Thank you, KyleB, for a great write-up.I started experiencing some rough shifts on my 2006 530i with 127k miles.I bought the car with 78k and never changed the fluid myself, and I doubted the previous owner did either.While doing my research I came across your great write-up and figured I would follow your procedure for the pan replacement and fluid refill only (steps 1-8 and 29-38), since my shift problems were intermittent and I didn’t have any codes.

A couple of tips they may help some folks.

Tip 1: Get a good fluid pump!When I did my 3-series a couple of months prior I bought a suction gun and it worked great for the thicker ATF for the GM transmission.It would pump 1 liter in 2 cycles.For whatever reason, the suction gun did not work for the ZF fluid.The ZF fluid is a lot more like water and I guess the seals were not good enough or the ATF from the first job destroyed them.In any case, I ran mid-job to Autozone and bought a cheap plastic pump that screwed to the top of the bottle and drove home praying that it would work.It did the job, but took 100+ cycles to pump 1 liter.I am not exaggerating!It got the job done and my fingers are stronger today because of it.

Tip 2: You can put 1 liter, maybe more, into the pan before you carefully lift it into place.I am glad I did this, given my bad pump experience.It saved some time.

I drained about 7.5 liters and replaced about 7.5 liters.No leaks and no intermittent shifting problems after about 200 miles.Keeping my fingers crossed!

 

Anybody in Socal willing to do this for me for some extra cash?

I can buy the parts - just looking to hooking up a fellow member on the install rather than paying an Indy Shop =)

Indy quoted me $400.

Pm me with offers please - I really need to get this done.

Thanks!

 

e60Eric

How did you get that much fluid in your unit? That is a lot of fluid.

Did you drain the system also at the cooler under the radiator?

 

@gcalo: I can't say I did anything special other than to let it sit and drain overnight. It seems like most people get at least 6L out just by opening the drain plug. After that I would say there is still almost 1L left in the pan/filter. Maybe I got another 0.5L just by letting it drip.

 

I know for a fact the pan holds almost 1.5 Liters. I have filled my old pan w/water and then measured it after filling.

Then there are 4 liters +/- the system will take.

I think by letting it drain overnight you may have achieved what I have estimated will be the return volume after I drain from the cooler as well.

Could be that you achieved that amount by the overnight drain.

I am doing mine this W/E for a 3rd time. I now have about 1K miles on 2nd fill.

So I will see what I yield by draining at the cooler as well.

My guess was 7 +/- liters.

 

I'm about to embark on the fluid change and Mechtronics seal. Here's a video of the valve body assembly that I found to be of interest. The video shows some good details of removing the valve body.

 

If it's not leaking I'd leave it alone.

Don't invite trouble.

 

It wasn't leaking and I didn't mess with it.

Thanks again to KyleB for posting this DIY.

I used an OTC (2359) Oil Suction Gun to fill the fluid. It was ~$18 from Amazon and worked a lot better than the cheap plastic types.

I decided to use Motocraft Mercon SP transmission fluid.

 

You used the right fluid for sure!

I can attest to that

 

Ford's 6R80 transmission is nothing more than a rebadged ZF 6HP26, so theoretically the Ford fluid should work just fine. You're not the first person to use that fluid in a ZF gearbox.

Best of luck to you and the car.