate transmission fluid and anti-freeze. I always joke that every time I get ready to start a major project in my shop that I should just go ahead and pour a quart of transmission fluid and a quart of antifreeze on the floor before I even start. Get it over with, ya know.

 

Wait, what? You mean that isn't standard practice? I am not sure how I would feel about working under my truck, and not getting all sorts of nasty stuff in my hair..... (my hair is down past my shoulders.....)

 

I cut all my hair off many, many years ago for this very reason.

 

It's my "anti-military" hair cut. I think I have cut it twice, maybe three times, since I got out. (in 1982)

 

That's why I have a bushy mustache. I got out in '84.

 

I've got one of those myself. There's no need to pay someone to trim the ends because my belt does it every time I sit in a chair with a back to it.

Me too. Got away with six weeks of terminal leave, and didn't have to pee on demand for another 20 years so I got the average down to just once per year.

I worked for a squadron whose first shirt thought it was great fun to harass the first termers, and I thought it was great fun to make the bastard stare at my junk for ten minutes until I peed on the side of the cup before handing it back. He got wise on about the fourth go-round and thereafter made me go all the way to the main base to pee on demand at the hospital, but it was still great fun to make some poor random airman enjoy the specter of the pecker before receiving my damp offering. Hey, it ain't my fault that I can't pee with some random guy staring at my johnson.

The authoritarian SOB of a first shirt finally made me mad enough to run him off, and his replacement was a much more reasonable man who wasn't into that whole demand-peeing thing. Otherwise I might still be waiting to reduce the average to just one per year.