Hi All
Anyone know what the correct fluid level is for the automatic transmission?
The dip stick has no graduations.
Thanks
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Hi All
Anyone know what the correct fluid level is for the automatic transmission?
The dip stick has no graduations.
Thanks
Attachment 3100
Attachment 3101
I didn't even know that this car even came with one of those dip sticks. I thought it was one of those sealed systems that required dealer/garage maintenance. Thanks for the picture and info; looks like I just learned something else about my car.
I think you are right and Nissan does not plan on DIY maintenance for this car. It would be nice to check this at regular oil changes and not need the dealer to do it. Hopefully the dealer will tell me if this tiny dip stick means anything. update to follow when I know more.
PS, can you all send an email to Nissan Canada and request the dealer maintenance manual be available for purchase? I have always been able to buy this for previous cars such as 240sx, pulsar, maxima but nothing appears to be available for the Micra.
I assume the Micra cup guys have a service manual.....
Man.....Adam and Dave could use this info about now....5 and 6 hours from home!
Remove front bumper, remove airbox in the lower corner. Laying on the ground you reach up with a fork, bent the tines so only one is up - release the latch and have a friend pull the thing off - takes no effort at that point.
Proper filling procedure is to remove the drain plug, run the engine and fill until a steady stream comes out of the plug... i won't be doing that part lol
A full 5 litres of atf in - started leaking red without the engine on, about 7 hours in and it's still functioning :p
On my trip from Niagara to Quebec, I passed through Perth, and then part of Perth passed through me :P
Middle of the highway - a rock half the size of my head (triangular, about 8-9 inches long, 4 inches thick) passed under Dave... but I'm lower than he is.
I had made a splitter / engine under tray from 3/4 plywood - this is the view from the front, the rock perforated the wood in two places and you can see the shiny "mystery liquid" near the rear of it.
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I sat down last night and redesigned the replacement for this - going to make it out of ABS with Sheet metal base for armour.
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Anyway... I got as lucky as I possibly could given the speed of impact and the size of the object, while originally worried that I had cracked the auto-transmission's bellhousing, it ended up being a small hole in the oil pan. The fluid that was dripping was fairly clear, slightly brown, and didn't increase in rate by cycling through the gears - 9 hours later the clutches had issue putting power down -> the oh **** moment.
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Dave called his Nissan dealership to talk to a tech (since all of Quebec's Nissan service centres are closed on the weekend) and asked how we could get the dip stick out of the filler tube to put in some oil - his response was "It's not a dipstick, and that's not a filler tube, you can't access the transmission without a special Nissan specific tool that puts fluid in from the bottom of the transmission" - after explaining to him that I didn't care if it wasn't a dip stick / filler tube - it's a tube with access to the trans-oil, and has a plug on the end of it - so how do I get it off? - "you can't, another special tool is needed to remove the cap", and that "you should try to unbolt the tube and fill it that way" - finally got him to describe how the cap comes off / how the tool functions...
Tada... super special Nissan tool that they spent money on to keep you out of the transmission...
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15 litres of oil and 2 days later, I got home.
Here's the new oil pan in place -> the sticker with the black sharpie is where the rock hit
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The damaged oil pan is below - a few different views showing how it was punched up - the circles pressed in to it come from the valve body mounting bolts inside the transmission, with the hole itself being a tear when the pan deformed around one of the bolt heads.
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The transmission / diff takes 3 litres to fill, there's a snorkel attached to the drain plug on the inside - the idea being that once enough fluid is in the thing, it will be at a level capable of leaking out of that tube - and thus, is full.
To expand on this for anyone who wants to do their own transmission services - here's how the "Breather Cap" (not dip stick) and Breather Tube function and get uncoupled.
Red = locking cam
Green = where the tube is
Blue = target that needs to be pushed
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From the tube view - same legend - to get this view (and to reach in if you can't get under the car) remove the air box behind the bumper that's pop riveted to the fender liner and other stuff in there, there's like 4-5 of them in there.
