OK, I keep hearing about these, but have yet to see one.....
In a Pantera, that 90 degree angle fitting just to the right of the red strap is supposed to be your dipstick.
If you actually put that much gearlube in a -1 ZF in a Goose, you'd be spewing oil out every seal and port in the trans and most likely overheating it too due to the friction created by too much oil in the box!!!
Flip the trans upside down, flip the dipstick fitting to face up, and now you have something that would make sense....in a Pantera!
In the -1 section of the old Hall Pantera ZF book, there is a crude diagram of a dipstick that is attached to the vent assy. The vent is that brass looking big nut sorta thing at the right rear of the top cover. It appears in this picture above, as the funny looking thing above the 90 degree dipstick thingy.
If any of you have ever removed your vent assy to put lube in your trans, OR check it via looking in this hole, did your vent assy have a dipstick looking thing on it? It would be several inches long, vs no length at all......
Just as a note, if you ever wanted to check your ring gear to see if any bolts are loose, or if it has been safety wired, you can pop this vent fitting out, and using a good flashlight, you can see the ring gear and all sorts of things!!!
I like to keep my oil just below mid point on the main shaft, as this keeps the oil level below the input seal. I can't remember the fill amount for gear lube, but the -2ZF takes 7.5 units and the -1ZF in our Goose config takes 3.5 pints....see below...
I am hypothesizing that in the following picture, that the small pipe plug just forward of the "not dipstick" and down about 4-5 inches is the "full" indicator on these units.... it looks like about where you would fill an American trans in terms of the mainshaft centerline relationship....
(This picture is posted as an attachment to my post a couple down from this. I can't put pictures in with text on this site...)
As for draining the trans, on mine, I find a pipe plug in the main shifter selector section of the trans (that section just in front of the black rear cover) and then a tiny one in the main body, just above where the crossmember is (so that when you drain it, oil hits the crossmember and preserves it for eternity by coating it most generously with 80-90W....ugh!).
If you flipped the trans over, as in the Pantera, this tiny hole becomes a vent tube fitting I believe...
How does your trans stack up to what I've posted??? I could have put this in the ZF section of the Pantera board, but figured I'd put it here......first!
Steve
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