[JimD]

I changed mine today. I had a lot more trouble with the differential fill plug than with the transmission plugs. The differential plug has a green O-ring! I've never seen that before. My touble with the differential was the angle. I took it off with a break-over bar without out any difficulty. But when I need to torque it, my 1/2 torque wrench would not fit. I finally got it with an adapter and my 3/8 torque wrench but I messed around with wobble joints before that (which I do not like to use when using a torque wrench). Fortunately the plug was in and snugged so nothing was leaking while I figured out how to torque it.

I used blue loctite jell on the threads of all the plugs. I do not know if this helps but it makes me feel better. I clean them well with a paper towel first.

I used less than a quart of Red Line 58304 75W90 Non-Limited Slip Synthetic Gear Oil in the rear end. I used less than 2 quarts of Red Line 50204 MTL Synthetic Manual Transmission fluid in the transmission. I messed around for half an hour trying to get as much rear end fluid as possible out. But I think I added back less than a pint before it started coming back at me. I do not feel I got as much out as I would like. Both the rear end fluid and the transmission fluid looked good to me. They were green, not black, but I did not do anythiung more than just look at it while it was coming out.

I think the transmission shifts a little better, even when "cold" with the MTL (it was 95 when I took it for a test drive). There is definitely not a significant difference in the effort - it might be slightly less. The bigger change is what I call smoothness. Before it felt as if you could feel the gears engage. Not a terrible thing but a little more of this than I am used to in other, less expensive, cars. With the MTL, it feels like the gears slide together instead of clunking a tiny bit. May be in my head. It definitely didn't hurt anything and I like it better.

I had no clearance problem with the transmission plugs. It was a tiny bit of an issue to get the hose of the pump into the open fill hole but it seems like about the same as I've experienced before. It was easy to torque the transmission plugs.

Thanks again Wolfe for the pictures, it helped convince me to do this. I'm glad I did.

If you only bought the 3 quarts of Red Line you really need, you could do this for about $40 for the fluids delivered to your house by Amazon. Moving slowly (like I did), it shouldn't take you more than about 2 hours. I let the transmission drain for an hour, however, while I ate lunch. Hardest thing is getting the car on 4 jack stands.

Jim