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By using the Super Special Tool™ available from A.C.E. you can press on the locking cam and a friend can reach in from the top and pull it out, there's no resistance on the cap at all if the tab is pushed in. You'll need a funnel that fits the tube (quite narrow).
For best results you are going to need to drop the oil pan, this is going to be messy. Once the oil pan is off you can inspect and clean off the magnet - the snorkel that's attached to the drain plug port can also be checked. Let it drain for a while.
Reattach or replace the oil pan -> you can get a new gasket for $51 from Nissan -> once reattached, pour in 2 litres of Matic-D/J/K (Generic Nissan) compatible oil. Place a clean capture cup under the drain plug and remove it, there shouldn't be much of anything coming out of it if it was drained long enough. Start the car -> the transmission only needs about 1-1.5 litres of oil to function, the rest is for proper cooling and the differential. Cycle through the gears from drive to reverse several times - this will reload the coolant lines and radiator of any fluid that drained from them. Turn the car off and add the remaining litre of oil until it starts coming out of the drain plug steadily - you won't need to add the whole litre as there is always going to be some residual oil in the coolant lines and rad.
"proper procedure" for a full flush would have the car running and in gear (don't forget your e-brake), while you add the third and likely a fourth litre of oil (Canadian tire sells 5L jugs for $30) - This is to clean out the last little bit of old stuff in the lines and rad - I didn't bother with this since I had already run 15 litres through the thing :P
Once the stream of fluid coming from the drain plug slows (about 10 seconds after you've stopped pouring) you're good to put the plug back in and tighten it down - if the car is running do not wait for the stream to stop completely - the wash of the fluid can cause more than desired to escape down the snorkel, this is less of a worry while the car is off since the fluid isn't moving inside the housing.
The only difference between this procedure and a Nissan Tech's procedure appears to be that they have a pressurised pump (think grease gun) that plugs in somewhere near the bottom of the transmission through which they fill the housing... everything else is the same.
Oh Hey... Look what I "found"
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mlvkyf...eplacement.pdf
^^ internal Micra AT fluid maintenance document with illustrations
the forum has a 19kb file size limit on ".pdf" lol
Did service on transmission pan off. None of this required specialty tools or any body panels coming off. You might want to look at it yourself if your mechanically inclined before following this. The description of the breather however did me some favor with releasing it. Done by myself with nobody over head.
The procedure I had to follow was because I didn't have a jack - as described. You can obviously access things under the car, from under the car. I was in a parking lot, on a mountain, 8 hours from my house, and in a province that doesn't have service centres open on the weekend. As stated, "to get this view (and to reach in if you can't get under the car)" - The guide is to say, you can do this in a parking lot with nothing but a bent fork if you're mechanically inclined and ingenuitive.
The specialty tools listed are 1) the removal tool (it's a thing that exists at Nissan) for the breather cap, and 2) the filler tool for the trans-pan plug since the breather cap is not actually how the transmission is supposed to be filled - see Nissan tech doc provided above.
aside from the "Super Special Tool™ available from A.C.E." ... being a joke about the mangled fork, and my company
As per the procedure to service with a machine. I was on stands. But still would have been manageble roadside. Like I said in comment it requires mechanical competency ?
Ps removal tool is a pick I could have opened it with a well anything ? Removing panels and excess work seems like an over eager panel puller.
"requires mechanical competency"
is mechanical engineering tech... k thx. The only tool I had was a fork... and I got it done. No panels were pulled, nothing was removed from the car but the breather cap.
how do you remove the special tool step 12 and get the drain plug back in without the fluid coming out?...flip the car upside down????
