Caterham 420 5 speed transmission fluid change

[CBuff]

Figured I would share. I’m a total mechanical novice so doing a transmission fluid change is a bigger undertaking than it should be. But I think it was successful. 
 

new 2023 caterham 420r delivered last June. Put 5k miles on it since last year and 7 track days. 
 

other forums and service suggest checking your transmission fluid level at the end of the season.  The only way I could figure doing this was to remove the filler plug and stick my finger in there. Since that’s the hardest part of the job I figured I would just drain it and put in new fluid. 
 

checked the square fill plug (9/16 crescent) to make sure it comes off.  

 

then removed the 24mm drain

 

 

I pulled back the carpet and cut the heat shielding that covered the hole in the footwell. 
 

 

nothing spilled out when I opened the filler hole.  About 1.5 liters came out. Black and nasty for less than a year.  Mag plug had decent amount of crud on it 

 

 

put about 1.8 liters back in via a funnel and tube (cheap amazon). When I went to check and pulled the funnel it was dripping out of the fill so guess that’s full. 

 

decided I should put a grommet( 60cm with a piece cut since the diagonal cross brace cuts thru the hole) back in the foot well and the heat shield plug (taped from the trans side).  

 

 

heat shield tape to cover plug

stick carpet back down

 

 

 

I started to wonder about the turret oil. Some Miata forums say to service this by pulling the shifter out. Decided I would see if there was any oil in there.  (Sorry no photos of this) 

pulled the tunnel cover. Removed three 8mm bolts on shifter. Removed shifter (careful it drips trans fluid). Seems like there was a little fluid way down at the bottom. Thought I would top off.  It took about 200ml to fill it just over the bushing receiver ). I read it should take 250ml from empty so it was either very low or I overfilled it.  
 

here is a video of some doing this in their miata

 

took it for a test drive and nothing was leaking etc. so success for now. Sometime down the road I will extract the fluid out of the turret but I was pushing my comfort zone and thought just topping off was enough.
 

so I can add to my first list. Transmission fluid. (Already did the oil twice, and diff fluid ).  I enjoyed the experience and learned a bunch.  Starting to get just enough knowledge to be real dangerous.  

[slowdude]

@JohnCh is it possible to sticky this or put it into the knowledge zone? Lot of great info here.

[JohnCh]

Sticky posts can quickly get out of control if they aren't held to a very high bar.  However, we can turn this into an article and post it in the Owner Resources section.  I will make some other changes to aid discoverability.  @CBuff shoot me a PM if you want to make any tweaks to that post for the article.  To the rest of you, if you have a how-to that you wish to publish in that location, please let me know.

[JohnCh]

As per the thread below, we now have a new How-to Guides section in Articles that features @CBuff's post as the inaugural guide.