That was me who originally asked about checking the tranny oil. Here was the
method I settled upon for checking it. First of all, the fill bolt is behing
the left front wheel and fender liner. To familiarize yourself with the
procedure, it may help to remove the front left tire before you check the level
for the first time. Thereafter, it isn't necessary to remove the tire.
Otherwise, jack up the car so that the left front wheel is just barely touching
the ground. This will raise the clearance in the wheel well to allow access to
the fill bolt. After jacking the car, carefully pry back the fender liner (held
on by plastic clips) so that the fill bolt is in plain sight (it's the large nut
near the rear of the transmission casing. If you have a Haynes 405 manual, it
is even easier to identify). Your best bet is to use a ratchet with a 6"
extension. I believe the size of the bolt is 13 or 14mm (anyone care to correct
me?). After undoing the bolt (make sure not to lose the metal washer), fill the
transmission until the gear oil just seeps out of the bolt. Clean the bolt,
make sure the washer is on there, and reinstall. I found that it is difficult
to get in there with just the gear oil bottle, so I bought one of those flexible
tube attachments (screws directly on to the bottle, has about a 2 foot length of
clear plastic tubing that fits into the filler hole) and filled it using that.
Adam
'89 405DL