I recently had this tranny serviced by a local shop in Denver, supposedly in the know about ZFs. The filter was changed and appropriate oil added. The unit had 130,000 highway miles on it. Following the service it whinned in the first three gears until it had gone through about 3 shift cycles. This only happened at outside ambient temps below 40Fafter the car had set over night.. After three shift cycles the whinning completely went away. Shifting seemed normal, whinning or not.
I brought it back to the shop and they added a quart of oil. The problem still persists. Prior to the service the transmission shifted fine and made no whinning. It seems rather coincidental that this whinning happened at the same time as the service.
What do you think is wrong? The shop is now talking going through the whole transmission for some big bucks including a valve body overhaul kit for about $1100 just for the kit alone.
try elevating rear of vechicle so that trans cooler will get gravity bled and re-check and add more fluid as needed. this worked for us on a similal vechicle and the whining noise was nolonger present. hope this helps you out.
The cost for the valve body rebuild is unreasonable - you can do the job yourself if you know how to turn a wrench pretty well. The update kit costs about $110, but the Shell fluid is expensive. You can go on roadfly.com under the message board forums and search for a resource to get the fluid for about $13/ltr. Also do a search for Gerald Potter's valev body rebuild - it's a step by step on how to do it.