There's a plastic tube on the other end of the drain hole (attaches to the pan) they call the 'overflow tube'. So the volume of fluid below its upper lip is the volume they want in the device. But I do like step 22 "Perform this work quickly because ATF leaks" lolQuote:
Originally Posted by MrMicra2015
That overflow tube is key though if you're doing a full drain and fill, since if you don't remove it, there's about 2 litres of spent oil that won't be removed, and the stuff you put in will just flow of the top of it and out the tube... it can be messy.
i see , thats kind of smart, i guess you could suck the old oil out with a thin tube shapes like a J, shove up and move to side, pull down...but removing pan probaby better, the "special filler tool" isnt really needed then, you just need to squirt the fluid in somehow.
I've not done it to my CVT but I've been told on the Versa you can remove the plug from the top of the transmission and replace it with a dipstick from an earlier model. I would imagine the standard automatic transmission is the same way. If any one has access to an older dipstick from a salvage yard or wants to order one from a dealer they might want to try it. If this is correct you could then check your transmission fluid anytime you wanted. I've been thinking about getting a dipstick for my Versa.
Is the engine on or off when topping up with ATF and the ATF over flows out of the breather pipe?
Hey everyone, changed my Micra's transmission fluid at 70,000km. All I did was drain fluid, measure how much came out, then put the same amount, of new oem fluid, back in. Went through all the gears, and checked for leakage.
Currently at about 78,000km and it's still shifting smoothly!
Idk, just wanted to share in case anyone was wondering what the "right" procedure was.. Clearly I didn't follow the proper procedure of draining and filling 3 qts 3 times (based on the pdf that was attached in this thread), but so far, my Micra's been ok with just draining, measuring, and adding same amount that came out, back in with new oem fluid.. will update if something happens!
Thanks for the post, Haze64. Welcome to the forum.
Here is the video i took while changing mine may help.
https://youtu.be/hY97rZYTDgc
Just got a Rogue to work with and I've notice a trending pattern between different company is that they all have their own ways of checking the transmission fluid level. Some evolving hundreds of dollars in equipment (vacuum system and adjustable straw filler). Just to find out one could do it properly if the transmission fluid was at the correct temperature. The Rouge has a CVT with an overflow port and our Micra's has a straw inside where the drain bolt is which requires and allen key to remove. So far the Roque and Micra has one thing that is similar is that they need to be at the correct temperature 35 - 45 oC.
When I changed my ATF I used the coolant line method to flush my system out and let the transmission do the pumping. Drain ATF from pan, refill (3 liters?), disconnect oil line from transmission, (1) run engine till almost 3? liters comes out, stop engine, add 3? litter back in pan and repeat (1) till ATF came out clear. 7 Liters later. Done.
I did something similar to Rogue but with a pump using one of the oil lines (as it seemed it was pumping directly from the pan on the other line) and left the pan open while I pumped, dirty fluid can be seen draining from the pan. pumped 5 Liters before I started to see clean fluid come out of the drain pan.
There is big difference in micras transmission and rogues cvt. Micras tcm module is one way adapting. It will ve a bit hard to explain but i will try:
Micras tcm has aging algorithm built into tcm code. What that means it that depending on hydraulic pressure its writing new values to the map to maintain functionality of whole transmission. So what happens when you fully flush micras transmission is you are “shocking” whole system with solenoids and friction plates till it will slowly recalibrate which may be too late unless you are flushing every 20k. One way to solve that problem is to reset tcm module after flush at that time all initial factory values will be rewritten and new fluid will work as expected. But if done without resetting tcm will use old mapped values “thinking “ that its still using old fluid. Thats why I highly recommend not to flush micras transmission just do partial changes. That way you will give enough time for tcm to slowly recalibrate for newish fluid.
Hope this will help.
You are absolutely correct. I know with the Rogue there is an oil life counter that needs to be reset and a reset the calibration data when a CVT is changed out on a 1st Gen Rogue. So on the Micra I would assume resetting the oil life monitor would be needed and calibration data (EEP ROM)
https://youtu.be/boLUDoq6GNI?t=1753
Cos micra has pretty old but very reliable transmission resetting it is pain in the butt if you dont have oem diag tool handy. Never seen any multibrand diag tool capable of resetting micras tcm.