[PatHep]

I did mine last summer (2011 WK2 V8 545RFE). It's not that hard to do and I think it took me 1-1.5 hrs tops. Do yourself a favor and buy a new pan, gasket and pan bolts like I did, that way there's no scraping RTV and dealing with rusted bolts, etc and you can avoid a bigger mess by drilling a hole in the old pan prior to removal. For me the toughest part was getting a grip on the the spin on filter, but a piece of coarse sandpaper for some friction did the trick for me. I didn't drain the torque converter just did the pan drop and filter change so all in all it took a total of six quarts of the ATF-4. And sorry to say that if this is just pro-active maintenance your efforts will yield notice any difference in performanace or driveability when complete!

 

[PatHep]

Thank you for your quick reply.
Should you drain the torque converter or is that just extra proactive maintenance?
Where did you buy your new pan and bolts from (had I look under the car the bolts still look new)
And thank you for the advice 😊

I failed to mention that the primary reason for doing the change was due to a small leak at the corner of the pan. Turned out to be the OEM RTV bead and the OEM pan was o.k. sans some surface rust but worthwhile to replace. I got the new pan from Crown Automotive, the bolts from my local hardware store and the Mopar Fluid and Filters from a Mopar distributor on ebay.

Anyway Its a lot of extra work to get the fluid out of the torque converter, disconnecting hoses and the potential for more mess and considering that it lives a fairly easy life I think the pan fluid and filter change was adequate enough in my case. But, the best practice is probably to get all the fluid out....I think.

 

[PatHep]

TLDR: Leave the original seal in the pump, if the trans worked OK before the service, it will work OK after the service
[/QUOTE]

Agreed, I left the old seal in place.