Clear greyish transmission fluid

Checked my tranny fluid on my truck after I bought it. Didn't appear to have any color to it, and it was wiping brown on a white paper towel. The truck is a 2008 with 54000 miles on it.

I was planning on changing the fluid anyway since it was 8 years old, so I did some research on flushing the transmission and went ahead and did it.

If you're going to do a flush, grab a transmission funnel (funnel with a long hose attached), and some 3/8" or 1/4" hose enough to reach out past the front bumper from under the radiator. Two to three feet in length is good. You connect it to the nipple coming out of the bottom passenger side of the radiator. You have to disconnect the transmission hose that is there first to get to the nipple. (See photo below) I hung my trans funnel under the hood with a bungee cord and stuck the end of its hose into the transmission dipstick pipe. I duct taped the funnel hose and transmission dipstick pipe together to make sure the hose didn't pull out will I was filling. I took a five gallon bucket and filled it with 3 quarts of water and then marked a line inside of it, first by cutting it in with a utility knife, and then dumping the water out and painting a line on the cut. Then I put the hose I connected to the radiator nipple into the bucket and started the engine. I let it pump out enough fluid to reach the line and then shut it off. I used my remote car starter, you could have a friend help. I then put 3 quarts of new fluid into the transmission before I dumped the marked bucket into another non marked 5 gallon pail. You'll want a drain pan handy to hang the hose over when you're dumping the dirty fluid bucket since fluid will continue to drip after you shut the motor off. I repeated these steps until I flushed 15 quarts through.

The 3 quarts at a time process worked out well and when I was done the trans was only a half a quart lower than where I wanted it. The hose did fly out of the bucket and spray everywhere once, so my measurements did get messed up. Hold the hose down so it doesn't jump. I tried to error a little on the low side, because I didn't want to take the transmission hose off again, if I overfilled it. I chose 3 quarts at a time because the pan holds roughly 4 to 4 1/2 quarts so that gave me a little leeway, if I screwed up, I wouldn't run the transmission dry. Make sure you have at least one extra quart for topping off after you're done.

I didn't bother draining the transmission's oil pan first mostly because their is rust around the bolt that looks really bad and I'm concerned the pan may break/crack if I attempt to take the bolt out, this spring i'm gonna replace the pan and also clean the internal screen. If you are going to drain the pan, grab a new drain bolt gasket for it before doing so. I believe it uses the same copper washer gasket as the oil pan.

The fluid that first came out of the transmission was so brown it was almost black, it was the worst looking transmission fluid I have ever seen. The trans was shifting fine and no slipping, but since I did the service it has been shifting smooth as butter.

I used "Castrol Transmax import multi vehicle" transmission fluid. The factory fluid that was in my truck was "Nissan Matic J".

Edit: As dreep has pointed out below, later year Titans come with "Nissan Matic S" transmission fluid in them, do not use "Castrol Transmax import multi vehicle" in these trucks. My research and post from other forum users shows that the Castrol is a compatible substitute for Matic J applications and Matic J is listed on the back of the bottle. It does not list Matic S and I haven't read anything that would make me believe it is a usable substitute for Matic S. Also it will likely void your drive train warranty.

I also read on some other nissan forum that nissan uses a clear trans fluid in brand new vehicles as a way to tell if someone has messed with the tranny will it's still under warranty. I don't know how true that is, but after seeing my fluid I highly recommend changing yours if it is a clear greyish color on the dipstick.

Here is a excellent post written by "username" that I used to get me started on this project.

http://www.titantalk.com/forums/tit...21-writeup-diy-transmission-fluid-change.html