ATF That's Not Red

A situation has come up I've never seen. The'85 Camaro I'm working on has ATF that's not red in color. It's closer to brake fluid/vegetable oil in appearance. Even if someone had added the wrong fluid, it would still be something closer to pink if the car left the factory with red in it. I'm changing out the tranny filter today, but wondering if anyone has seen this before.

One of the trans companies (B&M?) had something called "Trick Shift" that was blue in color. Basically a really expensive Type F

Toyota OEM-fill ATF is purplish. Whatever junk ZF uses in VWAG products is yellowish.

All that said, some racers swear by "tractor fluid" - a hydraulic fluid made for I don't know what. It isn't red either, it's just hydraulic fluid.

So, yeah, an automatic trans can have fluid that goes somewhere outside the spectrum of pinkish red - brown - black.

As well, some cleaner additives will strip the colored dye out and separate to the bottom of the pan.

Trick Shift is tractor fluid with a doubled price point. Tractor fluid for wet clutches is what I use with just enough regular atf to have a tiny tint of red to read the fluid level on the stick. This worked great for keeping a 4L60 together when towing 8k pounds through the mountains here and making 174k without a rebuild.

Universal Tractor Fluid. It's very close in color to hydraulic oil. It is used as transmission fluid in many OTR trucks and heavy duty forklifts. There are formulations for use with wet brakes, and without. Even more confusing is that there is such a great thing as red colored UTF. I use UTF as power steering fluid, it seems to have a higher viscosity than ATF, and works well in old Fords that have reaction valve steering.

I know people using UTF in place of ATF without problems, and I know that in the case of forklifts, if you use ATF in a trans that should have UTF, damage occurs.....it seems that techs were being set up for failure by the red UTF. LOL

Is Royal Purple...purple?

In reply to Appleseed:

It's not just a clever name.

In the spirit of full disclosure, here's the main story. Recently got the car back on the road, drove it 10 miles round trip to the grocery store, everything worked and felt fine. Feels like a shift kit may have been put in. Got home, left the car parked for about 4 hours, then went to the parts store. On the way home it wouldn't shift out of 2nd, then stopped working completely. Let it sit for a few moments with the engine off. Fired it up again and made it about 1/2 mile before it acted up again. I suspect there's some trash in the tranny and there's a 90% chance it needs a rebuild, but I hope I'm wrong. Thinking if it was in that bad of a shape, it never would have worked correctly in the first place.

In reply to ncjay:

Sounds just like the 700r4 that was in my C1500. Seemed to only lose 3/4th once it warmed up. Never had a chance to add snake oil or tear it down. I just bought a rebuilt unit off CL for $400.

Seals are worn out. Seals when "cold", but lose everything when "warm".

It could also be a sticky governor. If you mess with 'em sometimes they get ornery.

IIRC, on a 700R4 they're not difficult to remove, there's a bail clip on the driver's side just like an ACVW valve cover holddown, then you remove the cover, dumping ATF on the hot exhaust pipe, then you burn the inside of your wrist pulling the governor out, at which point you stare at it thinking "Yup, that's a governor... now what?"

Anybody who hates electronic transmissions is either a hardcore Luddite or hasn't experienced the pleasure of spending two hours swapping springs and weights around on a governor 10-12 times trying to get the shiftpoints just right. Electronic trans, you do it all in one or two road tests and never get your hands dirty. Pre-electronic trans, you get Kentucky Fried wrist skin on multiple occasions, maybe a Dexron III shampoo if you're unlucky.

Knurled wrote: It could also be a sticky governor. If you mess with 'em sometimes they get ornery. IIRC, on a 700R4 they're not difficult to remove, there's a bail clip on the driver's side just like an ACVW valve cover holddown, then you remove the cover, dumping ATF on the hot exhaust pipe, then you burn the inside of your wrist pulling the governor out, at which point you stare at it thinking "Yup, that's a governor... now what?" Anybody who hates electronic transmissions is either a hardcore Luddite or hasn't experienced the pleasure of spending two hours swapping springs and weights around on a governor 10-12 times trying to get the shiftpoints just right. Electronic trans, you do it all in one or two road tests and never get your hands dirty. Pre-electronic trans, you get Kentucky Fried wrist skin on multiple occasions, maybe a Dexron III shampoo if you're unlucky.

Or just swap in a manual trans and pick your shift points from the comfort of the drivers seat.

Knurled wrote: All that said, some racers swear by "tractor fluid" - a hydraulic fluid made for I don't know what. It isn't red either, it's just hydraulic fluid. So, yeah, an automatic trans can have fluid that goes somewhere outside the spectrum of pinkish red - brown - black.

Tractor Fluid is used in Tractors that have a shared oil for the transmission/pto system and the 3 point hitch hydraulic system. The smell of it makes me gag.

If you need it to work, a bottle of Lucas trans fix might get it limping along again.