So I picked up my '98 M3 this past Spring and I've been slowly working my way through the maintenance back log. A few weeks ago I bought the Motive Power Fill and two bottles of Redline MTL (this isn't an oil dissertation, if you like something else, great!).

I finally got around to doing this job this morning and it was quite the caper, here's the tale. Grab a beer and enjoy.

1 Secure your car up in the air. So however you do it, do it and do it securely. I have a 4 post lift, so the car was up on it.

2 Grab a 19mm wrench. Walk over to car, try and undo the fill plug. Realize the 19mm wrench is too large.

3 Grab a 17mm wrench. Walk over to car, try and undo the fill plug. Holy $hit that thing is on tight!

4 Grab a 17mm socket and 1/2 drive rachet. Walk over to car, try and undo the fill plug. Mother_ _ _ _!

5 Grab an 18" breaker bar, put the 17mm socket on it. Walk over to car, finally break the fill plug free and remove it.

(NOTE: ALWAYS break the fill plug free 1st!)

6 Grab my oil collection tank. Wheel it over to underneath the fill plug. Lift up the catch pan. (This thing is the bomb, it works perfectly!)

7 Using the breaker bar and 17mm socket, break free the drain plug and remove it.

8 Yup, it was definitely time to change the fluid. Watch in odd fascination as the old, disgusting gear oil drains out, cleanly, into the catch pan.

BTW, have you noticed that gear oil is, by far, the most disgusting smelling fluid in your car? I seriously think it smells worse than Dog Broccolli Farts (DBF) which are pretty high on the rank smelling scale.

9 Clean up the drain plug, put it back into the drain hole, torque it to spec.

10 Dump two bottles of Redline MTL into the brand new, never before used, Motive Power Fill.

11 Realize that the hose on the Motive is far too short to have it sit on the ground and still reach up to transmission fill hole.

12 Grab workbench stool, bring it over to car. Perch Motive on it. Now the hose reaches. Place supplied hook into the end of the Motive hose. Place hook into transmission fill hole.

Make a mental note that the hook doesn't seem to make all that great of a connection into the Motive hose, but it doesn't fall out when its placed into the fill hole of the transmission.

Cue ominous music....

13 Pump the Motive up to 15 lbs. Think "This'll be a piece of cake! I'll be done in minutes and its so easy and clean!"

Murphy, enters Stage Left....

14 Hmm, there's fluid in the hose but I can't tell if its coming out of the hook and going into the tranny. There's a ball valve attached to the hose, right before where the hook is and I can't tell if the valve is open or closed. I think its open, so I turn the handle on the valve the other way....

15 I then remove the hook from the transmission, to see if fluid is coming out. Yes, it is! $hit! It's pouring out! Holy Crap, the hook just fell off the end of the hose and now DBF (Dog Broccolli Fart) smelling gear oil is spurting everywhere! It's even running down my damn arm!!

16 Frantically try and grab the handle of the ball valve and try and close it to stem the flood of DBF fluid, but since its now coated in the slickest oil known to man, its kinda hard. Murphy is now doubled over in laughter. _uck you Murphy! Finally get the handle turned and the valve closed.

17 Look in complete amazement as you survey the wanton destruction pressurized DBF gear oil has left on the under carriage of your car, garage tile flooring, the Motive, your workbench stool and of course, yourself. Kick yourself for not changing into appropriate garage clothing before you started this. (Ie, already stained clothing, from your massive pile of already garage stained clothing) Now you've ruined the super cool cycling t shirt you just bought last weekend. Murphy snickers. You aim a kick at him but of course miss as the bottom of your shoes are coated in DBF gear oil, as is the floor.

18 Wipe off the Motive, wipe off the hose connected to the Motive, wipe off the ball valve handle attached to the hose, wipe off the hook, which is NOT attached to the hose. Curse some.

19 Put the hook back on the hose. It still fits no better than before, which is to say it fits poorly.

20 Put the hook back into the tranny. Wipe off the Motive. Wipe off the stool. Grab brake cleaner, spray the Motive. Wipe it off. Spray the stool. Wipe it off. Wipe on, wipe off! I need more training Mr. Miyagi!

