1995 525i E34 transmission drain/fill

[Rodrick Msuya]

Hi! everyone, I am a new guy on the forum and I have a 1995 525i E34.
I did a transmission drain and refill with Dexron II-D, but was not too clear on many ltrs/qrts the transmission takes.
When I was draining the pan I totally forgot to measure the ltrs/qrts that came out and just decided to refill with 4.5lrts of Dex II-D.
The Pan was very dirty, cleaned it up, built it up and pumped in 3ltrs started the car and went through the gears, then left it on neutral and finished with the rest of the liters.
Can someone please advice me on how many liters/qrts the transmission takes and if the procedure that I used is correct or not.

[marti5]

Approx 7.5L is required, fill until it starts to overflow from the hole your filling, take for a 5 mile drive, let it cool for 15 mins, re-check level, undo plug stick you finger in if you can feel the fluid with your finger straight OK if not top up till it overflows again. Thats it done.

[Rodrick Msuya]

thank you for that marti5, but the thing is that my fill hole is also on the pan of the tranny which means that even if I fill it with 1L it will still run out from the hole.
Pleae advice

[Rodrick Msuya]

I have just found out that because my car was a Japanese import, it has a Japanese transmission from "Jatco corp".
From what I have understood with the help of online Dictionary (http://dict.pspinc.com/scripts/ejedic/vb_bridge3.dll) that the tranny takes 4L of ＷＡＫＯ’Ｓ　ＡＴＦ　ＨＹＰＥＲ－Ｓwhich I think is equivalent to Dexron II-D, III, up to 6.
The only thing that I will need to find out is how to refill the tranny because it has the fill hole on the pan of the tranny.
I was just trying it a while ago and it was a mess.
Check out the below link

Google Image Result for http://radiokids.jp/BMW184.JPG

[marti5]

Well im lost on that one never seen a Jap box on a BMW, there must be another filling port somewhere on the box.

[Rodrick Msuya]

I have also found out that the box is one of the rare ones on bmw's and there mainly used in Japan.
If you google "A5S300J" you will found other guys are having almost similar problems on how to change the atf.
The fill/drain are all on the pan and most probably the transmission sucks in the fluid until it is full or something.

[marti5]

Found this How to do on your Box :

I have the same transmission (Jatco Transmission) used on BMW's assembeled in Asia. Long story but BMW bought a whole bunch of cheap transmissions from Jatco in the 90's and used these. I took me a while to figure out why all the manuals had different pictures than what was on my 328i.

Anyway, I recently changed the ATF and filter on my transmission.

It was easy to do. But you will need a new tranmsission filter and pan gasket. And new fluid of course.

1) Let the car cool!! Do not do this while the transmission is hot or warm.
2) Drain the ATF. This will take a while to completely drain.
3) Undo all nuts on the pan but leave a few attached but loose so you can remove the pan without spilling and fluid (even though it has stopped draining, there is still some fluid in the pan).
4) Lower the pan and clean it. Clean the magnet in the bottom of the pan too.
5) Put new gasket on pan (can be a bit tricky to line up).
6) Removed old filter (held in by a few screwes...4 i think). ATF will spil everywhere when you do this.
7) Put new filter on and reattach.
8) Put pan back on and ensure gasket is lined up.
9) Fill via the fill plug. You WILL need a filling pump to do this. Fill until the fluid starts to flow back out the fill plug.
10) Start the car and put in neutral. Run for about 10 minutes.
11) Fill the tranmission with more ATF. As it heats up the ATF will become foamy. This is supposed to happen. Keep filling until warm foamy ATF spills back out.

I assume you know to put drop cloths down and how to safely jack up your car.

If it appears to slip or shift hard between gears after you have done this then the most likely problem is you have not filled it enough. This happened to me.

Since I did the change the shifting is much smoother. Well worth the effort.

[Rodrick Msuya]

Thanks man for the help, because the guy did not mention the litres needed on the transmission, I think I will try 4L first and see how it goes.
And other thing that has not been mentioned on this is how you plug back the fill plug without the fluid draining out again from the fill hole being on the bottom of the pan.

[Rodrick Msuya]

I did another fluid change yesterday with Dex II-D and pumped about 5L, and all was ok until today I got one "Trans Program" message with a "plus" sign. What does is mean?