Bongo Fury

What symptoms would you get if for example a cooler pipe was leaking and you gradually lost the ATF?

When one of the long fluid cooler pipes (from the side of the gearbox to the bottom of the radiator) corroded through on my Toyota the first thing I noticed was a smell of burning oil (fluid) ... when I got out the tail gate of my bus was speckled all over with an oil residue ..

But .. although I had not driven it far enough to say if it affected the gear changes .. I would assume low fluid level would ..

RELIEF!

Okay, who said oil cooler pipe?

Pipe had split and all ATF was lost.
New pipe fitted along with new fluid and all is good again!

To say I am relieved would be an understatement!

Thanks to all who commented.

Jamie.

Me! Me!

Good result. Hope there's no lasting damage.

There's a good write-up on changing the ATF, including dropping the transmission sump off and cleaning out the strainer & magnetic pick-up. Not as daunting as it might sound.

It may be prudent to give the underneath a though inspection for ..rust ..

Unlike the Ford / Mazda my Estima is galvanised and bodily do not tend to suffer from rust ..

BUT ... the pipework does ... both my long oil cooler pipes rusted through ... and this was the pipe from the filler cap to the petrol tank ..

At the begining and end of the winter i get under L'oreal and clean all the old copperslip grease off of all the metal pipes make sure they are in good sound condition and then give them another good coating of copperslip with a half inch (12.5mm for the europeans ) paintbrush keeps everything clean and tidy