I had a chat with my old boss that I worked for when I did the wrench turnin' thing for a living.... he had retired, and closed his shop, but, still had most of his tooling.... Unfortunately, he had sold BOTH of his brake lathes...... A decision he later regretted.

 

I wonder how many places still turn brakes these days. Rotors/drums have become pretty cheap...both in price and quality. Just as easy to buy new ones and many of them are pretty thin to start with.

 

There is a trend towards Chinesium the last few years, although that is beginning to change. I had a '93 Dakota Sport I bought new back in the day. The first time I did brakes on it, I noticed odd patterns. I replaced both rear drums as they were heat checked. One of the drums warped in about 2000 miles. The braking surface is thick but the face where it is held on by the wheel. Due to the wheel design, the face place can easily warp.

 

I ran the manufacturing engineering department at a truck-mounted equipment company back in the mid/late 90s. My boss wanted me to look into farming components out to China. Yes, even back then. I really resisted because I knew our warranty claims would skyrocket using their crappy parts (along with our reputation). They were even worse then than they are now. He got me pretty close to getting airline tickets to China before I was transferred to another state (and he quit shortly thereafter). Thankfully, the company never considered Chinese components after that. Besides, I had already modernized our machining and fabricating capabilities so it made even less sense to farm it out...to anybody!

 

Got a question about the wife's 2007 Jeep. Just had the clutch replaced a week and a half ago. Noticed the other day it was leaking tranny fluid. Sent it back to the shop and he said they put too much fluid in and it was leaking out of the overflow.

That doesn't make sense to me and maybe one of you guys can straighten me out. There are two bolt holes on that tranny (different spots). One is higher than the other. You drain the tranny fluid from the lower hole then plug it. Then you fill thru the top hole until it comes streaming back out (this tranny requires 96 oz). As far as I know various equipment have been doing it this way for decades.That's how I've done it on my wife's Jeep in the past. I didn't know there was some kind of overflow on these things. I don't even know how you can over fill it in the first place. The only place I know you can fill it is that upper hole and if you overfill it will come out as fast as you put it in. Scratching my head.

Any answers?

 

There is a vent hole. Where they put it becomes the question. On the dodge automatics, its just above the pump, in the bell housing. (a stupid place to put it if you ask me.....) It also depends on how they filled it. I would expect they had to pull the shift tower to drop the trans, and if they filled via the shift tower, real easy to overfill it.

 

I can see your latter argument...they filled it during reassembly thru the shift tower (or some such place). I have no idea how they could do it any other way. But even then they should of had the smarts to remove the upper plug after they reassembled everything to allow any excess fluid to stream out (or add more fluid if necessary). The two hole system is the only way to check tranny fluid levels that I know of. I've always liked my mechanic for the few things I don't do anymore. But right now they are stressed out. Short on mechanics and a lot full of cars that need repair. I suspect they take shortcuts when stressed out.

Which brings me to another related topic. Many of these modern automobiles have "maintenance free" transmissions meaning you don't have to change fluid in them. My thought on that is HOGWASH! The fluid needs to be changed. There are moving parts in there and the fluid breaks down, gets contaminated, etc. It's got to be changed IMO. I'm also guessing you can't drain all the fluid but even if you change out only a portion of it and fill with fresh fluid that would help (not to mention filters or magnetics to capture shavings). But if I owned a "maintenance free" tranny I'd change the fluid and don't care what they say. I suspect they all have the two hole system like on my wife's Jeep.

 

I am more inclined to believe that doing away with the dipstick was another way to get folks into the dealership for little things, like checking trans fluid level..... so they could possibly sell you a bunch of other stuff...

 

You get no argument out of me. Wouldn’t put it past them for a second.

Say, how much do you know about CVT transmissions and in particular these more recent ones from Honda and Toyota with the modified CVTs that have “launch gears”? I’m probably gonna replace my wife’s aging Jeep within the next year with a 2-4 year old Honda or Toyota with a 2.5L, FWD. Non turbo. I need to bone up on these trannies and I’ve heard less than glowing stuff on CVTs in general (esp Jatco) but positive things about these “launch gear” CVTs.

 

Don't know much about the 'launch gear' fellers.... but, I am just not a fan of CVT's. Of course, a fair few of the Japanese automakers seems to love 'em, as that is ALL you will find in most of their cars, aside from the occasional manual trans.... There were serious longevity issues for the CVT's, which really shouldn't come as a surprise.... Maybe they have gotten better over time, but, I still wouldn't want one.