21 Carefully turn the handle to open the valve

22 Finally! Oil moves (quickly) into the tranny.

23 Dammit! The Motive is now making air gurgling sounds but there's plenty of oil still in the reservoir, WTF?

24 Go to tip the Motive so the fluid runs towards the pickup. Watch in slow motion horror as the hose falls off the hook and pressurized gear oil once again sprays all over creation.

25 Struggle to turn the handle of the ball valve off as once again, its coated in splippery, DBF smelly fluid. Get it done. Murphy can't breathe he's laughing so hard....

26 Try and figure out how to tip the Motive so the hose will suck fluid while still keeping the hook/hose connected and in the tranny fill hole. (There's a joke here but I'm not going there)

27 Wipe hands off, wipe Motive, wipe Motive hose, wipe Motive hook. Karate Kid has nothing on me. Nothing!

28 Finding the Zen, I get everything tipped correctly and connected and fill the tranny. Notice it's overfilled as you can't really control the rate the oil comes out of the Motive. Which it FLIES out of, while under pressure. Oil is now beginning to pour out of the fill hole. Onto the floor. And the Motive. And the stool. Sigh.

29 Manage to turn the handle and close the valve on the Motive hose.

30 Run over and grab my drain barrel on wheels and get it underneath the tranny.

31 Wait until the flood out the fill hole is a trickle and install the plug. Torque to spec.

32 Start cleaning using Simple Green and brake cleaner. Wipe down the stool. Wipe down the transmission. Wipe down the headers. Wipe down the cross member. Dump a bunch of Simple Green on the floor, fire up the pressure washer and clean the floor. Wipe down the Motive. Take your shoes off, clean the bottom of them. Put some Simple Green inside the Motive, fill it with water, clean it. Run the solution up through the Motive hose, clean it. Go inside. Get in the shower, clean me. Put stain stuff on my shorts and new (dammit) shirt and put them in the laundry, clean them.

Bring on the Cobra Kai! I'm gonna clean their clocks!

So, the Motive works exceedingly well, IF the hook stays in the hose. Which I seriously doubt it will. This seems to be a pretty huge flaw in the tool, which should allow you to fill whatever you want, solo, just like their Power Bleeder does. There needs to be a far longer, more positive engagement between the hose and the hook.

I think (well, no, I know) I spent far more time cleaning up the mess this thing made than I did on the actual job. The good news is it worked, I didn't have to buy more Redline oil and I can check off the transmission fluid box on my maintenance log. Hopefully I cleaned the garage floor well enough that my wife doesn't remark on the DBF gear oil smell....

Your welcome.

BTDT

Yeah, I'm really disappointed in the Motive Power Fill. That hook literally goes into the hose 1/4" and doesn't really snap into place. Really poor design...

I still need to use it to swap out the differential fluids in my Cayenne too. I've gotta figure out a better way for that hook to fit in the hose before I do that job though...

Peter Egan would be proud to have written this. By far and away the most enjoyable thing I've read today.

But I am sorry that my entertainment came at such great cost to you. I think David or JG should send you a t-shirt, gratis, for willingly sharing your pain and suffering.

Thanks ZOO, glad you enjoyed it.

I'd gladly take a GRM Tshirt for my troubles. Most of my GRM Tshirts are already in my stained garage clothing pile that I so wantonly ignored yesterday so I could ruin another shirt to add it to the pile...

Sounds about right. I think those instructions are on the container.

Great read. I concur with the Egan comparison.

Silly question, but what's wrong with the cheap gear oil pumps sold at FLAPS? That's what I used to fill gear oil in a E36, and well... many other cars since.

I have a hand pump that screws onto gallon trans fluid bottles.

And if I have quart bottles I keep cheap tubing around to cut a length for whatever I am filling. It just slip fits onto those pointy tops. Squeeze and release bottle to work as a pump. Best part is i dont clean much. Just throw the hose and bottle away.

This is why we still use a manual pump at work. My personal opinion is burnt ATF smells worse then gear oil. Id much rather do fluids in diffs and manual trans cars then all the automatics with brown atf.

BMW puts ATF in the transmissions of the E36's. That's probably what I removed.

The FLAPS near me suck, they have little to no tool selection. Since I'd had such good luck with my Motive Power Bleeder I figured the Power Fill would work just as well.

Not so much...

I got a chuckle out of that.

There are several foul-smelling messes in my distant past. I have learned many tricks to keep the stuff off myself and the floor since but the gist of it always goes like this:

1) Go to Lowes and buy several sizes of clear hose in 10' lengths and 2 stoppers that fit each.
2) Get a 1qt funnel.
4) Get the Sunday paper
5) Stick the hose that fills the hole best into the orifice you wish to fill and clamp/tape/etc it in there.
6) Lay several layers of the Sunday paper under the thing you are filling
7) Get out from under the car, hold the funnel at an altitude high above the hole where you can see the paper and pour about 2/3 of the fill amount as quickly as it will go but NEVER fill anything into the funnel itself!!!
8) Slowly add the rest and as soon as you see a drip... shove a stopper in the funnel end to stop the flow, dive under, yank hose, stuff a stopper in that end to stop it dripping and insert fill plug to stop the overflow.
9) Stick the funnel in the oil container. Stick both ends of the hose in the funnel and yank the stoppers and empty the hose into the original container.
9) Wipe up, roll up newspaper and toss into fire pit along with your nitrile gloves.
10) Tighten plug.

*11) If something goes horribly wrong you should have some kitty litter handy but if you never risk more than a pint at a time the newspaper will save you.

If goes right - your hair will not have a lovely sheen and not smell like a mine fire.

Oh you thnik BDF oil smells bad now....just wait you'll smell it every hot day when its humid for at least 25 years.... you just can't get that smell out.... oh and your clothes don't even think of washing them in your family washer... your better off just to light them on fire in the back yard. When i was 17 i grabbed my mom's subaru wagon to go get a trans at the junk yard. i drained said trans the day before and put down blankets and newspaper... whell it leaked some on the 4 miles home and 30+ years later the car sits in my brother's junk yard it still stinks of gear lube.

Ian F wrote: Great read. I concur with the Egan comparison. Silly question, but what's wrong with the cheap gear oil pumps sold at FLAPS? That's what I used to fill gear oil in a E36, and well... many other cars since.

They seem to only work the first time. After they sit, their main function is to leak past the plunger seal.

(You ain't smelled Bad Fluid Smell until you've smelled burnt GM automatic transfer case fluid. The stuff that goes in thin and blue. Heavy clutch slippage turns it into a kind of carmelized burnt-silicone tar that smells revolting. It's even worse than Ford limited-slip additive)

In reply to Knurled:

I don't know... I've been using the same one for years...

Robbie wrote: I have a hand pump that screws onto gallon trans fluid bottles. And if I have quart bottles I keep cheap tubing around to cut a length for whatever I am filling. It just slip fits onto those pointy tops. Squeeze and release bottle to work as a pump. Best part is i dont clean much. Just throw the hose and bottle away. J

I've been doing it exactly the same way using a hand pump with a longer length hose attached to the quart bottle as per Ron Stygar page

In reply to Ian F:

Excellent! They only seem to last one or two times before they are useless for me. Both the siphon gun type pump (which is AWESOME, very fast and easy) and the soap dispenser type pump, which is ideal when working from gallon containers because Coastal is $15 for a gallon and not $10 a quart.

Wow, Ron Stygars page is still out there. I haven't heard that name in years....

All these years I've been using gravity to fill my transmissions with fluid. How uneventful!

What's the fun in that?

Here's my version:

Assemble Ford 302 motor and T5 transmission on work bench with new clutch and pressure plate. Fill the T5 with Redline ATF while it's on the bench because that will be easier than doing it once it's in the car.

Lift the pair as a unit with the hoist and begin installing it in the E36 engine bay. Hard to get it lined up on the motor mounts and it takes a while. Keep wondering what that smell is.

Eventually realize once the output of the T5 points down a little bit, gravity pours all the Redline out of it.